Migrants arrive at the Albanian port of Shengjin from Italy under an agreement that rights groups say is a violation of EU law Photograph: Adnan Beci/AFP/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Migrants arrive at the Albanian port of Shengjin from Italy under an agreement that rights groups say is a violation of EU law Photograph: Adnan Beci/AFP/Getty Images Opinion Migration Europe is at risk of creating a human rights black hole with its ‘return hubs’ for migrants Michael O'Flaherty Without iron-clad legal safeguards, offshore migration centres can only repeat the worst mistakes of the recent past
E urope has entered a new era of outsourced migration management. After a vote by the European parliament, the EU’s return regulation is nearing adoption – promising “more efficient” returns and “swifter” procedures to deport unwanted migrants. This will give countries the legal runway to set up return hubs – that is, offshore facilities to process people deemed to have no right to stay in the EU.
Despite opposition from countries such as Spain and France – and an outcry from rights groups – many other governments appear anxious to join in. An open letter signed by 19 EU member states just days after the vote at the European parliament, urging the “full use of the new possibilities”, indicates that implementation might be coming soon. Frontrunners like Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece and the Netherlands are already on the starting block, poised to establish joint hubs which are likely to become operational in short order.
These developments signal that positions once dismissed as fringe, legally untenable and driven by ideology rather than by evidence have been successfully rebranded as mainstream, commonsense governance. The deep politicisation of this shift was on full display when some MEPs chanted “ Send them back ” inside the European parliament during the vote, celebrating the removal of human beings with the fervour of a campaign rally. In the pursuit of ever stricter migration policies, the human rights protections that Europe was founded to uphold are increasingly treated as disposable.
The decision to pave the way for extraterritorial centres should alarm anyone familiar with the human cost of these schemes in the past. History shows us that they are not harmless administrative workarounds. There isn’t a single initiative to outsource migration policy that has not raised serious human rights concerns.
When Australia pioneered offshore processing on Nauru and Papua New Guinea , thousands of people, including children, were – according to the UN – subjected to years of arbitrary detention in inhumane conditions, resulting in severe physical and mental trauma and at least 12 deaths. Similarly, human rights organisations called out Israel’s attempts in the 2010s to press Sudanese and Eritrean asylum seekers into “voluntary” relocation to Rwanda and Uganda, which resulted in abuse, legal limbo or forced onward flight.
View image in fullscreen Pope Leo at Mimmo Paladino’s Gateway to Europe memorial on Lampedusa, one of the main entry points for migrants crossing the Mediterranean. The pope urged a more humane migration policy during his 4 July 2026 visit Photograph: Tiziana Fabi/AFP/Getty Images In the US, the 1990s experiments of holding Haitian refugees outside domestic judicial reach – including in Guantánamo Bay – have evolved into agreements to remove people to countries where they have no links. These agreements have led…