Dunja Mijatovic, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, is demanding that the national governments of the European Union release migrants from detention and back into the general population as a coronavirus (COVID-19) prevention measure.
Last week, Mijatovic said in a statement that EU member states should “release [migrants]to the maximum extent possible,” given that “immigration detention facilities generally provide poor opportunities for social distancing and other measures to protect against Covid-19 infection for migrants and staff.”
Mijatovic also noted that Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom had already released migrants as a result of the pandemic. She observed that holding migrants in detention facilities is only lawful under human rights treaties when it is certain that detainees will eventually be returned to their homelands. Since that’s no longer possible in many cases given the travel restrictions imposed in response to the pandemic, migrant detention is no longer defensible on legal grounds.
Mijatovic offered no suggestions as to what should be done with the migrants once they’re released, however, other than emphasizing that they need to be given access to accommodations, basic services, and healthcare.
In Belgium, one of the countries Mijatovic praises, The Brussels Times has observed that such an approach essentially releases people whose actual identities and criminal histories are unknown into society without any way to track where they will go. “In such cases, the sans-papiers, as they are known, are not forcibly placed on a flight to their homeland, but simply allowed to go out of the front door of the detention centre. It is to be expected that many will disappear into clandestinity. Since they are without papers, tracing them from now on will be difficult if not impossible,” they wrote.
In some countries, including Germany and Hungary, detained migrants have in some cases been violently protesting against being quarantined due to the pandemic. In a migrant center in Suhl, Germany last month, migrants attacked police, took a child hostage, and even waved an ISIS flag in defiance of their quarantine order, as previously reported by Voice of Europe.
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