Archive
Frontex: an overview
An article produced for the Migration Control project, providing a critical overview of the role, powers and activities of EU border agency Frontex, from 2004 to the present. Read More
Albania: dealing with a new migration framework on the edge of the empire
In 2014, Albania was formally accepted as a candidate for membership to the EU. The country is aiming to approximate its domestic law with the EU legal 'acquis' within the next two years, prompting big changes in the country's immigration and asylum system - at least on paper. Currently, those systems cannot be said to meet fundamental rights or EU legal standards, but given conditions within the EU itself - notably in Greece - it remains to be seen whether this will be a barrier to Albania joining the bloc. Read More
Atlantic Moria in the making in overcrowded Gran Canaria camp
The arrival of 15,000 people in the Canary Islands has led to what is by now the customary response from the EU and its member states: reinforce control measures, step up deportations and accommodate people in unsuitable and unsanitary conditions. It seems that little has been learned from the humanitarian disasters in states such as Italy and Greece. Until the EU introduces humane migration policies and addresses the political economy underlying migration from countries such as Senegal, those disasters seem likely to be repeated. Read More
EU military mission aids pull-backs to Libya, with no avenues for legal accountability
An EU military operation is assisting the Libyan Coast Guard in ‘pull-backs’ of people trying to cross the Mediterranean, by providing information on the location of boats in distress. Despite admitting that Libya is not a safe country in which to disembark people, the EU argues that it is acting according to international law. Legal experts say otherwise, but given the complex legal structure of EU security and defence missions, holding anyone accountable for this assistance with ‘pull-backs’ may prove difficult. Read More
Viewpoint: The legal and illegal businesses of Fortress Europe
Border controls are big business - for the companies supplying the fences, technology and equipment used to put them in place, and for the smugglers who seek to circumvent them, argues Ana González-Paramo. Read More
First analysis of the EU’s new asylum proposals
Professor Steve Peers (Law School, University of Essex) gives an overview of the proposals published as part of the EU's new Pact on Migration and Asylum. Read More
Deportation Union: Rights, accountability and the EU’s push to increased forced removals
Deportation Union provides a critical examination of recently-introduced and forthcoming EU measures designed to increase the number of deportations carried out by national authorities and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex. It focuses on three key areas: attempts to reduce or eliminate rights and protections in the law governing deportations; the expansion and interconnection of EU databases and information systems; and the increased budget, powers and personnel awarded to Frontex. Read More
Viewpoint: COVID-19: from “smart” to “smarter” borders?
An article in Border Security Report, a magazine aimed at those from the public and private sectors working on border security, argues that the COVID-19 pandemic will accelerate the adoption of "smarter" borders and that three key technologies that will underpin the shift. Can ever-more intrusive data-gathering and processing provide a way out of lockdowns and quarantines? If it could, would it be desirable? Read More
Automated suspicion: The EU’s new travel surveillance initiatives
This report examines how the EU is using new technologies to screen, profile and risk-assess travellers to the Schengen area, and the risks this poses to civil liberties and fundamental rights. By developing ‘interoperable’ biometric databases, introducing untested profiling tools, and using new ‘pre-crime’ watchlists, people visiting the EU from all over the world are being placed under a veil of suspicion in the name of enhancing security. Read More
Spain/Portugal/Italy: Partial relief: migrant regularisations during the COVID-19 pandemic
The uncertainty that the Covid-19 outbreak has brought to every sphere of life has had a major impact on already vulnerable groups, such as undocumented migrants. People who, for whatever reason, lack official authorisation to stay, live and work in a particular state usually live with constant fear of being detained or receiving an expulsion order after a spontaneous stop by the police. Among the different measures approved by European countries under states of emergency, some have addressed the situation of migrant populations. Read More