The European Parliament’s civil liberties committee has approved a new “return regulation” that could see migrant families and minors detained for up to two years, a move critics compare to U.S. ICE-style enforcement. Supported by a coalition of center-right and far-right MEPs, the bill facilitates the “Albania model” of processing asylum seekers in facilities outside the EU and introduces a digitally-driven surveillance system including GPS tagging and phone seizures. While proponents argue the measure is necessary to fix a system where only one-in -five of deportation orders are currently executed, opponents dismiss this statistic as misleading.
Date: March 10, 2026. Source: euobserver.com