US, UK and Australia tighten expulsion of migrants

As The Conversation reports, researchers have noted a disturbing trend: deportations are accelerating, procedural safeguards are shrinking, and states are transferring people to third countries with which they have never been associated.

In the US, Donald Trump's administration has significantly expanded detentions and deportations. The authorities have even set up detention centres at former prisons and military facilities, including Guantanamo Bay, to implement plans for mass expulsions of people, including those without criminal records. It is reported that Washington has approached 58 states with a proposal to accept the deportees - some countries have already agreed.

In Australia, the Labour government made a secret agreement with Nauru, promising the island nation A$2.5 billion over three decades to house the first deportees. Now migrants can be sent to places they have never been.

In the UK, despite Labour's rejection of the previous government's "Rwanda Plan", some 35,000 people were deported in 2024 - 25% more than a year earlier. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has proposed setting up "return centres" in third countries for people with rejected asylum claims. Meanwhile, the far-right Reform party promises "mass deportations" with army support if it comes to power.

The European Commission unveiled a draft in May that would allow EU countries to expel asylum seekers to third countries with which they have no ties.

The authors of the article emphasise that this policy is not a novelty. Deportations have been used for centuries as a tool to remove "undesirable" groups (Australia itself was a British penal colony). But the current rise in deportations reflects the accelerated criminalisation of migration.

In recent decades, tightened visa regulations and militarised borders have forced many people fleeing war and persecution to use unauthorised routes. At the same time, governments are increasingly presenting the very pursuit of asylum not as a right but as an offence.

In the US, UK and Australia, rhetoric previously characterised by right-wing media has become the norm among politicians of different parties. This is precipitating what migration expert Alison Mountz has called the "death of asylum" and the normalisation of removals.

In Australia, for example, lowering the threshold for visa cancellation from 2014 led to people being detained even for minor offences. Those who could not be returned to their home countries remained in isolation for years. After the Supreme Court ruling in 2023, they were released, but media furore presented them as a threat to society, and the Labour government legalised deportation to third countries.

Experts say: the new measures are linked to the rise of authoritarianism in countries that position themselves as liberal. Reduced notice periods, removal of the right to appeal and access to a lawyer lead to non-transparent, expedited procedures.

In June, eight people were deported from the U.S. to South Sudan without the ability to appeal the decision. Three liberal Supreme Court justices wrote in a dissenting opinion:

"The government has made clear that it considers itself free from the law, free to deport anyone, anywhere, without notice or opportunity to be heard."

In August, the UK expanded theDeport Now Appeal Laterscheme from 8 to 23 countries. This month, Australia changed the Migration Act to remove natural justice standards for those slated for deportation.

Australian human rights lawyer Alison Battison called deportation "a creeping death for the people themselves and their families." In parallel, politicians and the media are raising the alarm, prompting extreme right-wing groups to take action against migration, substituting the causes of socio-economic problems (housing, work, medicine) with the image of a "migrant threat".

Against this background, local organisations are mobilising. In Los Angeles, self-help networks are helping people who have been raided by ICE by providing information and support. In July, Detention Watch Network relaunched Communities Not Cages, a campaign against detention centres.

In the UK, extreme right-wing actions outside refugee accommodation hotels are being met with counter-demonstrations where people advocate for a policy of hospitality and solidarity.

The authors of the article believe that the key question is how to turn local and national protests into a broad coalition capable of resisting the growing authoritarianism of exclusion and expulsion policies.