EU Agrees New Rules to Speed Up and Increase Deportations

Negotiators on Monday agreed new rules to speed up and increase deportations from the EU, including making it possible to send failed asylum seekers to hubs outside the bloc.

The text is part of sweeping reforms the EU is rolling out to increase control over who crosses its external borders and to support countries that receive the most external migrants, with Monday’s agreement landing just days before other migration and asylum reforms start applying on June 12.

Monday’s agreement will help the EU regain control over “who comes to to the European Union, but also who has to leave the European Union,” Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner said.

He pointed to the rate of failed asylum seekers who leave the bloc, which recent Eurostat figures put around 27 percent. “We must give the people the feeling back that we have control over what’s happening,” he said.

Under the deal, countries will be allowed to send people who’ve been ordered to leave EU territory to so-called “return hubs” outside the bloc — an option several EU countries are already exploring, but which civil society groups warn could open the door to more abuse and human rights violations.

The text also introduces stricter rules for dealing with people who are considered a security threat; the possibility of home searches; long detentions; entry bans; and penalties for those who don’t cooperate.

“For years, Europe sent the worst possible message: even if you had no right to stay, chances were high that nothing would happen. That era is ending. If you have no right to stay in Europe, you will have to leave,” French MEP François-Xavier Bellamy, who represented the center-right European People’s Party in the negotiations, said in a comment.

Parliament entered the negotiations with a position supported by the EPP, the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists and the far-right Patriots and Europe of Sovereign Nations groups, despite opposition from lawmakers in liberal and left-wing groups.

Monday’s deal introduces a “legal arsenal serving a xenophobic ideology,” Greens negotiator Mélissa Camara said in a comment. The French MEP slammed the text for permitting hubs outside the European Union, the detention of minors, and “home visits inspired by ICE practices,” referring to the controversial U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Talks last month collapsed over disagreements on when the new measures should be implemented. Under Monday’s deal, parts of the text will only come in after a year, but some provisions, including measures allowing countries to establish return hubs, will start applying immediately — a key point for countries that are forging ahead with deals to establish them, including The Netherlands and Germany.

Marta Welander, EU advocacy director of the International Refugee Committee, said the plans mark an “alarming new chapter in the EU’s approach to asylum and migration.”

“This deal will give governments much broader powers to detain and deport people. It looks set to normalise immigration raids, expand the use of detention in prison-like facilities outside EU territory that are essentially legal black holes, and increase the risk of people being deported to countries where they could face persecution, torture or worse,” she said.

Both the Council and the Parliament still need to approve the deal.