This reflection paper focuses on the role of the English language and social media in the context of the Australian mandatory detention system. After presenting Australia’s controversial border policy, the linguistic reality of detention is briefly explored to show that, on the one hand, refugees gain linguistic agency by acquiring and using English with different actors while, on the other, the ‘linguascape’ of detention remains embedded in broader dynamics of oppression and subjugation. The article further discusses how refugees’ digital counter-discursive practices enacted on social media concurrently aim at dismantling the dehumanizing, exclusionary, and obliterating anti-refugee rhetoric that pervades political and media landscapes in contemporary Australia.