Europe has entered a new era of outsourced migration management. After a vote by the European parliament, the EU’s return regulation is nearing adoption – promising “more efficient” returns and “swifter” procedures to deport unwanted migrants. This will give countries the legal runway to set up return hubs – that is, offshore facilities to process people deemed to have no right to stay in the EU.

Despite opposition from countries such as Spain and France – and an outcry from rights groups – many other governments appear anxious to join in. An open letter signed by 19 EU member states just days after the vote at the European parliament, urging the “full use of the new possibilities”, indicates that implementation might be coming soon. Frontrunners like Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece and the Netherlands are already on the starting block, poised to establish joint hubs which are likely to become operational in short order.

These developments signal that positions once dismissed as fringe, legally untenable and driven by ideology rather than by evidence have been successfully rebranded as mainstream, commonsense governance. The deep politicisation of this shift was on full display when some MEPs chanted “Send them back” inside the European parliament during the vote, celebrating the removal of human beings with the fervour of a campaign rally. In the pursuit of ever stricter migration policies, the human rights protections that Europe was founded to uphold are increasingly treated as disposable.

The decision to pave the way for extraterritorial centres should alarm anyone familiar with the human cost of these schemes in the past. History shows........

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