A dire warning has been issued by over 70 rights organizations, urging the EU to reconsider its proposed deportation plan. The plan, if implemented, could turn everyday life into a surveillance state, with public services and community spaces becoming tools for immigration enforcement, mirroring the controversial practices of ICE in the United States.
The European Commission's proposal, unveiled last March, aims to increase deportations of undocumented individuals, including potential offshore detention in non-EU countries. This proposal comes in the wake of far-right gains in the 2024 European Parliament elections, raising concerns about the influence of extreme rhetoric on policy.
In a joint statement, 75 European rights organizations expressed their fears that the plan, if approved, would normalize immigration raids and intensify racial profiling across the continent. The statement warns that the proposal would "consolidate a punitive system, fueled by far-right rhetoric and based on racialized suspicion, denunciation, detention, and deportation." Europe's history, they argue, has shown where such systems of control can lead.
The European Commission has defended the proposals as "effective and modern procedures" to increase deportations of those denied asylum or overstaying their visas. However, critics point out that one in five people without the right to stay are already returned to their countries of origin, and this rate has remained largely unchanged.
The proposed measures are extensive, allowing police to search private homes and "other relevant premises" for undocumented individuals without a judicial order. This could lead to "ICE-like raids" in private residences, public spaces, and workplaces, according to Michele LeVoy of the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants. LeVoy emphasizes the hypocrisy of condemning ICE's practices in the US while supporting similar actions in Europe.
The proposal also raises concerns about the potential requirement for public services to report undocumented individuals. This, critics argue, would deter people from accessing essential healthcare, education, and social services, creating a public health crisis. Médecins du Monde, a humanitarian organization, points to the ongoing crisis in Minnesota as an example of the broader consequences of such policies.
In January, 16 UN rights experts wrote to the EU, expressing their concerns about the proposed regulation and its potential contravention of international human rights obligations. The UN letter also questioned the EU's motives, suggesting that the proposal may be motivated by stigmatizing migrants for social problems, rather than addressing the root causes.
On Monday, the signatories of the statement echoed the UN's concerns, highlighting draft measures that include bulk collection and exchange of personal data across EU police forces. Alamara Khwaja Bettum of Statewatch warns that increasing surveillance and racial profiling will only fuel racism and far-right agendas, undermining civil liberties. "These proposed measures will lead us down a disastrous path, and that is the real threat we should be focused on," Bettum said.
The draft returns regulation is set to be voted on by the European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee in early March. Last week, the EU took a step closer to creating offshore centers for migrants, with center-right and far-right MEPs uniting to support changes that give authorities more options to deport asylum seekers, including sending them to countries they have never been to.
Emmanuel Achiri of the European Network Against Racism emphasizes that the proposed returns regulations are likely to disproportionately affect racialized communities across Europe, adding to the already pervasive and well-documented racial discrimination they face. "This proposal is not a neutral migration measure; it is a direct and disproportionate attack on marginalized communities. In a European Union that claims to address structural racism, measures of this kind have no place," Achiri concluded.
