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Content warning: This briefing may contain references and links to descriptions of abuse, torture, and racial and gendered violence at borders. 

AT A GLANCE

• US/Venezuela: Another year, another war. Early on January 3rd US forces attacked Venezuela, kidnapping the country’s president Nicolás Maduro and first lady in what has been widely branded a flagrant violation of international law. Alongside oil, geopolitical wrangling, and claims that Maduro led a drugs cartel (dropped as soon as he was in custody), migration is a key variable. US rhetoric echoes European-style claims of enemies are “weaponising” migration, but it’s also true that Venezuela’s longstanding fragility has produced big migration flows (a major regional issue and factor in the far-right’s recent Chilean presidential win.) For all Trump’s animosity to migration, he has long ignored warnings of US policy helping to drive this crisis, and now seems sanguine about the further instability his gamble could ignite. Presumably the US hopes that Maduro’s ouster will allow speeding up Venezuela deportations. This brief has long tracked the military-border intersection and border externalisation, and few things shock us, but migration control being invoked as a justification for invasion in this way is new. We probably haven’t seen the last of it. 

• Europe/Denmark: Europe’s timid reaction to the Venezuela attack contrasts sharply with leaders’ harsher words on Trump’s simultaneous threat to annex Greenland from Denmark (yes, we’re still wondering if this is all a fever dream too.) For many Europeans, the affair symbolises the gulf between the US’ abrasive jingoism and a European mild-mannered liberalism embodied by the Danes. But they’re not as far apart as they seem; Denmark’s Mette Fredriksen ended 2025 by promising to accelerate deportations. She and the UK’s Keir Starmer have been key in attempting to amend the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to this end, a long-held demand of the radical right. They argue that it’s necessary because current migration levels aren’t what post-World War II institutions like the ECHR and Refugee Convention were built for. In reality postwar displacement levels were up to ten times higher then and most European cities were piles of rubble. But who needs facts when there’s a border and surveillance industry to feed? 

BORDER EXTERNALISATION

• Central Mediterranean: Rescue ship Humanity 1 has been detained in Ortona by Italian authorities, in a landmark case relating to its refusal to coordinate operations with Libyan authorities. (SOS Humanity was one of several rescue organisations which resolved to cease coordination last year.) It is now five months since a Libyan Coast Guard unit attacked a similar vessel for which there has been approximately zero accountability. One therefore might find it reasonable that rescue crews have misgivings about palling up with people with a habit of emptying firearms at them.

• On board Humanity 1 during the detention was journalist Melissa Pawson, who has written a moving piece for the Independent on life and death at sea in the context of the Central Mediterranean and an unrelated tragedy involving two swimmers on the English coast.

• At the end of 2025, a shipwreck off the coast of Tunisia killed 116 people migrating, a shockingly high number even by the troubled standards of the Mediterranean. 

• Libya: Libyan authorities announced they intend to increase the number of repatriations, particularly in the case of people from sub-Saharan African countries.

• US: Human Rights First and Refugees International have launched Banished by Bargain, a new website that tracks and exposes the human toll of the Trump administration’s forced third country transfer agreements. These agreements continue to expand, with Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda joining those taking rejected US asylum seekers. 58 countries have been approached by the administration so far.  

• The Trump administration is trying to void the asylum claims of thousands of people with active cases in immigration court by arguing that they can be deported to countries that are not their own, according to CBS News.

• EU: A Brussels convening of justice and home affairs ministers has agreed radical plans to accelerate deportations, including similar externalisation deals to the US’, and covering overseas asylum processing centers overseas as well as so-called “returns hubs.” In a sign of the times, Malta has carried out one of the fastest repatriations on record, deporting back 48 people within 17 days of their arrival. 

• North Macedonia: Skopje has denied press reports claiming camps will be built in the country to accommodate people deported from the UK. This follows claims of an agreement being struck between the prime minister Hristijan Mickoski and the UK’s Keir Starmer. 

• Atlantic: Charity Caminando Fronteras reports that over 3,000 people died on the “Atlantic Route” to Spain’s Canary Islands last year. 

DETENTION, DEPORTATION AND BORDER VIOLENCE

• US: Renee Nicole Good, a poet, musician and legal observer, has been shot dead by ICE agents during the course of ICE raids in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Trump Administration claims that the shooting was an act of self-defence, but several videos of the incident captured by bystanders do not support this claim. Memorial protests are ongoing at the time of writing, and in a fiery press conference the city’s mayor has called for ICE’s removal from the city.   

• A US federal judge has issued an order blocking immigration officials from re-detaining Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a day after ordering his release. Abrego Garcia was wrongly deported to El Salvador and brought back to the US, and since has been at the centre of US externalisation attempts as they scour the world for another country to send him to, because clearly there’s nothing more important they could be doing. 

• EU: The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled that people migrating cannot be held to an unrealistic burden of proof in cases involving Frontex, in a judgment arising from a landmark case relating to alleged complicity by the European border agency in an illegal pushback at sea, during the scandal which forced its former director  to resign. The main case will now return to the General Court for reconsideration.

• Europe/Syria: A year from the fall of Bashar al-Assad, the Guardian reports on Syrians across Europe and the west were affected by the post-Assad drive to deport Syrian refugees. People who were well-integrated into new lives quickly found themselves at risk of being uprooted and sent to a country which remains far from safe. 

• Egypt: Deportations of Sudanese refugees escaping war and genocide into neighbouring Egypt have ballooned over the past year, escalating a campaign of repression documented by The New Humanitarian and Refugees Platform Egypt last year. This follows a key summit between Egypt and EU officials in Brussels in October, where amid a warm reception president Sisi took credit for stopping migration to Europe. 

• Greece: Nothing to see here, move on. In an update to the ongoing saga of not-especially-voluntary voluntary returns, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has called immunity to justify its refusal to release documents about its controversial programme in Greece. 

• US: The Trump administration plans to dramatically expand its immigration detention capacity, potentially using up to two dozen warehouse “mega centers” across the country that could detain over 5,000 people at the largest sites, making quick use of the $45 billion recently granted to it by Congress. Again, we’re sure that no other more helpful or productive uses of Americans’ tax dollars could possibly exist.

• World: The International Detention Coalition has a report on the experiences of women in detention, including sexual coercion, medical neglect and gendered violence. ACLU meanwhile has a new US-specific report on dire conditions in the detention estate.  

SURVEILLANCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND INDUSTRY

• US: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is continuing to buy expansive new surveillance tools at the same time the Trump administration has scaled back protections for how Americans’ data is used. What could possibly go wrong? 

• Quite a bit, as it happens. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is set to acquire huge numbers of small human-portable drones in a surveillance net that could extend way beyond the border. 

• Google has begun hosting a CBP app that uses facial recognition to identify people it thinks are migrants, and tell local law enforcement whether to contact ICE. We’ve checked and don’t think you can download it on Google Play quite yet, but give them time. Google has also removed apps designed to warn communities about the presence of ICE officials, and 404 has more on the gruelling experience of one US citizen scanned by facial recognition tech. CBP also wants all visitors to the US to install its app; someone there is a big fan of apps, it seems. 

• U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has hired a subsidiary of for-profit prison company GEO Group to aid in hunting down people at their homes and places of work, according to records reviewed by The Intercept.

• Palestine/Israel: Palestine Diaspora Movement has some new analysis on an old theme; the technologies of surveillance, control and indefinite detention developed in Gaza and the West Bank being applied by ICE in migration control. This is relevant now because as the ceasefire (Israeli forces have a somewhat more creative definition of that word than most of us do) continues, an acceleration of the conditions of indefinite detention that characterised the status quo ante seems inevitable. So too does more displacement and dispossession. Meanwhile, the US has added Palestinians to its travel ban list. 

• EU: Frontex has an interview out on how it is preparing for the digital transformation of Europe’s border management. Meanwhile Oxford’s Border Criminologies team have looked at how fingerprint databases like Eurodac produce more frequent mismatches for individuals with worn or damaged prints, common among manual labourers and refugees. These technical errors can translate into serious administrative and legal consequences.

MIGRATION POLICY AND POLITICS

• UK: As some of us begin the year committing to workouts or healthy eating regimes, Britain’s authorities are instead resolving to begin stealing mobile phones and SIM cards from people who arrive via small boats, after expressing how guilty they feel about the “shameful” arrivals of 41,000 people by this route last year. That data might lead one to believe that years of ever-harsher enforcement hasn’t actually done much. 

• UK and French authorities have been accused by French associations of “encouraging violent and xenophobic practices” over their failure to prevent the growing phenomenon of British activists taking a weekend getaway in northern France to harass people seeking safety. UK Green Party leader Zack Polanski meanwhile travelled to Calais to record a Christmas message calling for kindness and compassion. 

• People migrating who have been detained under Sir Keir Starmer’s flagship “one in, one out” returns scheme with France have said that they have been left without support, prompting a “severe mental health crisis” at the UK’s largest removal centre. 

• US: “We know because we lived it”, writes a group of former US Customs and Immigration Service (USCIS) employees, describing the “strategic demoralization and dismantling” of their agency under Donald Trump. They say that “after inheriting an agency already struggling under backlogs and antiquated laws, the administration sidelined, silenced and pushed out seasoned, apolitical professionals to turn USCIS into an ideological tool.”

• Mexico: Refugees International traveled to southeast Mexico’s Villahermosa to interview people who have migrated or sought asylum there. Many who have tried to cross to the US instead found themselves bussed south, and remain in limbo around the city.  

• Canada: The Liberal government is pushing through new anti-migration legislation targeting refugees that critics fear copies the US playbook and fuels division and scapegoating. Changes include more hardline ineligibility rules for people seeking asylum. 

• Tunisia: A court has released a group of humanitarians with suspended sentences for facilitating "illegal entry and residence". The NGO workers insist all their work was carried out transparently in a state-approved programme. They have spent 20 months in jail waiting for their final hearing.

• World: Budget cuts have forced the UN refugee agency UNHCR to slash its workforce by more than 5,000. UNHCR warned that the cuts will render it unable to support some 11 million of the roughly 36 million people who its programmes cover.

• Europe: Many Europeans mistakenly think most people who have migrated are in their country illegally, according to a poll that found heavy opposition to any increase in migration and strong support for increased deportations. Respondents hail from Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

CLIMATE, NATURE, AND THE FUTURE OF MIGRATION

• UK: Eight more universities have severed ties with fossil fuel and also border industry companies, banning them from recruitment fairs and refusing to advertise roles. Student campaign group People and Planet has led campaigns across UK campuses arguing for university divestment from the linked harms of fossil fuel consumption and border violence. 

• World: A report on climate-linked migration in Africa says that “when migrants arrive in countries with…effective local planning, demographic pressures tend to be mediated through redistribution, dialogue, and institutional channels. But in fragile states characterised by low trust in government, overstretched systems, and where politics is easily inflamed, competition over scarce resources can escalate quickly.” These words feel relevant far beyond the African context. 

• UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has told the UN Human Rights Council that the world is falling short in “taking the steps needed to protect people from climate chaos, safeguard their futures and manage natural resources in ways that respect human rights and the environment?”

• More than one-third of the island of Tuvalu’s 11,000 people have applied for Australia’s pioneering climate visa scheme. Some are interviewed here. 

• A contribution to a roundtable of experts argues against the increasing securitisation of climate-linked migration. 

• Jamaica: A blog for Warwick University looks at wider implications for the climate and migration conversation, following the displacement of 25,000 people during category 5 Hurricane Melissa’s landfall on Jamaica. 

• India: The Times of India covers the experiences of people flooded and uprooted from coastal villages, with their livelihoods lost. 

• US: As the Trump administration prepares to build its second parallel wall in southern Arizona, wildlife advocates say that the barrier will further restrict the movement of animals as well as humans, including recently-spotted jaguars. They also say the border puts water resources at risk.

• Europe: Edinburgh University has tracked the roots of migration to England over a millennium ago, revealing a rich system of mobility across Europe and the Mediterranean and reminding us of the transcendency of people moving - past, present, and future.