✈️ DEPORTATION HUBS mark latest low point in EU’s anti-migration measures
Platform for Undocumented Migrants (PICUM)
We work for a world where everyone can enjoy their human rights, whatever their migration status.
Around this month’s European Council, many EU leaders, including the President of the European Commission, showed growing support for anti-migration measures, from Poland’s restrictions to the right to asylum at the border with Belarus to the concept of deportation hubs outside the EU. Austria and Italy also spearheaded discussions about the deportations of Syrians to the war-torn country.
While the idea of deportation hubs (euphemistically called “return hubs” in EU policy lingo) is yet to be fully defined, the goal would be to lock people up outside the EU as they await their deportation.
The European Council’s conclusions did not formally call for deportation hubs, but they did urge the Commission to propose new legislation to increase and speed up deportations. Both the President of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen and Commissioner-candidate for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner pledged to follow suit.
Such growing focus on externalising deportations has already been put to test in recent developments.
Only days before the start of the European Council, investigative journalists at Lighthouse Reports and partner publications had exposed how the EU is paying Turkey millions of euros to detain and deport Syrians and Afghans to places of harm. While locked in EU-funded removal centres, men, women and children face torture and abuse, and are then forcibly deported to sometimes deadly conditions, with EU senior officials being in full knowledge of this abusive system.
And only hours after the European Council ended, the Italy-Albania externalisation deal, praised by several EU leaders, was served a serious blow. In fact, a Rome court, building on a decision from the EU Court of Justice, did not validate the detention of the first 12 people who were brought by the Italian navy to the Albanian centres and ordered that they be brought to Italy for the processing of their asylum claim instead.
Both instances reveal, in different ways, how externalisation policies breach international and EU law and put people at risk of being abused with no clear options to get justice and remedies.
Instead of wasting millions on inhumane and absurd hubs outside the EU, European leaders should invest in a Europe that is welcoming, caring and fair.
BORDERS
EU Ombudsman asks Commission for human rights safeguards in migration deal with Tunisia
The European Ombudsman issued a decision asking the Commission to publish information about human rights risks in the 2023 migration deal with Tunisia, which the Commission itself had gathered but has not made public yet. The Ombudsman is also asking the Commission to set out explicit criteria for suspending EU funding to Tunisia in case of human rights violations. The decision came only weeks after The Guardian revealed that EU funding is being channelled to security forces committing widespread sexual violence against migrant women.
European Commission announces €30 million to deter migration from Senegal
The European Commission announced it will pay Senegalese authorities €30 million to deter people from coming to Europe. The funds would be used to “fight migrant smuggling and human trafficking” and to raise awareness about the “dangers of irregular migration”. The European Commission already funds a €5.75 million project strengthening the capacity of Senegalese security forces to combat irregular immigration, trafficking and migrant smuggling.
European Court condemns Cyprus for pushbacks of Syrians
The European Court of Human Rights condemned Cyprus for pushing back two Syrian nationals to Lebanon, without examining their asylum claim first. The Court found that Cyprus put them at risk of indirect refoulement to Syria and of inhuman and degrading living conditions in Lebanon. The Court also held that the applicants’ right not to be subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment had been violated due to the conditions under which the Cypriot authorities had them confined in a boat in the sea for two days, before being refouled to Lebanon. PICUM member KISA, together with others, also contributed to this outcome with a third-party intervention before the court.
CRIMINALISATION
Italy to criminalise protests in immigration detention and occupation of buildings
Last September, the Italian government presented draft legislation to criminalise protests in immigration detention centres (punishable with prison sentences up to 20 years) and the “arbitrary occupation” of buildings like squats. The proposal also forbids undocumented people from purchasing SIM cards for their mobile phones. The draft legislation was already adopted by the Chamber of Deputies and is currently being debated in the Senate. In a separate decree, the government is introducing obligations for pilots and drone operators involved in sea rescue to report emergencies immediately to the authorities, with fines up to €10,000 and impoundment of the aircraft should they not comply.
DETENTION AND DEPORTATIONS
France: government announces new tougher immigration law
The French government announced a new immigration law, less than a year after the last one entered into force. A government’s spokesperson confirmed that the new law would extend the time limit in immigration detention from 90 to 210 days. Other government sources said that the new law would build on 2023 provisions that were struck down by the Constitutional Court, including the reinstatement of the crime of irregular stay and restrictions to family reunification.
In the meantime, the French national human rights institute adopted an opinion on the current immigration law, which denounces its securitised approach, the discriminatory nature of measures intended to "improve integration", the deterioration of access to the courts for non-French nationals, and the prolongation of exceptions for overseas territories.
Malta condemned for detaining children in inhuman conditions
The European Court of Human Rights condemned the Maltese authorities for detaining five child asylum-seekers in a detention centre for adults, where they were subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment. The Court found that their 182-day detention in two different centres was illegal and awarded financial compensation to the complainants. The children were represented and assisted by lawyers from leading Maltese NGO aditus foundation.
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REGULARISATION
Italy: top court condemns authorities for delays in regularisation procedures
Italy’s top administrative court condemned the Ministry of the Interior and the Milan prefecture and police administration for severe and systematic delays in processing regularisation applications under the 2020 regularisation programme. The delays in question, well over the 180-day limit established by case law, caused serious harm to applicants, who lost their jobs, could not register with the national health service and could not exercise their social rights. The claim was brought collectively by various civil society organisations, lawyers and individuals.
The Netherlands: support starts for regularisation of some Surinamese nationals
The City of Amsterdam and Dutch NGOs started providing legal support to inform and help people prepare their applications for a special regularisation programme which opens on 1 January 2025. The regularisation programme targets Surinamese nationals who lost their Dutch nationality when Suriname became independent in 1975 and who have been living undocumented in the Netherlands for the past ten years. The programme was announced earlier this year and comes after decades of campaigning by the undocumented Surinamese people themselves and civil society.
WORK
Italy: new rules for non-EU workers
The Italian government issued a decree which includes updates to rules on work permits for non-EU workers. Work permit holders will now be tied to their first employer for the first 12 months, unless they request authorisation from the labour inspectorate.
For seasonal workers, the decree provides a new period of 60 days from the end of an employment contract, to renew the contract or conclude a new one with a new employer, within the maximum period of 9 months of their permit. The quota will no longer apply to conversions into normal work permits.
Victims of labour exploitation will now only be able to access special permits if police investigations are ongoing and if workers actively contribute to those investigations. The decree increases some of the protections for special permit holders and their family, and disapplies the quota from their conversion to other permits. As highlighted by the trade union CGIL, the decree fails to address the wider structural reforms of the labour migration system that are needed.
PUBLICATIONS
Action Aid Italy, Detained (2023 report on immigration detention in Italy)
European Civic Forum and Civil Society Europe, Realising protection for human rights defenders and civil society organisations in Europe
Fundamental Rights Agency, Being Muslim in the EU
Jesuit Refugee Service Belgium, Detention centres for migrants (2023 report)
Mixed Migration Centre, Mixed returns: return migration and reintegration dynamics
Salud por Derecho, The EU migration policy as a global health crisis
BOOKMARKS
Euronews’ Radio Schuman podcast discusses what the far right in power would mean for Austria and EU migration policies.
InfoMigrants investigates how EU's border measures created a thriving market for smugglers in the Mediterranean.
OpenDemocracy kicks off a series of articles about the criminalisation of migration.