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Press Review September 2026

 Tunisia

More than 4,000 IOM-assisted ‘voluntary returns’ have been recorded since January 2026. In Tunisia, these disguised expulsions are multiplying under pressure from racism, violence and very harsh living conditions for people on the move from sub-Saharan Africa. This climate of violence and racism is fuelled by Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed who, since February 2023, has used xenophobic terminology inciting hatred of Black people and presenting them as a threat to society [1]. Meanwhile, the Tunisian authorities are running an opaque ‘returns’ programme: people are reportedly being detained for months in a camp near Sfax, and pushbacks to Libya have been denounced. Three years after the EU-Tunisia memorandum of understanding - in which the European Union committed to paying more than €100 million to Tunisia, part of which is intended for border control and the expulsion of people on the move [2], more than 40 NGOs denounce racist violence, arbitrary detention and collective expulsions, and hold the European Union complicit in these violations of rights.

Indeed, by making the facilitation of expulsions a pillar of this cooperation, the EU bears political responsibility for the deterioration of the situation of people on the move in Tunisia, a direct consequence of its policy of externalisation.

 Gambia

In late August 2026, more than 1,000 people were rescued at sea within a week by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), after attempting to reach the Canary Islands from The Gambia. In recent years, the formal and informal agreements concluded between the European Union, Spain and Mauritania, Morocco and Senegal have helped to gradually shift migration routes southwards. Gambia has thus become the main departure point for the Atlantic route, which now stretches almost 2,000 km and is among the longest and most dangerous in the world. At the beginning of September, more than 80 people had already died on this route after leaving Gambia in pirogues.

Shipwrecks on the Canary Islands route cannot be dissociated from the migration partnerships between the European Union and West African countries, which are part of a European policy of externalisation of border control aimed at preventing people on the move from reaching European territory [3]. In Mauritania, the partnership concluded with the EU in 2024, worth €210 million, notably strengthens border control and interception capacities targeting people on the move [4]. In Senegal, the EU devoted €30 million to migration control in October 2024. These measures reinforce coastal controls, roundups and mass expulsions, forcing departure points ever further south, towards Gambia and Guinea, which lengthens crossings and increases the risks of shipwreck and disappearance.

 Libya

According to the Gezira Human Rights Observatory, around 1,900 Sudanese nationals (including women and children) are reportedly currently detained in several camps in Libya, notably in Benghazi and Tobruk, without a legal basis and in conditions marked by a lack of food, water and access to healthcare. Despite years of accumulated damning evidence of violence, arbitrary detention, torture, exploitation and slavery in Libya, documented notably by Refugees in Libya and international organisations, the European Union and its Member States continue to support the mechanisms that make it possible to intercept people on the move and return them to Libya. Thus, the 2017 Italy-Libya memorandum of understanding [5] was renewed again in February 2026, and since 2017, the EU has financed, trained and equipped the so-called Libyan coastguard, and has provided technical support to the Libyan department for ‘combating illegal immigration’ in managing the camps and prisons where people on the move are locked up. The ruling handed down on 31 March 2026 by the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal highlights, in Libya, a system combining interceptions at sea, pushbacks, confinement, torture, trafficking and exploitation, made possible and sustainable by European cooperation.

 Croatia

The Croatian Interior Minister has called for a stronger presence of the European agency Frontex on the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, claiming that 95% of people on the move arriving on its territory via the Western Balkans route cross at this border. The Italian, Slovenian and Croatian interior ministers thus met on 22 September 2026 in Pordenone, Italy, to tighten cooperation between their three countries on border control.

The reinforcement of Frontex’s mission contributes to the growing militarisation of the Bosnian-Croatian border, which has become a heavily surveilled area upstream of the Schengen area. Since Croatia joined the EU, and then Schengen, the human, technological and financial resources devoted to fortifying this border have increased considerably, notably turning Bosnia and Herzegovina into a ‘filtering airlock’ [6] for mobility towards the EU. Frontex’s deployment in Bosnia and Herzegovina continues this dynamic: the status agreement between the European Union and Bosnia and Herzegovina on Frontex’s operational activities concluded in 2025 allows the agency to conduct joint operations across all of the country’s borders, and more than 100 Frontex officers have been deployed there as early as October 2025 [7].

 France

The ‘one in, one out’ agreement between France and the United Kingdom expires on 1 October 2026, having been extended in June. The British Home Secretary regretted that the scheme had not reached the ‘hoped-for pace’, suggesting that more expulsions to France would have been welcome. Since its implementation, 1,500 people who crossed the Channel to the United Kingdom have been returned to France, while 1,500 people who applied for asylum in France have been admitted to the United Kingdom. For the French Interior Minister, the agreement is not intended to be renewed, as France should not have to bear its implementation alone. A similar scheme could nevertheless be considered between the United Kingdom and the European Union.

This latest Franco-British agreement is part of a policy of externalisation of migration control that began with the Le Touquet agreements (2003), which moved part of the British border controls onto French territory. This trend was continued by the Treaty of Sandhurst (2018), renewed in April 2026, which provides for up to €766 million of British funding to strengthen control measures in France [8]. The consequences of this externalisation are documented, with Samu Social notably noting an increase in the physical and psychological violence inflicted in the British camps on people on the move expelled from the United Kingdom to France under the ‘one in, one out’ agreement [9]. In addition to aerial surveillance, Frontex vessels are deployed in the Channel [10], and the report of 25 March 2026 by the association Border Forensics shows more broadly that the tightening of policies aimed at preventing departures has contributed to making Channel crossings more dangerous and to increasing deaths since 2023 [11]. The ‘one in, one out’ agreement turns access to protection into an exchange mechanism and trades in human lives [12], and should not be taken as a model for negotiations between the European Union and the United Kingdom.

 Italy

On 30 September, Italy extended for the third time, by a further 15 days, the suspension of the free movement of people with Spain. This measure was introduced on 1 August in response to the events of 30 and 31 July in Ceuta [13]. Madrid denounces this decision, recalling that in 2023, when large numbers of people on the move arrived in Lampedusa, Italy benefited from European solidarity. In response, Spain decided in turn to extend by a further 15 days the checks on travellers arriving from Italy. Domestically, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi announces the acceleration of the creation of new detention centres (CPR - Centri di Permanenza per il Rimpatrio ), with six new facilities planned in several Italian regions. The Italian government also welcomes the more than 6,500 expulsions carried out since the beginning of the year and expects a record number of expulsions in 2026.

The Italian position is not without precedent: like eight other European Union Member States since 2015, Italy had already reinstated controls at its internal borders for nearly half of 2024 [14]. The recourse to suspending the free movement area, along with the creation of new camps intended for the expulsion of people on the move in Italy, reflects one and the same dynamic: an ever greater restriction of mobility for people on the move, at the external and internal borders of the EU, and within the Member States themselves.

 Spain - Ceuta

On 29 September, King Felipe VI of Spain stated that managing the situation in Ceuta was the responsibility of the whole European Union. In his view, the Member States that border the external frontiers of the Schengen area cannot bear alone the consequences of migratory movements, and must benefit from strengthened cooperation and resources. This statement comes two months after the arrival of around 70,000 people in the enclave of Ceuta. In this context, the Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is considering amending national asylum rules in order to push back more quickly those who have arrived on Spanish territory.

The events in Ceuta have indeed revealed the limits of responsibility-sharing between Member States. The European Pact on Migration and Asylum, applicable across the Union since June 2026, provides, in the event of large and exceptional arrivals at European borders, for a mandatory solidarity mechanism with flexible arrangements, leaving Member States the option of choosing the form of their solidarity contribution, between relocations, financial contributions or operational support [15]. However, in Ceuta, this contribution took the form of financial and operational support aimed at containing migratory movements. By no means through the reception of people on the move: no sharing of responsibility (or relocation) was implemented. Member States expressed their ‘solidarity’ with Spain, welcoming the ‘management of the crisis’ through rapid returns to Morocco and insisting on the strengthening of European borders. On 9 September, the European Commission thus announced emergency aid of €114.7 million to Spain, accompanied by reinforced support from the European agencies. Thus, the events in Ceuta unsurprisingly illustrate the failure of solidarity in the reception of people on the move, owing to a lack of political will, and the victory of an entirely repressive approach.

 United Kingdom

An RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) volunteer was targeted online and subjected to hate messages after being filmed in lifesaving gear by far-right activists. They had organised a demonstration near Portsmouth harbour, after the landing of dozens of people on the move who had arrived aboard a boat that had crossed the Channel from the Baie de Seine. Refused by the ports of Portsmouth and Southampton, the boat was eventually taken to Eastney, where hundreds of protesters blocked the roads to prevent the buses from leaving after the landing. Images of the crew, which viral posts on X (more than two million cumulative views) accused of facilitating an ‘invasion’, led to harassment and threats online.

This episode illustrates the growing stigmatisation of sea rescue: RNLI lifeboat crews are now themselves targeted, accused of facilitating immigration [16]. This development is part of a broader movement of criminalisation of rescue and solidarity, which is reflected notably in the reform of the ‘facilitation’ directive. This could broaden the possibilities of prosecuting those who help people on the move [17].

The vocabulary of ‘invasion’, associated with liquid metaphors (flows, waves or even flooding), contributes to dehumanising people on the move and to casting them as threats. The spread of this rhetoric in the public sphere thus helps to legitimise ever more repressive policies of control and deterrence, exposing people on the move, as well as those who assist them, to campaigns of hate, threats and criminalisation.

 Return hubs

Denmark, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Greece want to set up ‘return hubs’ in non-EU countries to which they can expel people with no right to stay on European territory. Meeting in Copenhagen on 4 September 2026, the five States announced that they wanted to reach an agreement in principle with a third country, with Rwanda and Uganda among the options considered. These camps would be financed by European States under the new ‘Return’ Regulation adopted in June, which now authorises such extraterritorial camps. Their aim is to conclude an agreement by the end of 2026, for implementation in 2027.

After the failures of the UK-Rwanda deal [18] and the Italy-Albania deal [19], which ran up against the courts and the safeguards of European and national law [20], the European Union - far from learning the lessons - now has a new legal framework to externalise expulsions and its responsibilities, thereby posing significant risks to access to rights for people on the move, notably with regard to the principle of non-refoulement.

 European Pact on Migration and Asylum

Only three months after the European Pact on Migration and Asylum came into application, 18 European countries met in Munich on 26 September to consider further amendments to the text. Among the options discussed: making it easier to withdraw protection status, notably for people convicted of serious offences; creating a legal basis for the use of AI for interpretation during the asylum procedure, and extending the Eurodac system to data collected during screening at borders. These proposals come as several European States are preparing the creation of return hubs outside the EU, and as the mandate of the Frontex agency is about to be strengthened, factors that contribute to the hardening of European migration policies beyond what the Pact already provides.

This desire to revise the Pact only a few months after it came into application testifies to the escalation of an ever more repressive migration policy. The facilitated withdrawal of protection, the extension of Eurodac and the envisaged use of AI in asylum reinforce a logic of traceability and technological management of people on the move, at the risk of weakening their guarantees of access to protection. This security-driven escalation is also reflected in the announced strengthening of the Frontex agency: in 2024, in her re-election speech, Ursula von der Leyen proposed further increasing the agency’s staff to reach 30,000 officers in 2027 [21]. In her State of the Union speech of 16 September 2026, she announced the strengthening of Frontex’s powers and resources, notably to speed up expulsions [22]. She also plans to strengthen the agency’s cooperation with countries outside the EU, in particular on surveillance and expulsions.