Members of the European Parliament, the European Union's (EU) only directly elected institution, have approved a law aimed at speeding up the return of illegal migrants in larger numbers with stricter rules and new "return hubs" outside the E.U.
The law will also increase the legal detention period to up to two years and impose practically unlimited entry bans in the E.U. on the returned people.
Ira Mehlman, media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), says this reflects a rightward shift of immigration priorities.
"They seem to have taken a cue from the Trump administration's plan to deter people from coming and making false asylum claims," he observes.
The E.U. is not copying one specific U.S. policy but appears to have adopted President Donald Trump's overall philosophy of prioritizing enforcement, deterring illegal entry, speeding up removals, and externalizing migration control beyond borders.
"When the administration changed here a little over a year ago, people got the message that you could not just come into the United States, make an asylum claim, and expect to be released into the country; that they're going to be held in detention until there's some kind of adjudication or determination about whether they have a valid claim to press in the first place," Mehlman recalls.
With this new law, he says the Europeans are indicating they now get the idea that they can deter people without serious claims by letting them know they are not going to be released into Europe.
"What we've seen both here and in Europe is the perception that you were going to be released and allowed to work and live in the United States or in Europe, which was an incentive for people to put their lives at risk, their children's lives at risk, pay smugglers to get them to wherever they wanted to go, because the perception was that it was going to pay off," the FAIR spokesman explains.
"Precisely the opposite happens when you send the perception that it's not going to pay off," he adds.
The final version of the law will now be discussed between the Parliament and EU member states.
