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20 February 2025
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EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENTS
NATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
RECENT REPORTS
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EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENTS
EU EASTERN BORDERS
- A recent NGO report has revealed that over 120,000 pushbacks were recorded at the EU’s borders in 2024, including almost 20,000 at the eastern borders.
- The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has begun a landmark series of hearings against Poland, Latvia and Lithuania over allegations of pushbacks to Belarus.
- An NGO has warned about the deadly consequences of increased militarisation on the Poland-Belarus border and condemned Poland’s draft asylum law which is due to receive its second reading in parliament.
- Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has reiterated his opposition to the Pact on Migration and Asylum.
- The trial of five people who provided humanitarian aid to a group of people on the move on the Poland-Belarus border in March 2022 has begun.
A recent NGO report has revealed that over 120,000 pushbacks were recorded at the EU’s borders in 2024, including almost 20,000 at the eastern borders. According to the report by nine NGOs, including ECRE member organisations the Hungarian Helsinki Committee and the Center for Peace Studies (CMS), many of the pushbacks involved violence, with people on the move being beaten, robbed and abandoned in dangerous conditions that sometimes resulted in death. The report also reveals that 13,600 pushbacks were recorded in Poland, 5,388 in Latvia and 1,002 in Lithuania. Its authors were highly critical of the attitude of both the European Commission (EC) and EU member states (MS) to the well-documented pushbacks at the EU’s borders. They called for immediate action from the EC, EU MS and the European Border and Coast guard Agency (Frontex), in order to stop what they describe as the “troubling normalization of pushbacks and a retreat from the EU’s commitments to human rights”.
On 12 February, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) began a landmark series of hearings against Poland, Latvia and Lithuania over allegations of pushbacks to Belarus. The cases concern a number of groups of Afghans, Cubans and Iraqis who had separately attempted to enter the countries but were all allegedly pushed back. The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, who intervened in the hearing, highlighted the “significant implications” of the three cases for the “protection of the rights of individuals as well as for the system of human rights protection more broadly”. He also warned that “a tendency towards human rights exceptionalism is particularly noticeable in the area of asylum and migration”. ECRE member organisation the Association for Legal Intervention (SIP) echoed O’Flaherty’s words, saying: “The Court’s decisions in these cases will decide whether pushbacks will become the new European standard or whether absolute protection against torture and inhumane treatment will be confirmed”.
An NGO has warned about the deadly consequences of increased militarisation on the Poland-Belarus border. In a presentation to the Polish parliament on 4 February, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported that 50% of the almost 450 people that its teams had treated close to the border between November 2022 and November 2024 had suffered physical trauma related to violence, including injuries sustained from beatings, dog bites and rubber bullets. MSF also condemned what it called Poland’s “unconscionable” draft asylum law which is scheduled for its second reading on 20 February. MSF’s criticism of the draft law was echoed by Human Rights Watch which, in addition to urging MPs to reject it, also called on the EC to consider taking legal action against Poland if it were to be adopted.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has reiterated his opposition to the Pact on Migration and Asylum. On 7 February, he told journalists that his government would not implement the Pact if it involved mandatory migrant quotas. “Poland will not implement the Migration Pact in a way that would introduce additional quotas of immigrants in Poland,” he said in a joint press conference with EC President Ursula von der Leyen. Tusk also highlighted Poland’s “particular situation” of hosting approximately two million Ukrainian refugees whilst facing “huge pressure from illegal migration” on its eastern border. “We are ready to co-operate with everyone to protect Europe from illegal migration”, he said. In response, Von der Leyen said that the EU would “take into account” the “extraordinary solidarity” Poland had shown with Ukrainian refugees. On 10 February, the EC clarified that EU MS would have “full discretion” to choose among three solidarity measures and would never be “obliged” to relocate people seeking asylum if they did not wish to do so.
The trial of five people who provided humanitarian aid to a group of people on the move on the Poland-Belarus border in March 2022 has begun. On 28 January, the Hajnówka District Court in Eastern Poland held the first hearing in the trial of the five people who are accused of “facilitating residence in the territory of the Republic of Poland in violation of the law” after they helped a family of seven from Iraq and an Egyptian. During a demonstration in support of the five accused, defendant Kamila Jagoda Mikołajek said: “Helping is our duty and none of us should be afraid of anyone in need. I do not regret what I did. I am proud of myself and every person who helps. We helped, we help and we will help”. Journalist Paulina Siegień suggested that the trial was about more than just the five accused. “This is a trial where the entire civil society is in the dock,” she said. ECRE member organisation the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights also condemned the prosecutor’s attempt to link the case to people smuggling. “We strongly protest against the actions of the District Prosecutor’s Office in Białystok, which we perceive as an attempt to create a chilling effect – to discourage others from providing humanitarian aid” it wrote in a statement.
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NATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
CYPRUS
- The government has been accused of coercing Syrians into “voluntary” returns.
- The trial of a prominent human rights defender who has been accused of assaulting a guard in a reception centre has been postponed for the fourth time.
- Hundreds of Syrians have reportedly withdrawn their applications for asylum in Cyprus in recent months.
- A campaigning group has called for the “partial lifting” of a suspension on asylum applications from Syrians.
The Cypriot government has been accused of coercing Syrian refugees into “voluntary” returns. According to a joint investigation by the NGO Statewatch and the New Arab and UntoldMag news agencies, the Ministry of the Interior has been “using coercion and deceit to pressure individuals into voluntary returns, at the expense of the country’s obligations under the European Convention of Human Rights”. The investigation into Cyprus’ Assisted Voluntary Return programme, which is “financially and operationally” supported by the EU to enable people who wish to return to their home countries in an “organised, safe and dignified manner”, found that the participation of a number of Syrians in it had not been based on their free and informed choices. The authors reported that the Syrians had faced denial of access to asylum, unfounded accusations of serious crime, and unlawful detention in conditions “contrary to European values and international human rights law”, and that they had been pressured to sign voluntary return agreements “under the threat of forced deportation”.
The trial of a prominent human rights defender who has been accused of assaulting a guard in a reception centre has been postponed for the fourth time. The co-founder and head of the NGO Action for Equality, Support and Anti-Racism (KISA), Doros Polykarpou, is facing charges of trespassing, disturbing the peace and insulting and assaulting two guards at the Pournara reception centre during a visit in March 2022. According to Polykarpou and Brigitte Espuche from the Migreurop network, who accompanied him to the centre, Polykarpou was himself the victim of a violent verbal and physical attack by one of the guards. When Polykarpou tried to file a complaint against the guard at a nearby police post, he was made to wait while the police allowed the two guards to file their complaints first. On 11 February 2025, a hearing on the case was postponed until 15 September, due to the prosecution’s failure to provide the defence with a piece of evidence. This was the fourth postponement since Polykarpou was notified of the indictment in August 2022 and summoned to appear before the Nicosia District Court in December of that year. The human rights NGO Front Line Defenders has expressed its “deep concerns” about the repeated postponement of the trial, arguing that it constitutes “a form of judicial harassment aimed at preventing and hindering the human rights defender from continuing his legitimate work as a human rights defender without fear, intimidation and interruption”. In a joint letter to Attorney General Georgios L. Savvides, Front Line Defenders expressed its belief that the charges against Polykarpou were “linked to his human rights work helping migrants, refugees and victims of trafficking” and it urged Savvides to drop the case. Migreurop also criticised the trial as the latest stage in an ongoing campaign against KISA. “This trial comes against a backdrop of increasing intimidation, accusations, harassment and repeated attacks – including bombings – against KISA and its members over many years,” it wrote in a statement.
Hundreds of Syrians have reportedly withdrawn their applications for asylum in Cyprus in recent months. According to Deputy Minister of Migration and International Protection Nikolas Ioannides, an average of 40 asylum requests from Syrians had been withdrawn every day since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. Ioannides added that, between 9 December 2024 and 31 January 2025, 755 Syrians had left the country while 1,367 others had expressed an intention to return to Syria, of whom 944 had withdrawn their applications, and 423 others had waived their protection status.
A campaigning group has called for the “partial lifting” of a suspension on asylum applications from Syrians. On 17 February, the Syrians in Cyprus group wrote to Deputy Minister of Migration and International Protection Nikolas Ioannides to argue that the freeze, which has been in place since April 2024, was no longer justifiable given the changes in the number of Syrians arriving in and leaving Cyprus. The group also decried the length of time that some Syrians have been waiting for their applications to be processed compared to applicants from other countries. “This is particularly concerning given that some Syrian asylum seekers have been waiting since 2019, while the processing time for new asylum applications from other nationalities has been reduced to just three months,” they wrote. They also called on the government to consider the possibility of granting third-country worker status for some Syrians in Cyprus without them having to leave the country first.
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NATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
UK
- The Home Office (Ministry of the Interior) has introduced a new measure which will make it almost impossible for people who arrive in the UK irregularly to ever receive British citizenship.
- The Home Office has released a video showing people being deported from the UK.
- A record number of people died in state-run asylum accommodation in 2024.
- The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that the UK Special Forces command rejected every one of more than 2,000 asylum claims that were submitted by members of the Afghan special forces who fought with UK forces against the Taliban.
The government has introduced a new measure which will make it almost impossible for people who arrive in the UK irregularly to ever receive British citizenship. On 10 February, the Home Office (Ministry of the Interior) updated the guidance that case workers use to assess if an applicant is of “good character” to include the following provision: “Any person applying for citizenship from 10 February 2025, who previously entered the UK illegally will normally be refused, regardless of the time that has passed since the illegal entry took place”. The updated guidance also provides that: “A person who applies for citizenship from 10 February 2025 who has previously arrived without a required valid entry clearance or electronic travel authorisation, having made a dangerous journey will normally be refused citizenship”. It also defines dangerous journeys as including those made “by small boat or concealed in a vehicle or any other conveyance”.
The updated guidance has been widely criticised by politicians, lawyers and NGOs. Labour MP Stella Creasy has called on the government to reverse the guidance. “This should be changed ASAP,” she wrote on Bluesky, adding: “If we give someone refugee status, it can’t be right to then refuse them a route to become a British citizen”. Former Home Secretary (Minister of the Interior) David Blunkett, who is now a Labour member of the House of Lords (upper chamber of parliament), asked the government to reflect on the “societal and cohesion aspects” of the revised policy and the “impact on children and their right to UK citizenship and the statelessness which would arise for individuals if their birth country refused to renew or retain their nationality”. Describing the change as “a clear breach of the Refugee Convention”, lawyer Colin Yeo added that it would have “zero deterrent effect”. “It’s totally pointless in real-world policy terms,” he wrote on Bluesky. The head of ECRE member organisation the Refugee Council, Enver Solomon, was equally scathing, saying that the change “flies in the face of reason”. “The British public want refugees who have been given safety in our country to integrate into and contribute to their new communities, so it makes no sense for the government to erect more barriers,” he added. On 16 February, he was one of 148 representatives of NGOs, trade unions and religious institutions who co-signed a letter to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper in which they called for the government to abandon the change. “We urge you to reverse this change and instead work with us and others up and down the country to celebrate the country’s heritage of welcoming refugees and focus on the importance of a shared community that delivers for all,” they wrote.
On the same day as the publication of the updated citizenship guidance and the first vote on the draft ‘Border Security, Asylum and Migration’ law in the House of Commons (lower chamber of parliament), the Home Office published a video of people being deported from the UK. The footage shows a number of men being escorted by Border Force staff off a bus and up the steps of a charter jet. It was accompanied by a press release in which the Home Office stated that almost 19,000 “failed asylum seekers, foreign criminals and other immigration offenders” had been deported since the election in July 2024. The Home Office described the release of the video as an effort to “to provide further understanding of this important work”. Labour MP Clive Lewis accused the government of “enabling the mainstreaming of racism” by releasing the video. “Just using harsh and cruel language, or bringing in longer sentences, or filming people being put onto planes, will not solve the problem,” he said, adding: “Seeking asylum is not a criminal act and filming people who have been refused permission to stay in the UK is cruel”. Describing the video as “Trump-style TV footage” which had a “whiff of panic about it”, Enver Solomon urged the government to reconsider its approach. “Forcing those whose asylum applications have been rejected or who have overstayed their visas onto planes has never been the most effective way to return people and never will be,” he wrote in an op-ed published in the Guardian newspaper. “Voluntary returns are far more effective and the government should know this because it was the last Labour administration that commissioned independent agencies to run a voluntary programme that saw numbers increase,” he added.
A record number of people died in Home Office-run asylum accommodation in 2024. According to data released by the Home Office following freedom of information requests, 51 people seeking asylum died in its care in 2024, an increase of 11 from the previous year. The Home Office initially claimed that there had only been 30 deaths of which nine were attributed to suspected suicide. In addition, no date of death was listed for 11 people, suggesting that the Home Office did not know when they had died. Commenting on the data, the director of the NGO Inquest, Deborah Coles, said: “There is a shocking lack of scrutiny and accountability from the Home Office and a complete disregard for the lives of this vulnerable group”. The NGO Refugee Action urged the government to introduce measures to reduce the number of deaths in future. “The Home Office must improve safeguarding, systems and staff training – change would save lives,” it wrote on Bluesky.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has confirmed that the UK Special Forces (UKSF) command rejected every one of more than 2,000 asylum claims that were submitted by members of the Afghan special forces who had fought with UK forces against the Taliban. The confirmation came in early February during court hearings on a legal challenge brought by one of the Afghan special forces soldiers now in the UK on behalf of other soldiers still in Afghanistan. The MoD had previously denied that there had been a general policy to reject all resettlement applications from the soldiers. The UKSF command’s rejection of all of the applications was particularly controversial because it took place at a time when a public inquiry was investigating allegations that its forces had committed war crimes on operations in Afghanistan in which Afghan special forces had been present. Given that only Afghan special forces who had been resettled in the UK could be compelled to co-operate with the inquiry, the UKSF’s actions have led to speculation that the soldiers’ asylum applications were vetoed in order to prevent them from presenting “potentially significant evidence”. “There is the appearance that UK Special Forces blocked the Afghan special forces’ applications because they were witnesses to the alleged UK war crimes currently being investigated in the Afghan inquiry,” said Mike Martin MP. According to the BBC, some of the asylum rejections have already been overturned and some members of the Afghan special forces have been able to travel to the UK. However, “many are in hiding in Afghanistan” and “dozens have reportedly been beaten, tortured or killed by the Taliban”.
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RECENT REPORTS
ECRE
February
January
ECRE Member Organisations
February
January
Others
February
January
- Asylum Aid et al., Stateless People in the UK: At Risk of Legal Limbo, In Need of Protection
- Berlin Governance Platform, Re:Match – Pilot Project Evaluation
- Bloody Borders, FROZEN LIVES – An investigation into how Bulgarian authorities put the lives of people on the move at risk of death
- Border Violence Monitoring Network, Balkan Regional Report – November 2024
- Border Violence Monitoring Network, Monthly Report – December 2024
- European Parliament, Implementation of the EU pact on migration and asylum
- European Parliament, The gender dimension of asylum claims
- European Union Asylum Agency, Guidelines on Alternatives to Detention
- I Have Rights, Controlled and Confined: Unveilling the Impact of Technology in the Samos Closed Controlled Access Centre
- Investigative Reporting Project Italy, The silence of Italy’s Guardia di Finanza on drones deployed in the Mediterranean
- Migration Policy Institute, No One-Size-Fits-All: Outreach and counselling for irregular migrants
- Persecution Prevention Project, Pathways to Protection
- Protecting Rights at Borders, The pushback – disconnect: Current and anticipated practice
- Researchers X, State trafficking: Expulsion and sale of migrants from Tunisia to Libya
- Runnymede, A hostile environment: Language, race, politics and the media
- Solomon, Invisible Walls: How AI Tech at Europe’s Borders Threatens People Seeking Refuge
- Sussex Centre for Migration Research, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies – Volume 51, Issue 1
- Turkey Tribunal, Turkey’s Unending Crackdown: The Persecution of the Gülen Movement
- United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), UNHCR’s 2025 Recommendations for the Polish and Danish Presidencies of the Council of the European Union (EU)
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UPCOMING EVENTS
ECRE Member Organisations
- 26 February, Brussels, Ensuring Staff Wellbeing through Care4Cargivers+, International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT)
- 26 February, Luxembourg, La Charte des droits fondamentaux au Luxembourg et en Europe, Passerell and European Institute of Public Administration
- 3-6 March, Brussels, Caritas Europa Consultative Forum 2025, Caritas Europa
- 4 March, Akureyri, Nýliðanámskeið – Stuðningur við flóttafólk og innflytjendur, Icelandic Red Cross
- 4 March, Dublin, Fleeing to Seek International Protection in Ireland, Irish Refugee Council
- 8 March, Marseille, Collecte de produits d’hygiène avec Samedi bien !, Forum réfugiés
- 13 March, Online, Conférence-partage : Les Roms : parcours migratoires et situation en France, Forum réfugiés
- 13 March, Online, EU funding webinar: European Solidarity Corps, Caritas Europa
- 20 March, Kópavogur, Sálfélagslegur stuðningur í verkefnum með flóttafólki, Icelandic Red Cross
- 13-22 June, Glasgow, Refugee Festival Scotland 2025, Scottish Refugee Council
- 21 September, Ghent, Refugee Walk, Flemish Refugee Action
Others
- 3-7 March, London, Research Methods in the Refugee and Forced Migration Field, Refugee Law Initiative
- 8 March, London, Womens Run Series, Women for Refugee Women
- 10 March, Online, Refugee Poetry Hour, Together in the UK
- 10-11 March, Florence, Building effective engagement between research, policy and practice: a strategic approach to impactful migration research in the world of policy, European University Institute
- 17-19 March, Krems an der Donau, 2025 IMISCOE Spring Conference, University for Continuing Education Krems
- 17-21 March, Krems an der Donau, MIrreM Spring School 2025, University for Continuing Education Krems
- 18-19 March, Brussels, Anti-Racism and Diversity Week, European Network Against Racism
- 20-23 March, Budapest, Statelessness Awareness Forum (Europe), Apatride Network
- 1-2 April, Online, Annual Conference on European Immigration Law, Academy of European Law (ERA)
- 7-11 April, Turin, Making Finance Work for Refugees, Displaced, and Host Communities, International Labour Organization
- 12-17 May, Online, Migration Communication Strategies: Effective Approaches to Depolarise the Debate, European University Institute
- 13-14 June, Strasbourg, European Youth Event, European Parliament
- 30 June - 1 July, Inaugural Conference: Migration in times of Polarization, Vienna Centre for Migration and Law
- 6-8 October, Florence, Effective Migration Governance: Policy Impacts and Trade-Offs, European University Institute
- Online, Training Course: Temporary Protection in the European Union, Council of Europe
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OPEN JOB VACANCIES
ECRE Member Organisations
- Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO), Controller*in, Berlin, 31 December
- Fenix – Humanitarian Legal Aid, Interpreter, Remote
- Fenix – Humanitarian Legal Aid, Senior Legal Officer, Lesvos, 28 February
- Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, Legal Officer, London, 24 February
- Plattform Asyl, Projektleitung für das Projekt Ertebat Kids Patenschaften, 2 March
- University Assistance Fund, Manager Strategie & Impact, Utrecht, 24 February
Others
- Calais Appeal, Fundraiser and Coordinator, Calais, 23 February
- Front Line Defenders, Frank Jennings Fellowship 2025-2026, Dublin and Geneva, 28 February
- Front Line Defenders, Head of Operations, Dublin, 28 February
- Lindsays, Immigration Caseworker, Glasgow
- Mediterranean Migration and Asylum Policy Hub (MedMA), Policy Officer, Nicosia, 28 February
- Mobile Info Team, Research Officer, Thessaloniki
- Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, Finance and Human Resources Officer, Brussels, 2 March
- Quaker Council for European Affairs, Director, Brussels, 5 March
- Refugee and Migrant Centre, Caseworker level 1, 2, and 3, Birmingham, 28 February
- Refugee Studies Centre, Events and International Online School Officer (Maternity Leave Cover), Oxford, 27 February
- Samos Volunteers, Logistics and Distribution Coordinator, Samos, 4 March
- Samos Volunteers, Logistics Officer, Community Centre Officers and Communications Officer, Samos,
- Rainbow Migration, Legal Officer, London
- Rechtsanwälte Sommerfeld, Heisiep, Gosmann, Lawyers and Paralegals, Soest
- University of Bergen, PhD Research Fellow, Bergen, 25 March
- Women for Refugee Women, Policy and Research Manager, London, 24 February
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ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
ECRE Member Organisations
- Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO), AWO gegen Rassismus – AWO für Vielfalt!
- Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO), AWO wählt Demokratie
- Cepaim Foundation, 10.000 firmas por la CONVIVENCIA
- Diakonie Deutschland, #SozialWählen
- Estonian Refugee Council, Three Years Too Many
- Jesuit Refugee Service, Our shared humanity
- Passerell, CHARTER UP!
- Together With Refugees, The Fair Begins Here Promise
- Refugees Welcome Italia, Accoglienza Famiglia Afghana
- Safe Passage International, End Channel Tragedies: Share a Message of Solidarity and Call for Change
Others
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CALLS FOR PAPERS, PROJECT PROPOSALS, UNIVERSITY COURSES etc.
Calls for Applications
Call for Artists from Refugee Backgrounds
Call for Evidence
Calls for Papers
Call for Research Projects and ‘Research Shorts’
Call for Scholarships
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