If you would like to share the newsletter with your contacts, they can sign up here to receive future briefings.

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

AT A GLANCE

• European Union: As expected, the EU’s new Deportations Regulation sailed through the European Parliament in Strasbourg, granting the bloc’s 27 states sweeping new powers for ICE-style immigration raids, intrusions into personal data, and deportations to camps in countries where people have no connection. The far-right, which had substantial influence over the legislation, burst into a joyful chorus of “send them back” as the vote passed with centrist support, heralding the beginning of the “era of deportations.” This crowing will give way to an inevitable corporate race to cash in on a wave of prison camp construction - but not without dissent. Spain’s Pedro Sánchez and even France’s centrist Emmanuel Macron have strongly criticised the “return hub” concept - which, it’s worth remembering, was regarded as not legal by the European Commission just six years ago. Italy’s Giorgia Meloni reportedly clashed with Sánchez over his stance, but meanwhile appears to have been attempting to repair strained relations with Macron. How all of this will play out remains as clear as mud. 

• Britain: It’s ten years since the Brexit referendum, and none of the issues driving it - whether immigration, the consequences of deindustrialisation, or a deep national identity crisis - are close to being fixed. In June Keir Starmer became the sixth prime minister forced from office since the referendum (according to Donald Trump, due to “failures on immigration.”) Andy Burnham, who beat Reform handily in a by-election and is now set to replace Starmer, has pledged to expand immigration detention, but has been reluctant to commit to any detail. A preview of what he faces has emerged in a bitter row between Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and junior minister Mike Tapp - both hardliners - over her new legislation, which includes (and this one will shock you) more deportations, tougher barriers to citizenship and human rights curtailments. (Tapp called for an exemption from Mahmood’s measures for care workers.)  If all that wasn’t enough, it is apparently riot season again. Coordinated mass violent attacks reportedly associated with Loyalist paramilitaries (with a helping hand from Elon Musk?) took place against presumed foreigners in Belfast while disturbances flared in Southampton, following separate incidents of attempted murder and murder involving perpetrators from migrant backgrounds.

BORDER EXTERNALISATION

• EU/ World:  Unshackled by new deportation rules, a group of EU countries is considering sending rejected asylum seekers to countries including Uzbekistan and wait for it…Rwanda, which famously went swimmingly when the British tried it. 

• EU/ Afghanistan: The bloc is engaging with Afghanistan's Taliban government on deportations, although so far limited to Afghans deemed security threats or convicted of serious offences (a category that totally won’t expand, you’ll just have to take their word for it.) It must have been a wild ride for Taliban officials who’ve gone from two decades of NATO bombing to drinks and nibbles in Brussels. 

• EU/ Somalia: In another case of coercive diplomacy, EU member countries agreed to impose visa restrictions on Somali citizens over the country’s alleged failure to accept deported Somali nationals. 

• US/ DRC: The US is in talks to send 1,100 Afghans who assisted the American invasion of their country to the DRC, a country which remains economically fragile to say the least, and conflict-affected.

• US/Jamaica: Kingston is planning to allow the United States to transfer deported people through its territory before they are repatriated or sent on to third countries. The deal has received criticism from opposition politicians and civil society in Jamaica. 

• US/ Equatorial Guinea: An international coalition of lawyers has filed a lawsuit with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights seeking to block deportations to Equatorial Guinea  from the US.

• US/ Panama: Panama has deported another group of nearly 70 Colombians and Ecuadorians under its externalisation agreement with the US.

• World: Externalisation is exposing people to serious human rights risks and undermining fundamental principles of international human rights law, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Gehad Madi, has warned.

DETENTION, DEPORTATION AND BORDER VIOLENCE

• US: In the first 500 days of Donald Trump’s second presidency, 52 people died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in the United States. The mortality rate in ICE custody has more than doubled since Trump’s second term began, says Human Rights Watch. UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Türk has called for urgent preventive action. 

• The infamous "Alligator Alcatraz" detention camp in the Florida Everglades is to be shut down; in what Governor Ron DeSantis says is a planned move now more permanent federal facilities are in place. But there’s other indications the detention system hasn’t really worked out what it’s doing; last year ICE bought 11 warehouses for over US$1 billion, and now already wants to sell seven of them - hopefully someone finds a better use for them. 

• The Trump administration detained a Colombian citizen in the US after he spoke out against the Trump-endorsed candidate in Colombia’s  presidential election, reports the NYT.

• Texas anti-ICE protesters convicted of terrorism charges have been sentenced to at least 50 years in prison. 

• A wave of strikes is taking place against unconstitutional immigration enforcement, inside the detention system.

• The US Supreme Court has backed Trump's deportation policy for people from Haiti and Syria.

• Dominican Republic: El País has a piece on the country’s mass deportation campaign, painting a grim picture of “raids on homes without warrants, and systematic denial of access to legal counsel”, creating a situation where due process guarantees do not exist for people of Haitian origin.”

• Greece: The Greek Council for Refugees and Migrants (GCR) has expressed worries about the future of unaccompanied children migrating, arguing that the government’s planned changes to their housing standards were unsuitable to their needs. 

• Poland: With the “temporary” shutdown of asylum rights at Poland’s border with Belarus entering its second year, Poland’s commissioner for human rights has asked the government to justify continuing the policy.

• Tunisia: On the subject of words rarely having to mean things, Tunis is boasting about the “voluntary” return of over 100 people from sub-Saharan Africa; in a context where harassment and institutional racism left them with little choice but to leave. 

• Libya: Authorities in the unrecognised eastern Libyan state have imposed an entry ban for people from four African countries including war-stricken Sudan. The move comes as hundreds of people joined an anti-migration protest in the western Libyan capital, Tripoli. 

• Britain/ France: The “one in, one out” deal, Keir Starmer’s Hail Mary aimed at ending Channel crossings, is set to end in autumn according to French sources. The deal proposed stopping crossings by deporting most irregular crossers back to France whilst accepting a proportionate number of asylum applications. Suffice it to say that’s not quite how it panned out.

• A British-financed French detention centre is facing a legal challenge that could derail the Anglo-French £660m deal over border enforcement in the English Channel.

• South Asia: Rohingya refugees are speaking out on what they say are Bangladeshi proposals for apartheid prisons.

• World: Noema Magazine paints a concerning picture of how refugee camps may further morph into for-profit prisons as states and donors pull out of humanitarian funding.

SURVEILLANCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND INDUSTRY

• Britain: “Everything is broken”, runs the cheerful standfirst of a New Statesman cover story, which looks at state dependence on outsourcing firms who rip copper wire out of the state deliver public services. Serco runs asylum accommodation alongside - well, everything. The piece criticises it for charging the state vast quantities of cash to induce landlords in deprived areas to provide often poor-quality asylum accommodation. It thus manages a hat trick of making life worse for refugees, hoovering up public money and housing, and driving anti-migration sentiment.

• A coda to this story; when Serco sources indicated the firm would not participate in a Reform government’s proposed mass deportation offensive, Reform attacked the company, calling for its removal from state contracts. Somewhat unsurprisingly, Serco walked back its comments. It’s not the first and invariably not the last time Reform aggressively attempts to force business to heel. 

• The UK will scan asylum seekers’ faces for age verification; even though officials are apparently aware of its potential to make life-changing mistakes. 

• Tech bosses last year proposed microchipping prisoners in a meeting with prisons minister Lord Timpson; a radical new expansion of surveillance power,

• US: Private prison contractor GEO Group “privately asked for changes that could benefit its business,” reports the Washington Post. New rules remove references to requirements to give detainees at least US$1/day, and comply with state or local laws.

• When robot dogs began appearing at borders, many dismissed those who saw it as an experiment that would later be applied to the general population as overreacting. Now robot dog packs are on patrol at the World Cup in Monterrey. Still, at least they haven’t tried to send any players to El Salvador yet, so we suppose that’s something.

• NGOs have released a trove of documents exploring DHS’ use of AI.  

• The British Columbia General Employees' Union (BCGEU), a Canadian labour union, is asking people to check whether ICE contractor Thomson Reuters is in their investments or pensions. The union lost a shareholder vote calling for a human rights review of the company’s activities.

• A new report from Mijente, Just Futures Law and Surveillance Resistance Lab looks at the explosive growth of the US immigration surveillance arsenal, and a further updated overview of the role of surveillance tech, AI, and predictive systems in US immigration enforcement can be found here. One such example is the new procurement of iris scanners. 

• US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will purchase more than 200 Extended Range Sentry Towers (XRST)  for southern border surveillance from tech firm Anduril in a US$363 million contract.

• ICE is spending millions of dollars on iris scanners, expanding its arsenal of tech tools 

• Corporate Watch has  an explainer on the militarisation of surveillance tech “from Palestine and Ukraine; to the Mediterranean and the US-Mexican border.“

• UN special rapporteur on the rights of migrants Gehad Madi has hit out at the sharing of digital surveillance technologies in externalisation deals, which he says contribute to human rights abuses. 

• Spain: Tech firm Arquimea has won a lucrative contract for surveillance at Spain’s African border.

MIGRATION POLICY AND POLITICS

• Britain: A clutch of London local councils recently won by the Greens are building on the work of previous left-Labour and independent councils to create what has been dubbed a “corridor of sanctuary”, where local government will not cooperate with immigration enforcers. This takes inspiration from similar campaigns in the US, although British local authorities have substantially less autonomy. 

• Sweden: Hundreds protested in Stockholm as parliament voted on a controversial "snitch law" requiring public services including health and education to report undocumented migrants to police.

• Italy: Fractures are opening up on the Italian radical right; as mass protests on both sides of the migration policy divide assail Giorgia Meloni’s government, and she faces a potential hardline challenge in the form of a far-right former military officer. 

• Italy’s political right is entering a new phase of fragmentation, as mass protests over migration policy coincide with the rapid rise of a hardline challenger to prime minister Giorgia Meloni.

• Switzerland: Voters have rejected a referendum to cap the country's population at 10 million, in a defeat for the anti-immigration Swiss People's Party that staked considerable political capital on the proposal.

• EU/ Ukraine: The European Commission has proposed extending temporary protection status for people fleeing Ukraine until March 2028 -but excluding men who would be eligible for the military.  

• Portugal: 500 far-right activists gathered near Porto to discuss “remigration”, which goes further than proposals for mass deportations of undocumented people or asylum seekers, instead calling for the removal of citizens of immigrant origin to ensure white majorities. Former US Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino appeared at the event, which also included politicians from Spain’s Vox and Germany’s AfD.

• Spain: On a tour, Pope Leo argued that “all of us are migrants” as he praised the power of integration, adding: “Yesterday’s foreigner may be today’s brother and neighbour.”

• US/ Europe: US war secretary Pete Hegseth has been accused of desecrating the memory of soldiers who liberated France after he used the D-Day landings anniversary to argue Europe was now facing a different “invasion” of its shores.

CLIMATE, NATURE, AND THE FUTURE OF MIGRATION

• World: Climate-related disasters are the leading cause of displacement worldwide, according to a Turkish academic at Bogazici University's Climate Change and Policy Research Center.

• Focusing on Europe-bound migration from Senegal, a new Nature paper combines individual immigration records with weather data to understand whether climatic stress increases the likelihood of family reunification at the destination, a potential signal for permanent settlement. Findings indicate a positive correlation between severe drought and reunification.  

• Nature also has a decades-long study out on how human migration has shaped population structure, labour markets and social policy globally. 

• A new HBO documentary, The Welcome Table, argues that the climate emergency is inseparable from empire, capitalism, and the fight for universal freedom of movement.

• Zimbabwe: Harare is cracking down on informal settlements in the country’s eastern highlands, which have become a refuge for internally displaced people leaving drought-stricken regions.

• France: The first French “climate refugees” are here, claims L’Opinion, as communities on the French island of Miquelon—just south of Canada’s Newfoundland—will be relocated due to the impacts of coastal erosion and climate change.

• As a climate-linked European heatwave sends temperatures in mainland France into the high forties, people sleeping rough or in informal camps are battling potentially lethal temperatures - including nearly a thousand people migrating in Paris. 

• US: A Guardian feature notes that the US is shutting its doors harder than ever to people fleeing environmental hazards at the point where more such people are emerging.