Last week, on 1 June 2026, European Parliament and Council negotiators reached a provisional agreement on the “Migrant Returns”, based on the Commission proposal presented in March 2025. This agreement is a complement to the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum that was adopted in 2024 and marks a dangerous shift in the European Union’s approach to migration.
In March, we already raised concerns about the proposed EU Return Regulation and its potential impact on queer asylum seekers, migrants, and refugees. This latest agreement confirms many of our concerns as it includes measures that expand detention, restrict freedom of movement, and strengthen enforcement, including through home searches and the seizure of personal belongings, while still lacking adequate protections for those most at risk.
By design and in its foreseeable impact, this agreement risks reinforcing racist systems of migration control without a clear understanding of the risks faced by LGBTQI human rights defenders, as expanded surveillance, raids, detention, and deportation powers are likely to disproportionately affect migrants, racialised people, and human rights defenders and activists already exposed to intersecting forms of discrimination, profiling, policing, and violence.
Escalation of Repressive Measures
At a time when many civil society organisations urge the EU to improve the safety and protection of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, this agreement takes a massive step backwards by consolidating a migration system that is increasingly focused on surveillance, restriction, and return policy.
One of the most alarming new measures put forward is the expansion of detention powers: Under the proposed rules, individuals facing deportation could be detained for up to 24 months — right now, the maximum is 18 months — with possible extension reaching 30 months, as reported by international media.
In addition, Member States could impose regular reporting obligations and require people to reside in designated areas, significantly restricting their freedom of movement. What’s even more worrying is that if a person moves to another Member State where detention grounds are considered to apply, a new detention period may start from scratch.
This creates a system that can trap individuals in repeated cycles of control, surveillance, and/or detention, while leaving them in constant fear about their future. For young LGBTQI migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, who already face entrenched discrimination, racism, and trauma, such prolonged detention and restrictions can have severe consequences on their well-being and mental health.
As stated by MEP Mélissa Camara, the text “weakens procedural rights, extends lengths of detention and endorses ICE practices by allowing authorities to conduct home raids”.
“Return Hubs”: A Serious Danger for Queer Migrants, Refugees and Asylum Seekers
The new rules would allow transfers to a third country that agrees to accept the person under an agreement concluded by an EU Member State, passing through what is named as “return hubs”. In practice, this means very worryingly that individuals may be transferred to countries with which they have no personal connection, based primarily on intergovernmental agreements, rather than on a person’s meaningful connection to the country concerned and without any provisions on safeguarding measures.
Beyond the “return hubs”, the agreement marks a dangerous expansion of detention as a central feature of EU return policy, and states that people could be detained “based on an individual assessment for the purpose of preparing their return”. It, thus, gives Member States wider powers to deprive people of their liberty while preparing their removal, reinforcing a punitive system that treats people subject to return procedures as security risks rather than rights-holders.
Even more concerning, the agreement leaves open the detention of unaccompanied children and families with children under certain conditions. This should be unacceptable. Immigration detention is never an appropriate environment for children: it exposes them to fear, isolation and lasting harm, and it directly undermines the principle that the best interests of the child must guide all migration-related decisions.
We are equally concerned by the EU’s ability to shift responsibility onto third countries rather than addressing the structural challenges within its own asylum and migration systems. Instead of creating ethical and sustainable internal procedures, the EU risks relocating responsibility beyond its borders while having limited consideration of what happens to people once transferred.
For queer asylum seekers, refugees and migrants, the implementation of “return hubs” involves particularly high risks. Some of the countries discussed in relation to such arrangements continue to criminalise same-sex relationships, restrict gender identity and expression, or fail to protect LGBTQI people from violence and discrimination.
Designating such countries as “safe” ignores these realities, leaving queer individuals exposed to persecution as the proposed agreement does not provide meaningful and specific protection for LGBTQI individuals.
“Return hubs” are especially dangerous because they outsource protection responsibilities to third countries while exposing people to the very harms EU and international law are meant to prevent. Although the agreement states that such arrangements should only be made with countries that uphold human rights, international law and the principle of non-refoulement, this safeguard is meaningless if people are transferred to places where they face criminalisation, persecution, violence, discrimination, or other serious human rights violations.
Under international human rights law, non-refoulement prohibits States from transferring or removing anyone from their jurisdiction or effective control where there are substantial grounds for believing that the person would face persecution or other irreparable harm. This protection applies to every person, regardless of status, and is absolute. Any “return hub” arrangement that enables such transfers would therefore not be a technical migration-management tool, but a direct threat to one of the most fundamental protections in international human rights law.
Rushed Implementation: High Risks of Rights Violations
The agreement would introduce a European Return Order, making return decisions available across the Schengen area. Member States would be able to recognise and enforce a return decision issued by another Member State, or issue a new return decision themselves. The Commission may later propose mandatory recognition. This is extremely worrying in the current context and the direction that this regulation is taking.
The agreement is largely based on the assumption that increasing detention, restricting freedom of movement, and externalising migration management will effectively address the challenges it claims to solve. Instead, these measures risk expanding harmful practices and exposing more people to detention, inhumane conditions, and rights violations. As we have repeated many times before, a deportation framework built around speed, detention, and compliance also makes it harder for queer migrants and asylum seekers to be protected and treated with dignity.
Several provisions, including those on “return hubs”, age assessment of minors, and the external dimension of returns, would apply immediately after the regulation enters into force following publication. This risks fostering even more violations and allowing Member States to rush into implementing the new measures without consideration of safeguard processes. Measures with such significant implications for human rights require careful scrutiny, strong accountability mechanisms, and clear guarantees that fundamental rights will be ensured in practice. Many of these questions remain unanswered.
The EU Must Protect Queer Migrants, Refugees, and Asylum Seekers
This provisional agreement still requires formal adoption by both the European Parliament and the Council before it can enter into force.
We urge Members of the European Parliament to reject this proposal in its current form and ensure that any future migration and return policy fully respects human rights, protects children, and guarantees the safety, dignity, and rights of LGBTQI young migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. The European Parliament must not allow speed, deterrence, or migration-control objectives to come at the expense of fundamental rights.
Our message remains clear: queer migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers deserve protection, solidarity, and rights-based policy, not a system that deepens dehumanisation in the name of migration control. No EU policy should expose LGBTQI people to detention, forced transfer, discrimination, violence, or return to places where their lives, freedom, or dignity are at risk.
We call on:
- The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union to reject the proposed Return Regulation and all associated measures that expand detention, surveillance, and externalisation of migration control.
- EU Member States to immediately suspend any plans to establish or participate in “return hub” arrangements, and to halt any related bilateral or multilateral agreements that enable transfers of people subject to return procedures to third countries where their rights and safety cannot be guaranteed.
- The EU and its Member States to fully uphold the principle of non-refoulement and guarantee that no person, including LGBTQI asylum seekers, is transferred, returned or removed to any country where they face persecution, discrimination, violence, torture or any other irreparable harm.
- The European Commission, the Council of the European Union, and the EU Member States to suspend all migration cooperation, return agreements, and externalisation agreements with third countries that do not meet binding human rights standards, including effective protection for LGBTQI persons.
- The European Commission, the European Parliament, and EU Member States to establish independent, transparent, and binding human rights monitoring mechanisms to investigate detention practices, deportation procedures, return decisions, and external migration agreements, with clear accountability measures for violations.
- The EU Member States to end the use of immigration detention as a default tool of migration policy and to invest instead in community-based, rights-respecting, and trauma-informed reception alternatives.
- The European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, and EU Member States to ensure the formal, meaningful, and resourced participation of civil society organisations, including migrant-led, refugee-led, and LGBTQI-led groups, in all EU migration, asylum, and return policymaking.
What can you do?
To provide support and demand action, we strongly encourage you to closely follow We Keep Us Safe and sign their petition “Say No to Mass Deportations in Europe”.
