Migrant families and minors could end up jailed for two years under new deportation rules voted through by a rightwing faction of European lawmakers, in what some critics say is reminiscent of Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) paramilitary.
The vote on the return regulation on Monday (9 March) in the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee also sets the legal stage for likely deportation facilities abroad, as the European Union cracks down on asylum and rolls back its commitment to refugees.
The centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) plus the far-right faction managed to squeeze the bill through the committee with 41 in favour and 32 against, with one abstention.
“It is yet another recognition of the Albania model,” said Alessandro Ciriani, a far-right Italian MEP with the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), in reference to the controversial 2023 agreement between Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni and Albania to process asylum seekers outside the EU.
French MEP François-Xavier Bellamy of the EPP complained that only one-in-five people ordered to leave actually go home.
But this oft-cited “one-in-five” figure, a statistic also repeatedly invoked by EU migration commissioner Magnus Brunner, paints a misleading picture.
According to Arjen Leerkes, a professor at Maastricht University, some return decisions are counted twice, while others leave voluntarily without ever being registered as a return.
New era of crackdowns
Figures aside, the implications of Monday’s vote have alarmed pro-rights campaigners and progressive left politicians who say the bill will usher in a new era of crackdowns against migrants.
Mélissa Camara, a French MEP with the Greens, said the text reflects a racist and populist ideology.
Tineke Strik, another Green MEP from the Netherlands, said the bill will enable ICE-style structures and deportations.
“The EPP needs to have a serious rethink before the plenary vote,” she said.
The committee is now expected to announce its negotiating mandate at the plenary session on Wednesday (11 March).
Political groups that oppose it will be able to table a challenge. If they do, a vote on whether to reopen the mandate could be held in plenary on Thursday (12 March) or later this month during the mini-plenary in Brussels.
Civil rights campaigners are hoping to convince enough MEPs to reject the bill in the plenary amid warnings it would pave the way for raids, detention and deportations of families, with little regard for their personal circumstances or where they come from.
“Instead of investing in rights and protection, the EU is choosing to spend public money on expanding a system of enforcement and militarisation, both within Europe and beyond its borders,” said Sarah Chander, director of Equinox Initiative for Racial Justice.
Similar warnings came from the European Digital Rights (EDRi), a Brussels-based NGO, that said the bill will create a digitally-driven surveillance system that spans bulk data collection, GPS tagging, mobile phone seizures, and data sharing with foreign countries.
“This vote undermines fundamental rights and moves Europe one step closer to a dystopian path, driven by the far-right criminalisation of migrant people, that we fully reject,” said Aljosa Ajanovic of the EDRi.