ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses release from immigration detention or, in other words, the conditions that make a person marginally lawful. This involves the policing of status through examining the conditionality of the legal status of those released from detention. The chapter is concerned with practices connected to detention but nevertheless peripheral, which have not received the extent of concerted advocacy as immigration detention. It examines three features that have dominated the conditions of release on a bridging visa at various times: the constraints imposed by sponsorship requirements, the denial of work rights, and the requirement for unauthorised maritime arrivals to abide by a code of behaviour since 2013. These features produce a restricted form of liberty, subject to arbitrary controls, which make legal status precarious. The discussion on the third feature of bridging visas turns to a more recent condition introduced in 2013 that makes lawful status for 'illegal maritime arrivals' contingent on compliance with a Code of Behaviour.
