The European Parliament meets in plenary session in Strasbourg. On the program this Wednesday, June 17, the solemn vote which will establish what we call return hubs for migrants expelled from European Union countries.
This is the consequence of toughening of European migration policy. This involves building detention centers in countries outside Europe that are considered safe, with partly European funds. Migrants who have been the subject of a final expulsion decision would be waiting to be expelled to their country of origin or another, either by the Member State which refused them stay on its territory, or by Frontex, the European body responsible for applying migration policy. It is therefore a question of moving these centers away and better enforcing expulsion orders.
Currently, 20% of people subject to such measures actually leave the territory from which they are expelled. Among the countries most at the forefront of demanding these centers, we find Germany, which opened the floodgates of immigration ten years ago, the DenmarkTHE The NetherlandsAustria and Greeceon the front line of crossing attempts in the Mediterranean. There Franceat this stage, does not plan to use it.
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Risk of human rights violations
The contours of these centers are still vague and that is worrying. The idea is taken up in a project by the Italian government of Giorgia Meloni who started doing the same thing in Albania with a success that still remains to be demonstrated. It is necessary to identify which countries would be ready to open such centers, in exchange for what, and with what degree of efficiency. A vagueness that worries non-governmental organizations for the defense of migrants. These ONG see a risk of violation of human rights.
Among the countries whose name is circulating, there is Uzbekistan, Uganda and even Rwanda. Rwanda was already the destination country favored by the previous Conservative government in the United Kingdom, which launched a policy of this type. Very controversial policy which had been purely and simply buried upon its arrival by the Labor government of Keir Starmer. Last Friday, a flight from the United States arrived in Central African Republic. It is the new American policy to deport foreigners of different nationalities to third countries. THE Ghana and the Guinea is quatoriale are part of the hubs chosen by the United States.
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Scapegoats
All this is happening in an atmosphere of widespread migrant hunting. There is the policy of mass expulsions in United States carried out by the police or ICE immigration militia with fairly unselective recruitment, with very few legal safeguards. But in recent months we have also seen migrant hunts pushed by far-right parties in United Kingdom. Très récemment en Irlande du Nord. Same type of phenomenon South Africa I heard a fort chômage to provoke des manifestations xénophobes. The South African government announced the return home of nearly 3,000 migrants from Mozambiqueyou Nigeria, you Ghana ou you Malawi. The president Cyril Ramaphosa calls not to stigmatize migrants and not to make them scapegoats for existing problems. In the current economic, geopolitical and climatic context, people who do not live in the country where they were born represent less than 4% of the world population.
Also readIn the United States, resistance against private ICE detention centers is also financial
