The landscape for Afghan asylees is changing drastically worldwide; in particular, the pieces by Reuters and Politico draw parallels between migration landscapes in the US and Germany.
Beginning in October 2022, Germany’s admission program for Afghans helped resettle those persecuted based on political activism, gender, religion or sexual orientation. Hoping to welcome more than 1,000 refugees monthly, with more than 17,000 still in the early stages of selection and stranded in bordering countries like Pakistan, it has fallen short of all expectations.
Non-Refoulement is a pillar of asylum and refugee protection in international law; it stops states from obliging a person to return to territories where they are exposed to persecution. As such, protection from forcible return applies both within a state’s territory and, most interestingly, to rejection at its borders. For the EU, a territory that functions “without internal frontiers”, this is particularly interesting: how can one restrict mobility both within the EU and on its shared external border?
Turns out there’s more than one catch.
Back in March, the European Parliament made a historic decision: any EU nation is now allowed to deport migrants to facilities settled outside the 27-nation bloc. Most recently, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Greece have negotiated an agreement for “return hubs”. In June, European lawmakers voted to allow EU members to set up centres outside the EU to send rejected asylum seekers, instead of back to their home countries. While media centers on the Global North as refugee resettlers, this reminds us to look back at the Global South. Most notably, Iran and Pakistan hold the largest number of Afghan refugees, with 4.4 and 1.6 million, respectively. Reuters reports that Pakistan is intensifying efforts to forcibly return Afghans, which becomes even scarier in this context. A figure noteworthy: Pakistan and Iran pressured the return of or deported more than 280,000 Afghans only in April. For its part, the U.S. has also resorted to externalised border enforcement, suspended refugee admissions to the U.S., leaving thousands of Afghans stranded who awaited processing in Pakistan.
The Euronews piece reminds us that deportation to risk areas is prohibited under this principle, except if the person is convicted of criminal charges. This sounds reasonable, especially when followed by: “Officials said all deportees had criminal records and were required by law to leave.” But one must be careful to account for what it actually means to be convicted of “criminal charges”. In U.S. immigration law, for example, mandatory deportation, denial of reentry and ineligibility for other forms of relief are stipulated for those convicted of “aggravated felonies”. Aggravated felonies, however, are only a legal placeholder for offences Congress sees fit to label as such: they don’t have to be aggravated or classified as felonies in state and federal criminal law. Today, even failing to appear in court is an “aggravated felony.”
Increased use of surveillance technologies is also racialised and highly susceptible to bias, as Azmat Khan’s piece reminds us:
“Whoever analyzed the surveillance footage interpreted the normal activity of the household through an incriminating lens”.
In proposed plans for the EU’s shifting border control policy, biometrics and “European return orders”— a document in which member states cite reasons for the return decision of refugees— have been recently introduced, leaving those whose claims were denied perpetually singled out and marked: you are not worthy of resettlement here.
