The EU’s new Migration Pact risks worsening migrant conditions via prolonged detention and including vulnerable groups. It promotes externalizing borders with third countries.
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The upcoming EU Migration Pact, effective June 12, 2024, aims to structurally reform the EU’s approach to external borders, migration flows, and asylum procedures. Concerns are raised that the Pact risks being detrimental to migrants due to provisions allowing prolonged detention and potentially including the detention of unaccompanied minors and families with minors. Negotiations are reportedly pushing for longer detention periods (24 months) than initially proposed, and considering the detention of vulnerable groups like unaccompanied minors. The Pact also discusses invasive surveillance tools, such as home searches and electronic device monitoring, and the use of “return hubs” for rapid and mandatory deportations to third countries, effectively externalizing EU borders. This trend involves establishing agreements with third countries, such as Albania, Tunisia, and Egypt, to control movement before migrants reach European territory. These policies are seen as allowing the EU to shift responsibility and accountability for migrants to third countries, while also impacting medical ethics by potentially forcing hospitals to report irregular migrant patients. Italy has been a key proponent of these externalization models, and national legislation, like the “Decreto sicurezza” in Italy, is reinforcing stricter control, detention, and expulsion measures. Overall, the text argues that these measures consolidate border externalization and administrative detention as central tools for managing migrants without documents or from deemed safe countries.
