BRUSSELS (AP) — European lawmakers voted Thursday to ease the setting up of new migrant detention centers outside the European Union, known as “return hubs.”
Members of the European Parliament voted 389-206 in favor, with 32 abstentions. Right-wing parties made an alliance with far-right groups that they had previously shunned to pass the measure, while parties of the left and center voted against.
Any EU nation can now negotiate on its own or in small
coalitions to deport migrants not to their home countries but to facilities yet to be built outside the 27-nation bloc.
Already, Greece, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and Denmark have entered into negotiations with governments mainly in Africa to host sites to hold migrants denied asylum.
Far-right parties in Europe have praised the deportation policies of U.S. President Donald Trump and have called for the EU to adopt a similar approach.
Belgium’s far-right Vlaams Belang party and Germany’s far-right AfD party both said in January that they want to form a police group focused on finding and deporting migrants akin to U.S. efforts.
However, human rights groups say migrants are being brutalized and pushed back illegally at EU borders, while legal protections are increasingly being hollowed out.
Marta Welander, EU advocacy director for the International Rescue Committee, said the vote was “a historic setback for refugee rights.”
She warned it would “pave the way towards a new punitive EU asylum and migration regime, designed to deter, detain and deport people seeking safety. The EU should stand for a system that protects lives, not one that criminalizes survival.”
Silvia Carta, Advocacy Officer, Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), said, “This vote marks a dangerous turning point, as centre-right forces break the cordon sanitaire to align with the far right and push through a deeply repressive agenda. This toxic alliance is paving the way for mass detention, family separation, and deportations - normalising abuse we’ve seen with ICE in the United States, and putting countless lives at risk.”
