Germany: End of Church Asylum?
In the first quarter of 2019, Germany recognised only 2 out of 147 cases of “church asylum”. MPs and inter-faith associations fear the disappearance of the humanitarian practice and attribute the stark decrease to stricter criteria of the Federal Office for Migration...
New Reports on Detention in the Baltics
The Global Detention Project released reports on detention of migrants and asylum seekers in Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia revealing challenges in all three Baltic States. Estonia: fails to conform to EU Return Directive by allowing for automatic detention of...
Over Four Million Refugees have Fled the Deepening Humanitarian Crisis in Venezuela
The number of refugees fleeing the worsening crisis in Venezuela has now surpassed 4 million, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Since November 2018, over 1 million people have fled the country, in part...
Legal Assistant internship
ECRE is offering two 6-month legal internships: August 2019 – January 2020. The purpose of these positions is to assist ECRE’s Legal Support and Litigation Team with legal training, legal research on specific topics relating to international protection, managing the...
Weekly Editorial: After the European Parliament Elections: What Now?
The EP elections have come and gone, and assessing the results throws up qualified positives: turnout was up… but it is still low; the far right populists have not significantly improved their position… but are still too strong. Four key conclusions and accompanying...
Back and Forth on the Med: Rescues, Deaths, Interceptions, Resistance
This week, Maltese Armed Forces rescued 370 people. Off the Libyan coast, at least two people drowned and 25 remain missing while a group of 73 was rescued and brought back to Libya. A group of 75 rescued migrants demands to go to Europe after Tunisian authorities...
Germany Rejects 75% of Greek Requests for Family Reunification
In 2019, the German Federal Office for Asylum and Migration (BAMF) rejected three quarters of requests for family reunification under the Dublin III regulation from Greece. The high rejection rate draws criticism from NGOs and MPs who say the BAMF imposes exceedingly...
France: Systematic Immigration Detention further Undermines Rights
France continues to use immigration detention routinely and broadly, according to the annual report published by six civil society organisations present in the country’s detention centres. According to statistics published by the organisations, 43,609 people were...