In Copenhagen, five European interior ministers moved closer to a vision long debated at the edges of liberal democratic governance: detaining rejected asylum seekers not within their own borders, but in distant countries willing to serve as proxies for a process Europe finds politically inconvenient at home. The plan, targeting operational facilities by 2027, draws on precedents set by the United Kingdom and Italy — both of which discovered that the distance between political ambition and legal reality is rarely as short as ministers hope. At its heart, this is a story about how democracies m
EU pushes to finalize offshore 'return hubs' by year-end despite rights concerns
Migrants and asylum seekers, particularly children, face risks of indefinite detention, persecution, torture, and separation from family in proposed offshore centers.