New and different types of border policies are on the rise in Europe. The Hungarian government recently threatened to give newly arriving asylum seekers a one-way ticket to EU headquarters in Brussels, mirroring a strategy by the U.S. state of Texas to needle political opponents by busing migrants to large cities far from the border. To the south, Albania (which is outside the European Union) will soon open detention centers where asylum seekers rescued at sea by Italian authorities will be relocated while their claims for protection in Italy are processed. Meanwhile in Germany, temporary controls at its borders with fellow Schengen zone members have raised alarmed among EU leaders. The controls, advanced in response to irregular migration and after recent extremist violence, went into effect yesterday, September 16, permitting Germany to turn back arriving migrants. German leaders have also speculated about reusing facilities in Rwanda that were funded as part of a now-scuttled plan by the United Kingdom to relocate asylum seekers to the African country. The potential German system would only use the Rwandan facilities for housing asylum seekers while their applications are processed, officials have said, unlike the UK proposal to resettle asylees permanently in Rwanda. Although the UK Labour government quashed the Rwanda plan once it took power earlier this year, the deaths this month of 12 migrants whose overcrowded boat capsized in the Channel have renewed government focus on irregular migration. French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has called for a new EU-UK treaty, claiming that a disproportionate burden for migration control falls on France (London has seemed to reject the demand). Combined, the moves are a sign that governments are continuing to experiment with novel ways to redirect, offshore, or otherwise externalize asylum processes. The more than 1 million asylum seekers in the European Union last year were just shy of the peak in 2015 and 2016, and anxiety about irregular migration has driven political gains by the far right across the continent. The trend is by no means unique to Europe, of course. In the United States, the Biden administration is reportedly considering making its temporary limits on access to asylum much harder to lift, essentially mandating that applicants seek appointments at official border crossings or arrive through other means, such as a humanitarian parole program. Indeed, the recent policy moves are a sign of the international translatability of various approaches. From Hungary’s interpretation of Texas-sponsored bus trips for migrants to Germany’s exploration of UK-funded facilities in Rwanda, border policies themselves are crossing borders quite easily. Best regards, Julian Hattem
Editor, Migration Information Source
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