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People with no right to stay in the EU could be detained for up to two years or sent to offshore centres described by experts as possible “human rights black holes” under plans voted for by the European parliament on Thursday.
An alliance of mostly centre-right and far-right lawmakers voted for a proposal to increase returns of undocumented migrants to their home countries, in a further sign of strain on the grand coalition of centrist political forces that has traditionally driven EU lawmaking.
The draft law, outlined in March last year, seeks to create “a credible forced return policy” to ensure that people denied asylum or who have overstayed their visa can be removed from the EU. Brussels officials say only about one in five people under a return order are deported to their country of origin.
Under the plans, people could be detained for up to two years if they are deemed a security risk or likely to abscond, or they are seen as hindering their removal. The current law allows for a maximum detention period of 18 months.
The European parliament beefed up the plans, proposing that people could face criminal sanctions for obstructing a return decision, as well as making it easier for authorities to impose lifetime entry bans on people. National authorities would have broader powers to do age checks to assess whether someone is under 18.
The vote paves the way for EU member states to strike deals with other countries to create “return hubs”, offshore centres where deported people would be held while awaiting return to their home country.
The commissioner for human rights at the Council of Europe recently warned governments against creating “human rights black holes” at offshore return hubs. Opponents fear it would be impossible to monitor human rights standards at the non-EU sites and that people could be subject to prolonged detention and left in legal limbo.
Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Greece and Denmark are working together to establish return hubs outside Europe. Unlike the UK’s abandoned deal with Rwanda, the concept would apply to people denied asylum, rather than those who wish to make a claim.
The vote is a further sign of the rightward drift of the European parliament since the election of record numbers of nationalist and far-right MEPs in 2024. It also spells the end of the parliament’s traditional role in acting as a brake on hardline instincts of EU governments on migration.
The vote – adopted with 389 votes in favour, 206 against and 32 abstentions – opens the way for negotiations with the EU council of ministers to agree the final law.
Charlie Weimers, an MEP from the far-right Sweden Democrats, who was involved in negotiating the text, proclaimed: “The era of deportations has begun.” He said the vote “confirms a growing and stable majority” in the parliament for more effective returns, adding: “A functioning migration system must ensure that those who [have] no legal right to stay are effectively returned.”
Mélissa Camara, a French Green MEP who voted against the proposal, said it was “a vote of shame” that gave the green light to the detention of children “sometimes without real legal grounds” and the establishment of return hubs outside the EU. She criticised the decision of the centre-right European People’s party (EPP) to vote with the parliament’s far-right forces. “History will remember that the so-called moderate rightwing group sounded the death knell of what remained of the cordon sanitaire,” Camara said.
Barely concealed tensions burst into the open this month after the German press agency DPA reported that the EPP and three nationalist and far-right groups used a WhatsApp group and in-person meetings to negotiate the returns law. The group included representatives from the EPP and Alternative für Deutschland, despite a prohibition by Friedrich Merz, the centre-right German chancellor, on working with the far right.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) described the vote as “a historic setback for refugee rights”. Marta Welander, the IRC’s EU advocacy director, said: “It will strip people of rights and protections based solely on their migration status in Europe and pave the way towards a new punitive EU asylum and migration regime, designed to deter, detain and deport people seeking safety.”
Medical professionals fear the law could make them “instruments of immigration enforcement” because of a vaguely defined requirement to identify undocumented people. Before the vote, more than 1,100 healthcare professionals urged MEPs to reject the measures, saying they could threaten public health.
