EU seeks to create ‘return hubs’ for migrants being deported

The European Commission yesterday proposed that member countries be allowed to set up centres in non-EU countries where migrants whose asylum claims were rejected would await deportation, Reuters reports.

EU member countries struggle to ensure that asylum seekers whose claims are rejected leave their territories. The proposal aims to address the problem by sending the migrants to centres called “return hubs” in countries outside the EU while they await deportation proceedings.

“The EU has some of the highest asylum standards in the world…But this is not sustainable if people who don’t have the right, abuse the system,” EU Commissioner for Migration Magnus Brunner told a press conference yesterday.

“One out of five people who are told to leave the EU, actually leave the EU and that is not acceptable.”

The new plan aims to create common regulations across the EU, so that an order for a migrant to leave one member state will be considered an order to leave the entire EU.

Return will become mandatory for a person residing in the EU illegally, fleeing to another member state, failing to leave the EU by the deadline for voluntary return, or posing a security risk.

Voluntary return will be supported by strict rules and cooperative incentives.

The agreements will not include unaccompanied children or families with children.

The proposal, which still requires approval from the European Parliament and EU member states, is part of the migration and asylum pact agreed upon in late 2023.

Immigration remains a highly sensitive topic in most of the bloc’s 27 member states, even though migrants entering the EU illegally dropped by 38 per cent last year, the lowest level since 2021.

The proposal has faced heavy criticism from rights groups, who argue that it could lead to human rights violations and the extended detention of migrants on vague and punitive grounds.

“The European Commission has capitulated to the unworkable, expensive, and inhumane demands of a few vocal anti-human rights and anti-migration governments,” said Eve Geddie of Amnesty International in a statement yesterday.

The proposal would also allow member states to detain individuals for up to two years if they pose a security risk.

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