Each year, thousands of migrants attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea in the hope of finding refuge in Europe. And each year, European countries use every tool in their arsenal to keep those migrants out of their borders – from bureaucratic processes to militarization, and now, increasingly, through outsourcing the control of the border itself.
In April, Italy carried out its fourth mass transfer of migrants to Albania. The Italian Navy vessel Libra, which has recently been given to Albania, docked at the port of Shëngjin with 40 migrants on board.
The deportation follows an agreement signed by Italy and Albania in November 2023: Italy would build migrant jails on Albanian soil to conduct the identification and asylum claim procedures for migrants arriving in Italy, effectively outsourcing these processes to Albania. Under the arrangement, Italian authorities would transfer migrants intercepted in international waters by Italian vessels to the newly built centers, and consider their asylum applications outside Italian territory. In exchange, Italy gave Albania an advance of 16.5 million euros, and set aside another 100 million euros as collateral, in addition to opening negotiations over energy transfer and work visas for Albanians. The agreement, the result of confidential negotiations conducted through informal administrative channels, was finalized behind closed doors without obtaining the formal status of an international treaty.
Human rights groups also decried the framework of the deal, with Amnesty International saying it was “not only dangerous in itself, but also as a potential blueprint” for similar agreements in the future. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) also stated that it has gathered testimonies from individuals rescued and assisted aboard its vessels, many of whom have endured physical violence, abuse, torture, and sexual violence. All of them, due to the realities in their countries of origin, the journey across the desert, their stay and detention in Libya or Tunisia, the sea voyage, and all experiences suffered as direct victims or witnesses, must be considered at risk of severe health consequences. The organization says that, according to the procedures of the protocol signed between Italy and Albania, the conditions on board Italian military ships and patrol boats are inadequate for a proper assessment of people’s health status, seriously increasing health risks for migrants. Nevertheless, the parliaments of both countries voted in favor of implementing the pact.
The opaque and irregular procedures underlying the agreement have inevitably led to implementation problems in addition to likely violations of human rights. Shortly after the centers in Albania opened on October 14, 2024, groups of migrants were returned to Italy on three separate occasions. The first instance occurred in October 2024, following a decision by an Italian court, which, deeming it impossible to classify the detainees’ countries of origin as “safe,” which would potentially render their transfer to Albania a potential violation of asylum law, suspended the transfer order and mandated the migrants’ return for the standard asylum claim examination process. Similar events transpired in November 2024 and in late January 2025, with the same outcome and the same justifications for the return. Each returned migrant entailed duplicated procedures and costs for Italy, in addition to the compounded suffering for those caught in this bureaucratic tug-of-war.
However, the transfer of migrants to Albania this April differed sharply from the previous ones: For the first time, the 40 men who arrived at the port of Shëngjin did not originate from international waters but directly from Italy’s Centri di Permanenza per il Rimpatrio (CPRs) — detention centers holding migrants set to be deported. This transfer was made possible by the introduction of a new law, which amended the bilateral agreement, extending the possibility of transfer to migrants already present on Italian territory and subject to deportation orders. An imposing lineup of law enforcement, with vans from Italy’s national military police (the Carabinieri) and Italy’s militarized financial police (the Guardia di Finanza), awaited the Italian vessel on the quay, ready to take the migrants bound for Albania. The scene of the men disembarking from the ship with their hands restrained by plastic zip ties caused particular dismay. “They’re getting off handcuffed,” said Member of the European Parliament Cecilia Strada, an eyewitness who arrived on site, and who has previously spoken out against both the agreement as well as Italy’s restrictive immigration policies.
Italy’s strategy of outsourcing migration flows extends to a broader network of agreements to externalize its border operations. In 2023, Italy renewed its memorandum of understanding with Libya, meant to keep migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean off of Italy’s shores. The renewal entails a further investment of 8 billion euros earmarked for strengthening the Libyan Coast Guard and the so-called “rehabilitation” of detention centers in Libya, facilities repeatedly condemned by the UN. The cooperation scheme also includes the provision of 300 new armed pick-up trucks used to forcibly push migrants away from the sea and into the desert, a practice known as desert pushbacks. The renewal of the agreement came even after the International Criminal Court found that the treatment of migrants in Libya may constitute crimes against humanity as well as war crimes – crimes in which Italy could be found to be complicit. There is plenty of accessible and verified documentation behind these claims – including harrowing video evidence of the Libyan Coast Guard shooting at and threatening migrant boats in distress as well as NGOs engaged in rescues in the Mediterranean; footage from Libyan detention camps revealing arbitrary detentions, torture and extortion; and photographs of dozens of migrant bodies abandoned to their fate in the desert.
Another manifestation of Italy’s border externalization can be seen in Tunisia. Current policies, often solidified through international agreements, aim to establish facilities or reinforce migration management capabilities in third countries. While presented as humanitarian efforts to manage migrant flows, these initiatives often mask a true intent to block departures at any cost. These practices carry serious human rights risks, with numerous reports of violence, abuse, and inhumane conditions suffered by migrants in identification centers — places where individuals are held to be identified and registered after their arrival — or prior to potential repatriation, as frequently occurs in Sfax, Tunisia. An investigation has revealed that Tunisian security forces, funded by European countries as part of their border management programs, are engaging in racial profiling of migrants, conducting pushbacks into the desert, mass arrests, and displacement campaigns based on skin color within Tunisia. As with Libya, Italy invokes “cooperation” and the “fight against trafficking” to justify agreements that, in reality, externalize anti-migrant violence. Meanwhile, traffickers have not disappeared at all; they have only adapted, raising the prices of alternative routes and multiplying the risks for those fleeing.
Italy’s approach to immigration is part of a broader strategy of the European Union (EU), aimed at outsourcing the management of its borders and the movement of people to third countries. A precursor to this trend is the “EU-Turkey Statement” of 2016. Through a significant allocation of financial resources, amounting to 6 billion euros, the EU incentivized Turkey to strengthen the control of its borders and to take back migrants who passed through Turkey in their attempt to reach Europe via Greece. Research by Amnesty International attests to Turkish returns of asylum seekers and refugees to countries with minimal or absent human rights protections, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. While the 2016 EU-Turkey agreement included nominal clauses aimed at safeguarding human rights, such as individual asylum application assessments, their practical implementation was widely challenged by human rights organizations and UN agencies. Critics focused on Turkey’s actual capacity to be considered a “safe third country” and on procedural shortcomings that compromised asylum seekers’ access to justice and guarantees, making rights protection more theoretical than real.
The EU implements these policies through a series of instruments and partnerships with various third countries, often combining financial incentives, security cooperation and technical support for border management. The “EU-Egypt Strategic Partnership” of March 2024 represents an emblematic case and saw Brussels establish a funding of 7.4 billion euros to Cairo, a significant portion of which is explicitly tied to strengthening the Egyptian border apparatus and repressing migration. The agreement fully aligns with the model that combines economic support, the transfer of know-how, and security cooperation, aiming to control migratory movements even before they reach European shores.
The impacts of this agreement on migrants are multiple and often severe. The strengthened control of Egyptian borders, made possible by European funds, translates into an increase in pushbacks, arrests, and detentions. Migrants are thus stranded in Egypt or forced to embark on even more dangerous routes, with reduced or no access to asylum procedures and heightened vulnerability to exploitation and abuse. The agreement’s lack of independent monitoring mechanisms raises significant human rights concerns in a country already known for its repressive practices. Furthermore, unlike the understanding with Turkey, which included nominal human rights clauses, the pact with Cairo focuses almost exclusively on border control, without stringent conditions for the treatment of migrants.
The European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) assumes an increasingly significant role in this strategy of border externalization. The community body ensures the coordination of transnational activities with nonmember states through the deployment of specialized units, the allocation of technological resources, and training programs dedicated to the border security forces of partner countries. Frontex’s expanding role, fueled by a continuously increasing budget and a broadened mandate, further demonstrated by recent plans to establish a standing corps of 10,000 border guards by 2027, is overshadowed by a long and documented history of human rights abuse allegations.
Numerous reports from NGOs and journalistic investigations have revealed Frontex’s alleged involvement in unlawful practices. For instance, a 2022 Lighthouse Reports investigation uncovered that Frontex was implicated in at least 22 documented pushbacks in the Aegean Sea between March 2020 and September 2021. In these cases, individuals were placed on life rafts and left adrift towards Turkey after being identified by Frontex. Similarly, Human Rights Watch documented Frontex’s complicity in abuses in Libya in 2022, through aerial surveillance that enabled the Libyan Coast Guard to intercept migrant boats, despite knowing these individuals would be returned to a country where they face arbitrary detention and torture. All these practices gravely endanger the lives and dignity of migrants.
Of course, outsourcing migration processes isn’t limited to Europe. For example, the United States, through its 2019 agreement with Mexico known as the “Remain in Mexico” program, forced over 70,000 asylum seekers, many of whom were fleeing violence and persecution, to await the outcome of their protection applications in dangerous territories that lacked essential services.
The U.S.’s recent pact with El Salvador has pushed the boundaries even further. The agreement saw the deportation of more than 230 migrants to Salvadoran territory, the majority of whom were Venezuelan. To carry out the expulsions, the Trump administration resorted to an obsolete law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, conceived for the summary expulsion of foreign citizens from “enemy” countries in wartime. Despite the fact that the law had not been applied since World War II and had been challenged by legal scholars and temporarily blocked by a federal ruling, the administration equated migrants to “invaders” to justify its use. The operation was made possible by a bilateral agreement with El Salvador which, in exchange for $6 million, allows the United States to transfer deportees to the maximum-security prison Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), a facility already condemned by the UN for torture and inhumane conditions. In this case too, local security apparatuses are financed without any guarantee of respect for human rights, fueling a humanitarian crisis that is not resolved but simply shifted out of public view.
This approach to externalization isn’t limited to El Salvador. For example, between February 12 and 15, 2025, the United States expelled 299 third-country nationals to Panama, individuals who had crossed the US-Mexico border. Panama issued these deportees 30-day “humanitarian permits,” extendable to 90, advising them to leave the country. These expulsions were condemned by Human Rights Watch as violations of international law. Additionally, there are concrete reports and concerns that the Trump administration considered similar agreements with Libya, a country in armed conflict, despite Libyan authorities denying direct talks and a federal judge already blocking deportations without due process.
In such situations, local security forces receive funding without any guarantees regarding human rights. This contributes to a humanitarian crisis that, instead of being resolved, is merely shifted out of public view.
Australia, too, has externalized its own borders since 2013, detaining migrants, including asylum seekers, in offshore centers in Nauru and Papua New Guinea, through a policy widely condemned by humanitarian organizations for its inhumane and degrading conditions, the psychological damage caused by prolonged detention, and the lack of access to rapid and fair asylum procedures.
The United Kingdom also famously attempted to relocate the asylum process with an agreement with Rwanda in 2022, envisaging the transfer of applicants for the examination of their claims. Initially blocked by the U.K. Supreme Court in November 2023, due to concerns about Rwanda’s categorization as a safe country, to get around this problem, the British government subsequently passed the “Safety of Rwanda Act 2024,” declaring the African country “safe” for the purposes of British law and border management.
The trend of wealthy countries paying poorer states, often characterized by authoritarian governments or weak judicial systems, to intercept migration flows at external borders or accommodate deportees thus externalizes their international protection responsibilities. The result is a parallel migratory system, opaque and removed from any institutional oversight, where the methodical recourse to coercive practices is the very foundation of the mechanism. From the Libyan prisons financed by the EU to the CECOT prison in El Salvador, up to the Australian detention centers in Papua New Guinea, the pattern repeats itself with disturbing regularity.
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