By Amina Ismail
BRUSSELS, June 1 (Reuters) – European Union lawmakers and governments agreed on Monday on new rules allowing countries to send migrants ordered to leave the bloc to centres in third countries, a move that has drawn sharp criticism from rights groups that warn it could enable abuses.
The deal is part of a broader tightening of EU migration policy amid pressure from right-wing parties, even as irregular arrivals fell 26% last year to their lowest level since 2021.
The legislation, which still requires formal approval by EU governments and the European Parliament, was proposed by the European Commission last year. The commission says it would streamline procedures and give governments more tools to deport people while respecting fundamental rights.
Rights groups dispute that assessment.
“This Regulation is going to create a draconian detention and deportation machine,” said Silvia Carta, advocacy officer at the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), a human rights organisation.
EU countries say they struggle to ensure that rejected asylum seekers and visa overstayers leave their territory. The commission says only about 20% of people ordered to leave currently depart.
Under the new rules, EU states would be able to establish so-called “return hubs” outside the bloc for people whose asylum claims have been rejected or who have been ordered to leave the EU. Deportees could be sent to hubs in countries they do not have connections to.
“With the new rules, we have more control over who can come to the EU, who can stay, and who needs to leave,” said European Commissioner Magnus Brunner.
Member states have not disclosed the potential host countries.
HOME RAIDS
The draft legislation extends detention periods and introduces penalties, including entry bans, fines and possible criminal sanctions for non-cooperation.
Authorities would be allowed to seize belongings, detain minors, collect biometric data and search homes.
The deal also allows authorities to search migrants and “relevant premises”, a term that rights groups criticise as being overly broad and enabling home raids.
Human rights activists and non-governmental organisations working with asylum seekers in the EU say some of the practices are already occurring and have increased in recent months, pointing to a rise in deportations of recognised refugees from Germany and other states to Greece and other EU border countries.
There, they say, in some cases authorities carry out night-time home searches to detain people and transfer them to detention centres or airports for deportation, sometimes without allowing them to gather their belongings.
Minos Mouzourakis, a lawyer and advocacy officer at Greece-based non-profit Refugee Support Aegean, warned the draft legislation amounted to “a recipe for extremely damaging and extremely dangerous practices” in Europe.
French Greens lawmaker Mélissa Camara said: “The legalisation of return hubs outside the European Union, the green light for the detention of minors, home visits inspired by (U.S.) ICE practices: The legal arsenal serving a xenophobic ideology is now complete.”
Some EU countries have already begun exploring such arrangements.
The Netherlands is working with Denmark, Germany, Greece and Austria to set up joint return and transit hubs, while bilateral talks with Uganda on a similar arrangement have been put on hold.
The Dutch government says it wants concrete steps by year-end, as it faces what Prime Minister Rob Jetten has called an “asylum crisis”.
Dutch reception centres are overcrowded — including the main registration hub Ter Apel, which has begun admitting only the most vulnerable — while anti-migration protests have emerged in areas hosting emergency shelters amid capacity shortages and a slow outflow of asylum seekers.
(Reporting by Amina Ismail; Additional reporting by Charlotte Van Campenhout, Layli Foroudi and Gnaneshwar Rajan; Editing by Nick Zieminski, Cynthia Osterman and Jamie Freed)
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