The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, warns that externalised asylum and migration policies must be carefully designed to avoid serious human rights risks. His report highlights how transferring asylum, return, and border control functions to other countries can expose migrants to torture, arbitrary detention, and collective expulsions. Particular risks arise in the external processing of asylum claims, return procedures including “return hubs,” and outsourcing of border control. The Commissioner calls on states to adopt precautionary approaches, safeguard vulnerable people, and ensure transparency and accountability.

In this report (which is available in Dutch and French) Myria analyses the broader migration context. It argues against pushbacks and for more legal pathways for people in need of protection.

This report critically reviews the Belgian policy on return, detention and removal of foreign nationals and presents recent figures. Just like Myria's latest migration report, the report focuses on issues related to the right to family life of persons in detention. Myria formulates recommendations to improve the respect for the human rights of those persons. 

This paper, which is entitled 'The EU’s New Migration Partnership with Mali: Shifting towards a Risky Security-Migration-Development Nexus', seeks to understand why and how the EU has been redefining its migration strategy regarding Mali.

This study provides insight into the decision-making process of migrant families in family locations in the Netherlands, whose legal remedies in most cases have been exhausted, but nevertheless decide not to return.

This publication takes stock of recent EU developments in the area of asylum, borders and external cooperation on migration.

This new policy brief offers a critical analysis of the reignited trend of externalised EU migration policies that appear to be moving towards a model of offshore processing, as used by Australia. By looking at the proposed CEAS reform, it lays out the fundamental concerns connected with the use of such a model and notes the flaws in the economic and “migration management” justifications for offshoring.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has been producing world migration reports since 2000. This year’s edition presents key data and information on migration as well as thematic chapters on highly topical migration issues.

The International Migration Report 2017 reviews the latest migration trends, assesses the demographic contribution of migration, examines the status of ratification of relevant conventions and summarizes recent developments on migration at the United Nations. 

Myria (the Belgian Federal Migration Centre - an independent public body analyzing migration policies) has released its fifth MyriaDoc on Return, Detention and Removal of Foreigners in Belgium (2017).

This study by the Ethical Journalism Network and the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) aims to understand the prevailing media narratives on migration in different national contexts. It looks at their strengths and shortcomings, and provides some insight into the interplay between editorial lines, political narratives, journalistic approaches and public discourse.

This report provides a broad overview of recent trends in international migration flows and migration policies in OECD countries and some non-OECD countries.

What image do irregular migrants and their representatives have of voluntary return? Is voluntary return well-known? These topics are the focus of a study carried out by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL).

This study aims to identify the conditions that influence the decisions by refugees in protracted displacement regarding return to their home country: when, why and by whom are decisions on return and other coping strategies made?

In this new policy brief of the Migration Policy Centre (MPC), Luigi Achilli describes the situation of Syrian refugees registered with UNHCR in Jordan, the European approach and the changing attitude of the government of Jordan.

In this dissertation to obtain the degree of Doctor at Maastricht University, Marieke van Houte shows that the expectations on which migration and development policies are based only apply to a small minority of returnees, who are not the group that is targeted by these policies.

The study was conceived and commissioned as part of the Australian Government Department of Immigration and Border Protection’s Irregular Migration Research Programme and supported by the IOM and is one of the largest comparative projects on this topic in recent years.

The annual "activity report" 2013 of the Immigration Office is available.

This very first edition of the IOM Brussels Country Office (CO) Year Report will give you a brief overview of activities undertaken in 2012 allowing a focus on specific areas of interest linked to the Belgian and Luxembourg migration context and more broadly to the European and global context.

This publication focuses on Brazilian migrants who have resided in Belgium and who
returned to Brazil through the system of voluntary return. The thesis investigates if and how
these returnees become actors of development in their home region in Brazil.

The Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration (AVRR) 2011 Annual Report outlines IOM’s work carried out during 2011 in the areas of AVRR and `Post-Arrival and Reintegration Assistance` (PARA).

The REAB Annual Report 2011 gives an overview of developments and latest trends regarding stakeholders, assistance and approaches addressing the return and reintegration of migrants. It offers a basis for further recommendations on AVRR and return management, more particularly in Belgium.

This study provides an insight into the variety of transnational practices developed by people of Chinese, Congolese, Moroccan and Turkish origin residing in Belgium.

The annual report for 2011 Fedasil on developments in the field of voluntary return provides insight into the voluntary return programs, and a summary of the developments regarding the additional reintegration support as well as future prospects.

In this new publication, M. Maes, M.-C. Foblets and Ph. De Bruycker provide an analysis of the dynamic relationship of the external dimensions of EU asylum and migration policies.