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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: In remote western Texas, a row is brewing over a Trump administration proposal to build border walls on private land around the Big Bend National Park (Washington has rowed back, for now, on plans to wall off the park itself.) This move is a bridge too far for many, including some Republicans who have noticed that killing wildlife, farming, the tourism economy, and the region’s unique ecosystem may not in fact qualify as “protecting” the border. Wall-building would strain water supplies already threatened by new data centres and detention centres, and years of intensive militarisation has created a laundry list of problems, including severe flood risks. Walls naturally make the desert deadlier for people migrating, but around Big Bend, crossings are low and the arid landscape is probably more dangerous than anything Trump could build. European officials have noted the latter point; the EU’s environment chief recently suggested using nature to make borders more dangerous, citing the inhospitable Poland-Belarus border where hundreds are believed to have died. 

• Europe: The European Parliament has approved sweeping new deportation rules, which are likely to be approved and many states are enthusiastic to implement. Measures adopted include enabling states to build deportation centres outside the EU, imposing entry bans on previously deported people, and extending the legal detention limit to two years. This is underpinned by an expansive - and expensive - surveillance machine. The shift toward ICE-style deportation campaigns was opposed by a cross-section of civil society including 1100 healthcare professionals concerned with public health consequences. It had little impact on voting; as the deadline approached a secret Whatsapp group emerged in which conservative legislators coordinated with the far right on drafting. This sparked concern even from German chancellor Friedrich Merz as mainstream parties’ “cordon sanitaire” against the international far-right further crumbled. Half of Europeans now want to see coordinated pushback against Trumpism - but in Brussels, no one seems to have got the message.

BORDER EXTERNALISATION

• Central Mediterranean: Of the at-least-8000 people dead on migration routes in 2025, many appear to have died in “invisible shipwrecks” where people go missing while authorities withhold information. Rescue efforts continue to be frustrated; in March Italy ordered rescue ship Sea Watch 5 to disembark survivors in a port several days’ sailing away, despite deteriorating weather and medical cases on board. Eastwards of the main Tunisia/Libya/Italy maritime corridor, crossings from East Libya to Crete seem to be up, a story underscored by the trial of two alleged smugglers in a Greek court following a shipwreck which killed 22. This perhaps indicates that Europe’s recent embrace of the Eastern Libyan regime as a migration partner may not be going so well. 

• A new report provides further detail on the financial ties between the EU and Libyan militias responsible for violence against people migrating and rescue crews.

• Italy/Albania:  Following a visit to Italy’s offshore detention centre in Albania, the country’s Asylum and Immigration Roundtable (TAI) has denounced the government’s record transfers of people to the site, which are taking place despite upcoming court cases that could determine the deal’s viability. 

• US/World: NPR has an explainer on the US’ tranche of deals with a dizzying array of countries aimed at deporting people to places where they have no connection. Costa Rica and the US signed an agreement for up to 25 such deportations per week, while in Equatorial Guinea, US deportees are now “stranded” in the country’s non-functional asylum system. In April, the first US deportees reportedly arrived in both the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.  

• UK/Rwanda: As other countries seek more externalised migration deals, Britain is still dealing with the consequences of its last botched one: arbitration has begun in The Hague over London’s scrapped deal to resettle people seeking asylum in Rwanda, for which Kigali is seeking over £100million in claimed debt. 

• EU/Nigeria: The EU has brokered a cash-for-deportations agreement with Nigeria to speed up deportation of its citizens in return for potentially up to EUR290 million in infrastructure investments and market access. Critics warn of risks for Nigerians fleeing violence which continues to afflict parts of the country.

• EU/Tunisia: Tunis wants to renegotiate its EU agreement, as authoritarian president Kaïs Saïed faces domestic pressure over what both government officials and many citizens feel is an unequal partnership overly driven by migration control. 

• EU/Ecuador: Ecuador and the EU have signed a declaration of intent on migration management and border control.

DETENTION, DEPORTATION AND BORDER VIOLENCE

• Iran/World: As talks to end the US-Israeli war in Iran remain fragile, over 330,000 people have been displaced by recent violence as of March, according to UNHCR. In response, European states are racing to avoid possible refugee movement; both from current wars and potential spillover effects from supply crises following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Polling of Germans finds opposition to protecting Iranian refugees, and Denmark and Italy have called for preventive measures. In Australia, Iranian refugee Fatemeh Lahmidi writes about the perils facing refugees as Canberra imposes a travel ban on Iranians. The US also apparently deported people to Iran just before bombing it. 

• US: The fifteenth death in ICE custody since January has occurred; meaning one detained person has died in custody every six days this year. Those without criminal records continue to account for most of those arrested (more data here.) However a fierce backlash is underway; headlines such as the celebrity open letter demanding the closure of ICE’s detention facility in Dilley, Texas are the tip of deeper resistance. Washington seems to be trying to lower the temperature; starting with Kristi Noem’s removal as Homeland Security secretary following the Minneapolis shootings and further evidenced by a drop in the use of the term “mass deportations” in government communications. Administration lawyers have been quietly dropping a number of detention cases, and detention rates have dipped. Meanwhile an AP report looks at background checks done on ICE agents during the recent recruiting surge, which let’s just say seem to leave much to be desired.

• A doctor has an interview in the Guardian about his experience in a mobile clinic at the Ciudad Juárez/El Paso border, including treating injuries caused by national guardsmen.

• As the US charges a rising number of people migrating with trespassing in military zones, a ProPublica team has tried to work out where these zones actually are. 

• The Guardian also has a report on the fates of the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers locked out by the Trump administration. 

• US/Palestine: Immigration judges who blocked the high-profile deportations of two Palestinian students have been removed by the Trump administration, per the NYT. 

• UK: The British public purse will pay a further £660m to enrich defence contractors attempt to cut Channel crossings with equipment including drones, a riot police squad to “disperse” people building boats, helicopters and a new detention centre in Dunkerque. Researchers recently linked the UK-France “one in one out” migration deal to increased deaths in the English Channel, and plans to house asylum seekers in a former military base are once again delayed. 

• Chile: Chile and Peru have seen a slight easing of tensions over Chile’s proposal to dig an anti-migration trench along its Peruvian border. However the Kast administration’s repressive measures continue apace, with a bill passed to restrict irregular migrants’ access to welfare support and prioritise citizens in public health and education. 

• Canada: New Canadian asylum legislation has been criticised by the UN Human Rights Committee as well as Canadian civil society groups who say its measures will weaken protection and have implications for the country’s relationship to international law. 

• Argentina: The global craze for immigration raids has spread to Javier Milei’s right-wing government, which has seen hundreds of agents descend on businesses demanding papers and detaining people alongside tough messaging in an unprecedented Trump cosplay session enforcement operation.

SURVEILLANCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND INDUSTRY

• EU: Access Now has a new map of 450+ companies that over the past years have pitched their tech products to EU border agency Frontex, police agency Europol and IT agency eu-LISA. This comes as the Dutch city of Heerlen is receiving €5 million in EU funding for an algorithmic surveillance system based on creating a predictive policing system which Frontex is also interested in. Yes, we’ve seen Minority Report too. 

• The Transnational Institute reports on European university involvement in repressive border and migration policies through providing research, analysis, data and technology, and lending scientific legitimacy to unethical policies and practices.

• A new department at Europol, the European Centre Against Migrant Smuggling, will focus on data-driven, OSINT and financial investigations - we can probably expect more big contracts to be dished out. 

• ETIAS, a critical part of the EU’s plan to fully digitalise border control, seems to be suffering from ongoing teething problems. 

• US: Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bought online advertising data to track peoples’ precise movements over time, in a process that often involves siphoning data from video games, dating apps, and fitness trackers, according to internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) documents. Not only might CBP be looking for you on Tinder, they’ve also reportedly been installing licence plate tracking across Texas and California. Anduril’s surveillance tower tech is also leading the field of expensive DHS contracts. This all comes as ICE agents reveal under oath their arrest targets and tech.

• Data broker Thomson Reuters, which has long provided personal data for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tools, now may also be part of the Palantir system which ICE uses to find which neighborhoods to target. DHS is also using Graphite spyware to surveil people, according to answers disclosed to legislators. 

• Employees at an architecture firm have refused a design contract for ICE detention, resulting in its cancellation.

• Migrant Insider has a piece highlighting the role of lobbyists in funneling public money into private detention.

• Australia: As drones continue to reshape warfare, Australia is banking on the reassuringly-named Ghost Bat and Ghost Shark systems as part of AUS$12–15 billion on drone and counter-drone technologies over the next decade. These are military systems, but of note because of the increasing overlap between policing, migration control and warfare tech. 

• Americas: Mexican firm Grupo Seguritech, worth $1.27billion surveillance, is expanding its migration and other surveillance contracts across the US and Latin America. 

• UK: Palantir’s contracts with NHS England have sparked fury among medics who believe their data sharing potential could be used for US-style immigration raids. There are indications that the government may respond to pressure to break Palantir contracts.

• Outsourcing giant Serco has appointed a new UK and Europe CEO who comes fresh from key ICE contractor G4S. Its annual report rather breathlessly remarks that “in immigration, we continue to see demand for our broad range of services and expertise into the medium term as policy, conflict and climate change influences crossborder movements”, which is nice for them, I guess. 

• West Africa: Despite a regional economic model based on flexible migration, West African states are now rapidly expanding their border surveillance contracts. 

• World: As Palantir launches a dystopian political manifesto, its role in toxic migration politics is analysed in two Tech Policy Press pieces; one arguing that its migration software endangers democracy and the rule of law, and another on the broader infrastructure that underpins controversial technologies like so-called robot dogs. 

MIGRATION POLICY AND POLITICS

• Sweden: One piece of evidence that we may be approaching “peak migration control” emerges from Sweden, which has adopted ever more extreme measures including deporting children who grew up in the country and imposing a vague and subjective requirement for “honest living” on those migrating. But these policies have exacerbated a critical labour shortage in the healthcare sector, triggering U-turns.  

• UK: As pivotal local elections approach, poll-topping Reform UK has threatened to deport hundreds of thousands  already granted protection. Prime minister Keir Starmer is considering a partial rollback of recent measures including doubling the wait time for settlement and limiting welfare support, following internal controversies and the left-wing Green party cutting into Labour’s vote. Meanwhile the Scottish National Party has argued that Scotland needs more migrant workers for the nation’s economic health. 

• US: A federal appeals court has blocked President Trump’s directive suspending access to asylum for people irregularly crossing the southern border. Elsewhere, the UN‘s committee on racial discrimination (CERD) has criticised “racist hate speech” being used by Trump and others, and called on the US to uphold anti-discrimination obligations. It’s a significant rebuke but I wouldn’t expect much to happen as a result. 

• Anti-ICE protesters accused of being part of Antifa (which is not an organisation) have been found guilty of terror offences in a landmark case.

• Italy/Germany/EU: The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that Germany has an obligation to process asylum seekers who arrived from Italy after six months, whilst also making the point that Italy's unilateral refusal to take back asylum seekers does not automatically obligate Germany to process claims. The ruling is likely to increase tension over migration policy between the two states.

• Spain: Migrant workers in southern Spain earn much less than local residents, highlighting persistent inequalities in labour markets, report unions. 

• Netherlands: Dutch legislators have rejected a bill which would have enacted the strictest asylum laws in the country’s history. 

• Hungary: Péter Magyar’s resounding election win has ended authoritarian rightwinger Viktor Orbán’s 16-year rule. Orbán repeatedly defied international asylum law, and whilst some now hope for a shift, Magyar’s migration statements have been similarly hardline. 

• UK/Caribbean: Whilst British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean are keen to join a regional free movement zone, the UK has stressed it would not support such a move.

• Germany/Austria: A German court has ruled that extended border controls at the German-Austrian border were unlawful. This does not yet affect ongoing checks.

• Belgium/World: Belgium’s migration minister has visited the Democratic Republic of Congo (a former Belgian colony) to discourage asylum applications, amid a rise in Congolese claims. Belgium and Algeria have also signed agreements aimed at speeding up the deportation of Algerian nationals irregularly staying in Belgium.

• Peru: Lima has declared a 60-day state of emergency to combat what it describes as a rise in cross-border crime.  

• Vatican City: Following US vice-president JD Vance’s sparring with Pope Leo XIV over the Iran war, the Pope has also criticised states’ treatment of people migrating, claiming that they are often viewed as “worse than animals” and calling for more humane policies.

CLIMATE, NATURE, AND THE FUTURE OF MIGRATION

• World: In the absence of any legal definition of climate refugees, Migration Policy looks at how some governments are adopting forms of protection for people displaced for environmental reasons. And in a blast from the past, Carnegie has a lessons-learned report on the climate migration policies of the Biden Administration. 

• An article in Nature covers the tech/climate/migration intersection, arguing that AI tools may be useful in modelling movement to help target policy, but also that safeguards must exist to ensure ethical practices. 

• The Conversation reports on a UN plan to fundraise by providing jobs for refugees doing carbon offsetting work and selling the resulting carbon credits. The scheme sounds like a win for all, but has been criticised for failing to generate environmental returns, and locking refugees into low-wage labour servicing economies that displaced them.

• Africa: The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights is set to issue an advisory opinion on states’ human rights obligations in the climate crisis; seen by advocates as an opportunity to strengthen protections for people displaced by climate change.