The European Commission on March 11 proposed allowing member states to set up deportation centers in non-European Union countries for migrants whose asylum claims have been rejected.

For decades, countries in the bloc have struggled to expel asylum seekers whose claims were denied, both from their national territories and the European Union as a whole.

“The European Union has some of the highest asylum standards in the world. ... But this is not sustainable if people who don’t have the right abuse the system,” Magnus Brunner, EU commissioner for internal affairs and migration, said at a press conference at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on March 11.

“Today, only about one in five people who are told to leave the EU actually leave. Our societies cannot and will not tolerate this. In a European system, it needs to be clear that when someone is issued a return decision, they are actually being told to leave not just that country, but the entire European Union.”

The new proposal, titled the Common European System for Returns, aims to address the problem by sending the migrants to so-called return hubs in countries outside of the EU while they await deportation proceedings. Unaccompanied minors would not be sent to the hubs.

The EU is seeking to create common regulations across the bloc so that an order instructing a migrant to leave one member state will be considered an expulsion from the entire bloc.

The proposal, which still requires approval from the European Parliament and EU member states, is part of the Pact on Migration and Asylum adopted in 2024.

It would also allow states to detain individuals for up to two years if they were deemed to pose a security risk.

For the proposal to work, the EU needs countries of origin to readmit their citizens. Brunner acknowledged that the commission and member states are still working on improving that.

Brunner noted that any deal would have to provide safeguards to ensure that international law and human rights are respected.

The EU would not set up or manage the proposed centers, which could be located in European countries outside the bloc or farther afield. It would create the legal framework for member states to negotiate with non-EU countries willing to house rejected asylum seekers.

The scheme bears similarities to an existing deal between Italy and Albania to offshore asylum processing for migrants rescued at sea, although legal challenges in Italian courts have blocked it.

Under the five-year, 670 million euro ($730 million) agreement between Italy and Albania, up to 3,000 migrants intercepted by the Italian coast guard in international waters each month can be held in Albania, where they will be vetted for asylum in Italy or sent back to their countries of origin.

Italy has agreed to take those migrants granted asylum, but any whose applications fail will be deported directly from Albania.

A maximum of 36,000 people can be dispatched each year, so long as they have come from the list of countries classified as safe.

The plan was applauded by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in December 2023 as an “out-of-the-box” solution to managing irregular migration.

European Commission Executive Vice President Henna Virkkunen, who presented the new migration reform alongside Brunner, described the proposal as tough but fair, saying it would encourage migrants to leave voluntarily before they had to be forcibly removed.

Migrant advocacy groups lambasted the proposal, saying it undermined the right to asylum and would lead to more detentions.

Silvia Carta, advocacy officer for the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, said the proposal applies a “discriminatory and punitive approach to any person in an irregular situation.”

“There is no consideration of measures that could truly foster social inclusion and regularization,” Carta said. “Instead, we can likely expect more people being locked up in immigration detention centers across Europe, families separated, and people sent to countries they don’t even know.”

Eve Geddie, director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office, said the measures will increase national costs in national budgets.

“The European Commission has caved to the unworkable, expensive and inhumane demands of a few shrill anti-human rights and anti-migration governments,” Geddie said. “This punitive, detention- and enforcement-based approach will only increase the costs in national budgets and most crucially, the suffering of people whose rights are restricted and violated.”

Migration has been a controversial issue in numerous elections across Europe, where parties pushing for stricter migration policies in Germany, Austria, Italy, and France have had success at the ballot box.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.