EU ‘Deportation Regulation’: a massive expansion of immigration detention

Guest post by Galatea Scotti and Chiara Catelli. Galatea is a social anthropologist and PhD researcher at the University of Birmingham. Her doctoral research examines life after deportation in Ghana through an ethnographic and participatory approach, focusing on social relations, masculinity, temporality, and acts of resistance. She has worked in the migration sector for over a decade in roles spanning support work, research, advocacy, and policy analysis.

Chiara is a Project and Advocacy Officer at the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants. Her work focuses on migration and return policies, including through the involvement in several Horizon projects. She has previously worked on migration, asylum and human rights at the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, the European Parliament and the European Commission. This blog post is part of a two-part series on the expansion of detention and surveillance under the EU Return Regulation.

The European Commission launched its proposal in March 2025 for a new EU ‘Return Regulation’, as part of a series of reforms pushed through the European Parliament at “break-neck speed” over the last year.

The Return Regulation has been presented as a means to make returns more effective and “to simplify and speed up procedures” across the EU. However, it has raised countless concerns among civil society organisations, human rights bodies and members of academia. The new regulation aims to expand the grounds and prolong the use of immigration detention – including for children – while ramping up deportations for people without a valid residence permit in the EU. This includes using questionable US-style externalisation practices. Meanwhile, it introduces a range of surveillance-based measures framed as “alternatives to detention” (ATDs), which effectively risk replicating detention outside its formal facilities.

Read alongside the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, which became applicable from June 2026, the Return Regulation embodies a broader EU migration-management culture increasingly reliant on control, detention, and removal.

Brussels-based organisation, The Platform for International Cooperation for Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), has highlighted the potential human rights violations caused by this regulation. PICUM dubbed the Return Regulation the “Deportation Regulation,” given the deeply punitive and coercive nature of the legislation. This stance informs this two-part series, which focuses on how the new regulation paves the way for the expansion of detention and surveillance.

More reasons to detain

The ‘Deportation Regulation’ significantly expands the grounds for immigration detention (Article 29) compared to the 2008 Return Directive. The earlier directive limited detention primarily to cases involving a risk of absconding, based on a shorter list of circumstances, and/or the obstruction of return procedures.

The new regulation adds grounds for immigration detention, including: 

• being considered a security risk; 
• to verify identity and nationality; 
• non-compliance with the obligation to cooperate set out in article 18 in the agreed text; 
• “other relevant grounds related to return provided for in national law”. 

It is not specified how any of these grounds and risks (e.g. absconding, hampering return and security risk) are to be assessed, which raises concerns about the potential for arbitrary detention at the national level. By adding grounds for detention that are vaguely defined (e.g. “other relevant grounds related to return provided for in national law”), the regulation risks leading to broad interpretations and inconsistent application across EU member states. It also weakens some existing safeguards under the 2008 directive, for instance by no longer explicitly requiring the immediate release of a person where detention is found to be unlawful.

The regulation also introduces an expanded list of criteria based on which third-country nationals may be presumed to present a risk of absconding (Article 19), which is itself a ground for detention. People may be considered at risk of absconding – and therefore be detained – where there is an absence of “social anchoring”, such as a lack of stable housing, family connections or financial resources. This approach risks effectively criminalising poverty and social exclusion. Similarly controversial is paragraph 2(c), which broadly provides that detention can be justified when “departure is imminent and there are reasons to believe that the third-country national intends to violate the obligation to cooperate”, without clearly specifying how these reasons are to be assessed. This leaves considerable room for interpretation at national level.

The ‘Deportation Regulation’ – alongside the EU Pact on Asylum and Migration – has consolidated a tendency in EU legislation whereby punitive and restrictive migration measures are justified through appeals to “security” or “public order”. PICUM has emphasised that this has concrete consequences for people navigating migration and asylum procedures, since it reinforces associations between migration and criminality or security threats, increases legal uncertainty and discrimination, while reducing prospects for regularisation and integration in society. A person is considered to pose a security risk if there are “clear indications” that they intend to commit an offence (Article 13), yet such determinations rely on weak and speculative assessments. The new detention grounds are part of this wider shift: they give EU member states more scope to use deprivation of liberty in response to perceived and loosely described risks.

Longer detention periods 

The EU co-legislators also agreed to increase the maximum period of detention from 18 months under the 2008 Directive to 24 months (Article 30). In some circumstances – including when there is a perceived risk of absconding and “a reasonable prospect of removal” – detention can be applied for a further six months, making the total duration up to 30 months. This is not simply a technical extension: it means that people could spend two and a half years (or more under certain circumstances) in immigration detention.

Paragraph 3 also provides that if a situation arises where the undocumented person goes to another EU member state after a period of detention, a new period of detention can be applied. This is particularly concerning as it can result in a cumulative effect, thereby prolonging the overall duration of detention even further. 

Indefinite detention for people posing a security risk 

The most serious concern arises for people considered to pose a security risk: the regulation provides no maximum period of detention in these cases. Instead, detention may be extended beyond the general time limit through successive judicially authorised extensions, subject to periodic judicial review. In practice, this creates a risk of open-ended, potentially indefinite detention for people presumed to pose a security risk.

Harsher detention conditions

Detention conditions will become harsher (Article 32). The new ‘Deportation Regulation’ weakens several key safeguards put in place by the 2008 directive, by both diluting the language and removing important protections. For instance:

• it creates a new provision restricting access to open spaces for a limited period of time in order “to ensure a well-functioning detention facility”; 
• it allows member states to restrict external actors (including family members, legal representatives, consular authorities, representatives of NGOs) from accessing detention facilities if it is “objectively necessary” due to "security, public order or administrative" reasons;
• it allows the placement of people deemed to pose a security risk under “enhanced security arrangements” and “stricter separation measures” within the detention facilities. Taken together with the new measures allowing for indefinite detention of people posing a security risk, there is a real possibility that some people may be left in isolation, and without a clear end. 

These new provisions risk exacerbating the harsh conditions already documented by PICUM and its member organisations under the current legal framework. These include inadequate access to information and interpretation, insufficient medical and psychosocial care, isolation, and the detention of people whose vulnerabilities are aggravated by detention, including people with mental health conditions, disabilities or past experiences of trauma. 

Spanish and Belgian civil society organisations have reported cases where people with mental health issues were placed in solitary confinement, further deteriorating their conditions. PICUM and its members have also documented practical barriers to accessing legal assistance and information in detention, as well as restrictions on communication with the outside world. In Belgium, for example, detainees must pay for phone calls themselves, which can make maintaining contact with family, lawyers and support organisations difficult. 

These existing shortcomings are particularly concerning in light of the new regulation's weaker safeguards. Those who are already struggling to access healthcare, communicate with lawyers or maintain contact with support networks could be particularly vulnerable to further restrictions on outdoor access, external contact and separation under enhanced security arrangements.

Considered collectively, the new provisions signify a systematic and disproportionate extension of detention and worsening of its conditions compared to existing measures under the 2008 directive. 

By exploiting opaque and vague language while eroding basic guarantees, the ‘Deportation Regulation’ will lead to further human rights violations, lack of transparency and the expansion of an increasingly ineffective yet lucrative detention industry at the expense of people’s rights, reinforcing practices already widespread in EU member states.

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