They stated EU risks opening the door to increased discrimination and racial profiling in what is being described as a “potentially irreversible attack” on the international system offering asylum and refugee protection.
The director of Amnesty International’s EU office, Eve Geddie, said: “For years the EU has been trying to agree on a new system to respond to people moving or fleeing to Europe.
The agreement now on the table would in many ways worsen existing legislation, and risks increasing suffering at European borders.”
EU leaders have spent seven years trying to reform migration laws and managed to get majority support for their plans, despite objections by Hungary and Poland this year.
The laws include relocating refugees and migrants from the country of arrival, such as Italy or Greece, to the rest of the EU, with penalties of €20,000 a head for those countries who refuse to receive their share.
One of the objections relates to a new “screening” regulation under which police would be allowed to detain someone for up to five days if they do not have documents demonstrating residency or citizenship; this could lead to discrimination. If someone showed up in a town or village that did not look ‘local’ they could be questioned. Humanitarian organizations have added their voice, saying the “screening” could discriminate against millions of black or minority ethnic EU citizens travelling within the bloc. It could lead to racial profiling by police and immigration enforcement, they argue, “as anyone who looks ‘foreign’ could be stopped and checked for travel/residence documents”.
This pact reflects Europe’s obsession with deportations, based on the assumption that if you don’t qualify for international protection, then you have no right to stay in the EU. What this approach blatantly overlooks is that people move for many different reasons and may have a right to access residence permits other than those linked to asylum