On 11 March 2025, the European Commission unveiled its so-called “Return Regulation.” In reality, this is a Deportation Regulation that expands detention (including in offshore sites), fuels racial profiling, and strips away rights.
The regulation will push more people into irregularity and legal limbo, denying them healthcare and basic rights, and exposing them to destitution, homelessness, exploitation, or prolonged detention.
Today, we’ve signed a joint statement rejecting the new regulation alongside more than 200 organisations. We’re rejecting it because of three core issues:
- Deportations without ties: the proposal allows people to be deported to countries they’ve never set foot in. Families and communities would be torn apart, with lives pushed into danger and limbo.
- Expansion of detention: detention could be extended up to 24 months – even for children.
- Surveillance and punishment: this system should be focused on care. However, from racial profiling and raids, to GPS tagging and phone surveillance, to punishing people for being “uncooperative” – this is instead about control.
Deportation can’t be the cornerstone of migration policy. Communities need protection, housing, healthcare and education, not surveillance and fear.
We urge the Commission to withdraw the proposal, and the European Parliament and Council to reject this Regulation and to invest instead in policies that uphold dignity, strengthen inclusion, and allow all people to live safely regardless of status.
You can read the full statement, available in several translations, below.
See the full list of signatories here.
