Overview
- Members of the European Parliament voted 389–206 to advance a return regulation that lets countries transfer rejected asylum seekers to offshore “return hubs” outside the EU.
- The measure empowers individual nations or coalitions to strike bilateral deals to host the sites, and Germany’s interior minister said governments aim to secure agreements with third countries by year’s end.
- The package expands enforcement tools, including detention for up to 24 months, electronic tagging, more police raids inside member states, and EU-wide recognition of a single deportation order.
- Italy has already opened two detention centers in Albania as a test case, and a visiting lawmaker reported detainees were confused and scared, highlighting the real-world impact of external processing.
- Human rights groups warn hubs could become legal black holes beyond EU oversight and cite 2025 data showing more than 80,000 pushbacks at EU borders, with reports of beatings, forced strip searches, and river crossings.