- In March, the Mixed Migration Center published a report titled : “Beyond Restrictions: How Migration and Smuggling Adapt to Changing Policies across the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and English Channel”. Through this research, the organisation analyses the evolution of so-called irregular migration and human trafficking since 2023, focusing on arrival figures, demand for irregular routes and traffic economics.
- On 20 March, an informal meeting was held in the Netherlands between EU states in favour of strict anti-migration measures, attracting more and more members, with 14 participants compared to 8 in December. The leaders urged the European Commission to speed up negotiations on the rules on the return of failed asylum seekers and to establish bilateral agreements to establish detention camps in third countries.
- On 18 March, Oxfam & Egala (a Polish NGO that provides humanitarian aid) published a report listing numerous testimonies from people working for Egala as well as migrants at the Polish-Belarusian border. This report documents the impacts of the repressive, illegal and dehumanizing policies put in place at this border.
- A week after the presentation of the return regulation, Ursula von der Leyen unveiled, in a letter to European leaders, the main lines of the EU’s migration policy. She confirmed that Frontex’s mandate would be reviewed in 2026 with the aim of strengthening its role in returns. The Commission also plans to digitise the management of returns and to expand the Frontex standing corps, with a target of 30,000 agents by 2027. In addition, the EU is setting up a European list of “safe countries of origin” to speed up asylum procedures. Ursula Von der Leyen insists on a swift implementation of the Migration Pact and announces additional funding of €3 billion to support Member States in this context.
- On 13 March, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ordered Hungary to correct the gender status of an Iranian transgender man in its asylum register, after he was registered as a woman despite his male gender identity. The CJEU clarified that a Member State cannot refuse to rectify data related to a person’s lived gender identity. According to European law, it is “the gender identity lived and not the one assigned at birth” that makes it possible to identify an individual, also known as the “right to self-determination”.
- On 13 March, in Poland, the Senate approved a bill allowing the government to temporarily restrict asylum rights in response to the “instrumentalisation” of migration by Belarus and Russia. Although the law has been widely supported by parliamentarians, it faces strong opposition from civil society.
- On 12 March, members of the Czech Republic’s government presented a series of measures aimed at limiting asylum applications, speeding up deportation procedures and strengthening the monitoring of asylum seekers. They want these measures to be implemented before the end of April.
- On 11 March, the European Commission presented a proposal to expel so-called irregular migrants, entitled “A common system for the return of illegally staying third-country nationals”. The regulation provides for the creation of return centres in non-EU countries, the application of security checks earlier in the deportation process and strict rules for those considered “at risk”. This revision, which did not involve civil society organisations, is part of a shift to the right in the EU, favouring strict and xenophobic solutions to immigration.
