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3 April 2025
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The next issue will be published on 17 April.
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EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENTS
EU EASTERN BORDERS
- A controversial new asylum law has entered into force in Poland.
- The Finnish government is planning to extend the duration of its controversial asylum law.
- The Finnish Immigration Service has announced that it will close 18 reception centres in 2025.
- The Latvian government has tightened controls at three checkpoints on the country’s borders with Russia and Belarus.
- Lithuanian border guards have been accused of a pushback on the country’s border with Belarus.
A controversial new asylum law has entered into force in Poland. It was signed by Polish President Andrezj Duda on 26 March, two weeks after it was approved by the Senate. Despite having previously criticising the draft law, which will allow Poland to temporarily suspend the rights of people who enter the country via the border with Belarus irregularly to apply for asylum, Duda said that he had decided to approve it as it was “necessary for strengthening the security of our borders”. He also encouraged Prime Minister Donald Tusk to “take active measures in the matter of Poland’s security”. Several ECRE member organisations responded by repeating their longstanding criticism of the law. “This is not only a violation of the Constitution, but above all a threat to the lives of people fleeing war and persecution,” said the Ocalenie Foundation, adding: “The entry into force of the law is a victory of populism over a migration policy that is safe for all”. Elsewhere, the Association for Legal Intervention (SIP) said: “A law aimed at the victims – not the perpetrators of the crisis – will not bring any results, just as a 5-meter fence, a zone or an ‘export law’ did not”, while the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (HFHR) said: “Taking away the right of migrants to seek international protection in Poland will not only not increase security on the Polish-Belarusian border, but will deepen the chaos prevailing there”. “Illegal pushbacks and the creation of a grey zone for the activities of Belarusian services and smuggling groups will certainly not improve the safety of Polish citizens and expose migrants to serious risks of losing their health and lives,” it added.
The European Commission (EC) appeared to be much more relaxed about the new law. Speaking to reporters in Brussels on 27 March, an EC spokesperson said: “It is crucial to recall the current context. There are hybrid threats arising from the weaponisation of migration by Russia”. Asked about the compatibility of the new law with existing EU law, the spokesperson noted that all measures needed to be “temporary, necessary, proportionate and well-defined” as part of a response which one journalist described as an “indirect endorsement”.
The Finnish government is planning to extend the duration of its controversial asylum law. The ‘Act on Temporary Measures to Combat Instrumentalised Migration’ (commonly referred to as the ‘Border Security Act) enables Finnish authorities to prevent people who enter Finland irregularly from Russia from applying for asylum. It was adopted in July 2024 and was initially due to remain in force for 12 months. According to a press release which was issued by the Ministry of the Interior on 27 March, although “instrumentalised migration has ceased for now”, the risk that the situation may change had necessitated an extension of the law until the end of 2026. “The threat of instrumentalised migration at Finland’s eastern border remains high and difficult to predict,” said Minister of the Interior Mari Rantanen, adding: “The situation at the border is tense but stable. However, we must prepare for the possibility that the situation may change rapidly and seriously”. According to the Finnish state broadcaster (YLE), the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Centre Party are expected to support the extension while the Greens and Left Alliance remain opposed. “The Green Party is committed to strengthening border security, but it must be done in a manner consistent with human rights obligations,” said the chair of the Greens’ parliamentary group, Oras Tynkkynen MP. The law has received criticism from various quarters, including from the Council of Europe, while Chancellor of Justice Tuomas Pöystihas has called on the government to provide “stronger justifications” to justify its continuation.
The Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) has announced that it will close 18 reception centres in 2025. According to a press release issued on 27 March, the planned closures are in response to a significant fall in demand following a 45% decrease in the number of asylum applications in 2024 compared to the previous year and an increase in the number of people who have become residents of municipalities. Migri has also noted that approximately 2,200 of the people living in the 18 centres that are due to close are eligible to apply for a “municipality of residence” and that approximately 47% of residents could move to a municipality “immediately” if they wanted.
The Latvian government has tightened controls at three checkpoints on the country’s borders with Russia and Belarus. Since 19 March, entry into Latvia via the three checkpoints (one on the border with Belarus and two on the border with Russia) have been limited to motor vehicles only, while pedestrians and cyclists have been prevented from crossing “until further notice”. According to the Latvian government, the decision to restrict the operations of the three checkpoints was taken based on “several important security and public order aspects. “One of the main reasons is the risk of hybrid threats and migration crisis,” it said. Two days earlier, the Paternieki checkpoint (Belarus border) was closed temporarily because border guards had seen a group of people close to the border and feared that they may have been planning to try to enter Latvia irregularly. Commenting on the overall situation at Latvia’s borders, the head of the State Border Guard, General Guntis Pujāts, said: “Currently, a very large number of violators are heading towards Poland. We cannot rule out that at some point these flows may be redirected to Latvia”.
Lithuanian border guards have been accused of a pushback on the country’s border with Belarus. According to the NGO Sienos Grupė, which provides support to people on the move on the Lithuania-Belarus border, officials from the State Border Guard Service (VSAT) ordered a group of five people from Kenya and Sudan who arrived at the Medininkai checkpoint to return to Belarus despite them trying to apply for asylum. “Although the Lithuania authorities regularly state that border guards have the competence to make sure that people are not seeking asylum, we are faced with the exact opposition situation,” said the head of Sienos Grupė, Mantautas Šulskus, adding: “This time, the asylum seekers arrived exactly as they are told to do when they are turned back in the forest, and they arrived at the border checkpoint”. An audio recording of the incident which was shared with Sienos Grupė appears to confirm the pushback claim. In it, a woman repeats the word “asylum” but the man to whom she is speaking says that he does not understand what she is saying. VSAT spokesperson Giedrius Mišutis said that he had not heard the recording and rejected accusations of a pushback. “There was no explicit request [for asylum],” he told the Baltic News Service. “We treat their non-entry into Lithuania as legitimate”.
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EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENTS
EU EXTERNAL PARTNERS
- The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has suspended most of its programmes in Egypt due to serious budget cuts.
- There has been a surge in hate speech and violence against people on the move in Libya.
- An NGO has reported that more than 600 people who were rescued from the Mediterranean have been deported to the Tunisian desert.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has suspended most of its programmes in Egypt due to serious budget cuts. “The lack of available funds and deep uncertainty over the level of donor contributions this year has forced UNHCR to suspend all medical treatment for refugees in Egypt except emergency life-saving procedures, affecting around 20,000 patients,” the agency wrote in a press release issued on 25 March. It also noted that in 2023 it received “less than 50% of the US$ 135 million it needed to help the more than 939,000 registered refugees and asylum-seekers from Sudan and 60 other countries now living in Egypt” but that the “drastic reduction in humanitarian funding since the start of this year has led to critical shortages, forcing UNHCR to make impossible choices over which life-saving programmes to suspend or maintain”. Although the EU signed a € 7.4 billion agreement with Egypt in March 2024, including € 200 million for “migration management”, it seems unlikely that any of this will be used to plug the funding gap that has been created by the suspension of aid from the US. Commenting on the dire situation faced by many refugees in Egypt, the head of the European University Institute’s Migration Policy Centre, Andrew Geddes, told Euronews: “It’s unlikely that the resources provided by the EU will be directed by the Egyptian authorities to improve this situation”. “The situation [for them] may deteriorate and, for those that do try to move, the journeys may become even more dangerous and deadly,” he added.
There has been a surge in hate speech and violence against people on the move in Libya. According to a press release issued by the NGO Refugees in Libya on 20 March: “Between March 12th and 16th, raids, mass arbitrary arrests, assaults, murders and collective expulsions of Black people have been occurring in Western Libya”. “The people targeted by this violence are mostly African migrants and refugees but also Black Libyans and Tunisians,” it continued. In a statement issued on 19 March, the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) reported that remarks attributed to Libyan Minister of Local Governance Badr al-Din al-Toumi on 9 March had been “widely misinterpreted” and that a subsequent meeting between al-Toumi and the head of the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) mission in Libya, Nicoletta Giordano, had “further fuelled unfounded allegations of state-sanctioned “resettlement” plans”. The OMCT also stated that a video released by Libyan Grand Mufti Sadiq Al-Ghariani on 12 March had falsely conflated humanitarian integration with “resettlement” and suggested foreign-led demographic manipulation, and had “ignited a virulent social media campaign”. “Misinformation, xenophobic rhetoric and institutional neglect have created a perilous environment for migrants,” the organisation wrote, adding: “The tragic killing of Sudanese refugee on March 13th 2025, and a surge in arbitrary arrest which included women and children since March 11th, highlight the lethal consequences”. On 13 March, the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) issued a statement in which it expressed its deep concern about a “misinformation campaign that is fuelling tensions in Libya and inciting hate speech against refugees and migrants” and urged “all actors to refrain from spreading unverified information and to ensure that public discourse is fact-based and respectful of human rights”.
An NGO has reported that more than 600 people who were rescued from the Mediterranean have been deported to the Tunisian desert. According to a statement by Mediterranea: “The people were abandoned along the western border of Tunisia in accessible and isolated areas in the Haidra and Djebel Ghorra areas, without any means of support, a few kilometres from the Algerian border”. The organisation explained that the people had been rescued from the sea on 16-17 March, taken to Sfax and then transported to the desert. “The operation, conducted by the Tunisian National Guard and by military personnel from the Ministry of the Interior in Tunis, mobilised 11 buses, onto which the refugees and survivors were loaded after they had been searched and their phones, water and other basic necessities had been confiscated,” it wrote. Mediterranea learned about the deportation when its founder, Luca Casarini, and chaplain, Don Mattia Ferrari, received a call from one of the people involved who “managed to send the GPS position of the place where they were abandoned”. Another victim, a 26-year old Gambian national called Lamine, appeared to confirm the caller’s account several days later when he told the InfoMigrants news agency that an estimated 200 people had been taken to the desert close to the Chambi National Park, approximately 30 kilometres from the Tunisia-Algeria border. “After picking us up at sea on the night of Sunday, March 16 to Monday, March 17, the Tunisian coast guard sent us into the desert,” he said. Tunisian authorities told InfoMigrants that they had “no data” on the incident while the IOM said that it had “no information or precise data on this subject”.
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NEWS FROM THE ECRE OFFICE
The updated AIDA Country Report on the United Kingdom provides a detailed overview on legislative and practice-related developments in asylum procedures, reception conditions, detention of asylum seekers and content of international protection in 2024. It also includes an annex which provides an overview of temporary protection.
A number of key developments drawn from the overview of the main changes that have taken place since the publication of the 2023 update are set out below.
Statistics
- Asylum applications and decisions: 108,138 people applied for asylum in the UK in 2024. Of this total, 8,508 applicants were from Afghanistan, 8,099 from Iran and 19% were children (both accompanied and unaccompanied). The overall recognition rate at first instance decreased to 47% from 67% in 2023. Regarding Afghan nationals specifically, the rate fell from 99% in 2023 to 47%. There was also a significant backlog of cases (124,802 people were awaiting a decision at the end of 2024).
Asylum procedure
- Resumption of asylum processing: Following the general election and change of government in July 2024, there was a resumption in the processing of asylum claims. Under the previous government’s legislation, processing had come to a quasi-complete standstill due to most cases being declared inadmissible under the Illegal Migration Act and Rwanda scheme.
- End of the Rwanda scheme: The new government abandoned the Rwanda scheme, reversed the inadmissibility policy and settled existing three related legal cases. The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill which was introduced in parliament in January 2025 included a proposal to repeal the Safety of Rwanda Act.
- Access to the asylum procedure: In 2024 36,816 people arrived in the UK by small boat (29,437 in 2023). At least 82 deaths were reported in the Channel (at least 19 in 2023), including a record number of children.
Reception conditions
- Use of alternative accommodation sites: In July 2024, the new government announced that the Bibby Stockholm barge that was being used as asylum accommodation would be closed in January 2025. In March 2025, it announced that the Napier military barracks would no longer be used as asylum accommodation from September. There was also a decrease in the use of hotels (220 in November 2024 compared to 395 in March 2023).
- Reception of unaccompanied minors: Following a successful legal challenge in 2023, in January 2024, the government reported that no unaccompanied children were being accommodated in hotels.
- Safety issues in asylum reception centres: In June 2024, the NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) recommended the closure of the RAF Wethersfield accommodation site due to the severe mental health crisis experienced by people who were being housed there. Shortly afterwards, an asylum hotel was the target of an arson attack during anti-immigration riots that took place in various cities in summer 2024. Overall, there were 51 recorded deaths of people housed in Home Office asylum accommodation in 2024.
Detention of asylum seekers
- Rise in number of people detained: In 2024, 20,604 people were detained under immigration powers (15,864 in 2023). They were not all people who were claiming or had previously claimed asylum.
- Unaccompanied children in short-term holding facilities in northern France: 369 unaccompanied children were held in UK-run centres in northern France between January 2022 and October 2023. An inspection in November 2024 found that some of the facilities were in poor condition, that there were safeguarding issues and that two children had been re-trafficked from them.
- Detention conditions: Reports by HM Inspectorate of Prisons in 2024 described a “worrying deterioration in safety” across all UK immigration removal centres. The Jesuit Refugee Service also published a report in which it expressed serious concerns about the centres, including inappropriate segregation, large deficiencies in healthcare provision and safeguards for vulnerable people, excessive and inappropriate use of force and a staffing culture of abuse and humiliation.
Content of international protection
- Pause on consideration of Syrian applications for settlement: Following the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria in December 2024, the Home Office paused consideration of applications for settlement from Syrian refugees who were reaching the end of their five years of refugee leave.
- Policy changes relating to exiting asylum accommodation: In August 2023, a non-public change in policy regarding the timeline for beneficiaries of protection to exit asylum accommodation led to a 223% increase in people sleeping rough after moving out. This policy change was later reversed. Between July and September 2024, there was a major decrease in the number of people being put at risk of homelessness due to having to leave asylum accommodation compared with the same period in the previous year. In November 2024, the government announced a pilot scheme to extend the “move on” period from 28 to 56 days. The scheme was launched in December 2024 and is due to end in June 2025.
Temporary protection
- Arrivals: 22,300 people arrived under Ukraine visa support schemes in 2024 (2,600 under the Ukraine Family Scheme and 19,700 under the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme).
- Access to Ukraine visa support: The Ukraine Family Scheme was closed without advanced notice on 19 February 2024. Access to the UK remains possible under the Homes for Ukraine scheme.
- Duration of visas: While all schemes initially offered three-year visas, since February 2024, successful applicants under the Homes for Ukraine scheme only receive 18 month visas.
For more information about the AIDA database or to read other AIDA reports, please visit the AIDA website.
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RECENT REPORTS
ECRE
April
March
ECRE Member Organisations
April
March
Others
April
March
- Border Violence Monitoring Network, Balkan Regional Report – January 2025
- Civil Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre, Echoes#16 – Commemor’Action!
- Egala and Oxfam, Brutal Barriers: Pushbacks, violence and the violation of human rights on the Poland-Belarus border
- Health Information and Quality Authority, Monitoring and inspecting International Protection Accommodation Service Centres in 2024
- International Centre for Migration Policy Development, Phasing out temporary protection? Shaping EU policies through national experiences
- European Union Agency for Asylum, Latest Asylum Trends 2024 – Annual Analysis
- European Union Agency for Asylum, Practical Guide on Nationality: Concepts related to nationality and statelessness in the context of international protection
- Mixed Migration Centre, Beyond Restrictions: Beyond Restrictions: How migration and smuggling adapt to changing policies across the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the English Channel
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UPCOMING EVENTS
ECRE Member Organisations
- 10 April, Brussels, Intervision Training: Respect for the principle of non-refoulement at the border, ECRE and NANSEN
- 12 May, Brussels, 100 Boats – 100 Million People, Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO) Saxony-Anhalt
- 16-17 May, Athens, Crossing Borders – Building Futures: Restorative Justice for Children and Young People on the Move, European Forum for Restorative Justice
- 23 April, Online, Launch Event: Moving with Dignity Handbook, Quaker Council for European Affairs
- 25 April, Glasgow, Refugee Festival Scotland 2025, Scottish Refugee Council
- 21 September, Ghent, Refugee Walk, Flemish Refugee Action
Others
- 10 April, London, One year on from the EU’s Asylum and Migration Pact: Critical Reflections, University of East London
- 10 April, #ThisPactKills – Appel à résistance contre le Pacte européen sur la migration et l’asile, Abolish Frontex Belgium
- 7-11 April, Turin, Making Finance Work for Refugees, Displaced, and Host Communities, International Labour Organization
- 25 April, Online, Migration Communication Strategies: Effective Approaches to Depolarise the Debate, European University Institute
- 6 May, Online, Humanitarian Crisis in Belarus and at the European Union Border in 2023–2024, Human Constanta
- 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
- 20-21 November, Vienna, Fachkonferenz : Flüchten – Ankommen – Bleiben, Integrationshaus
- Online, Training Course: Temporary Protection in the European Union, Council of Europe
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OPEN JOB VACANCIES
ECRE Member Organisations
Others
- Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Technical Logistics Manager, Sicily, 30 April
- Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Emergency Coordinator, Brussels, 6 April
- Boat Refugee Foundation, Medical Volunteer, Lesvos
- Europe Cares, Volunteers, Lesvos
- I Have Rights, Volunteer Caseworker, Samos
- I Have Rights, Volunteer Interpreters (Arabic, Dari, Farsi, Kurmanji and Turkish), Remote
- MV Louise Michel, Chief Engineers
- Samos Volunteers, General Volunteers, Language Teachers, Psychologists, Logistics Officer, Community Centre Officers and Communications Officer, Samos
- Rainbow Migration, Legal Officer, London
- Right to Remain, Senior Legal Education Officer, London, 6 April
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ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
ECRE Member Organisations
Others
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CALLS FOR PAPERS, PROJECT PROPOSALS, UNIVERSITY COURSES etc.
Call for Applications
Call for Nominations
Call for Submissions
Call for Papers
Call for Scholarships
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