Lesvos Situation Report January – June 2025

Legal Centre Lesvos, a Migreurop member, published a report on the situation in Lesvos during the first six months of the year. You can find the report below.

The first half of 2025 has seen an intensification of anti-migrant rhetoric and policy in Lesvos and across Greece, marked by the appointment of Makis Voridis as Migration Minister on 15 March. Voridis, with a long history of far-right affiliations including leadership in the youth wing of the neo-fascist EPEN party, quickly confirmed expectations of an aggressively racist, illegal, and xenophobic agenda, announcing that “those who are not eligible for asylum … must face pushbacks”, and introduced new anti-migrant legislation to the Parliament, to extend the time migrants can be held in administrative detention, criminalise illegal stay after rejection decisions, and remove a path to residency for undocumented people who previously could apply for residency with a job offer. While not yet law, the proposed legislation leaves thousands in legal limbo, including several LCL clients with pending applications for residency.

Voridis’ tenure ended abruptly on 27 June 2025, after he was named in an investigation by the European Public Prosecutor in a case of falsified land claims and millions of Euros in fraud during his time as Agricultural Minister. His successor, Thanos Plevris, is also known for his extremist and racist positions, including public statements that “border security cannot exist without casualties, to be clear, if there are no deaths”. In his inaugural address, Plevris openly stated that people entering Greece without authorisation will have only two options: return or be sent to prison, and he declared - in violation of Greek and international law - that no one entering irregularly would be allowed to request asylum. Prime Minister Mitsotakis echoed this in March, saying “if someone enters [Greece] illegally, they will have to know that we will do everything in our power to return them to their country of origin.”

As covered in this report, the change in ministers did not represent a shift in policy, but rather a continuation and entrenchment of the Greek state’s racist and violent migration regime. Greece’s border policies in Lesvos continue to violate basic rights in Lesvos: migrants face deadly violence at the border, degrading conditions in the camp, surveillance, evictions, denial of EU-funded assistance, and arbitrary delays of Syrian asylum applications. New legislation and administrative tactics, such as reinstating Turkey as a “safe third country” despite court rulings, perpetuate legal uncertainty. The planned Vastria Closed Controlled Access Centre (CCAC) in Lesvos, backed by EU funds, exemplifies this trend, reinforcing detention and deportation as central pillars of migration policy.

Despite this political climate, significant wins have been achieved through legal and grassroots resistance. In Lesvos, three LCL clients facing charges of smuggling and causing a shipwreck were acquitted, and three of the Moria 6 were exonerated in a retrial. The call for justice in Pylos continues, linked to broader movements for justice in the Tempi train disaster and the Israeli genocide in Palestine. Significantly, 17 Hellenic Coast Guard officers—including senior command—have been criminally charged for the June 2023 Pylos shipwreck, marking a rare step toward accountability for state-led border violence. Meanwhile, growing solidarity with criminalised Sudanese men and boys in Crete has led to increased public awareness and improved access to legal aid for those targeted by these prosecutions.