European Court Allows Deportation of asylum seekers
(9 years ago)The European Union's highest court has established a law obliging refugees to seek asylum in the first country they enter applies even under extraordinary circumstances. The case, set up by Austria and Slovenia, could affect the future of hundreds of people reached in the bloc during the immigrant crisis [...]
The European Union's highest court has established a law obliging refugees to seek asylum in the first country they enter applies even under extraordinary circumstances.
The case, set up by Austria and Slovenia, could affect the future of hundreds of people reached in the bloc during the 2015-2016 immigrant crisis. The decision, namely, involved two Afghan and a Syrian families who applied for asylum after leaving Croatia.
The court says it is Croatia's responsibility to decide on their case. The crisis peaked during the summer of 2015, when a million immigrants and refugees traveled through the Western Balkans. Under so-called “Dublin regulations”, refugees must seek asylum in the first EU country they enter.
But the German suspended “Dublin regulation” for Syrian refugees, halting deportations to countries from which they had come. By August 2015, hundreds and sometimes thousands of people entered Austria every day, first through Hungary and then through Slovenia.
Many wanted to travel to Germany, but some 90 thousand people applied for asylum in Austria - the equivalent of 1 percent of its population. Among them were two Afghan sisters and their children who entered the Austrian border in February 2016.
According to their lawyer, they had entered Austria by means of hired transport and organised by the Austrian government and other governments.
But unlike many other Afghans, they were not given asylum. Austrian authorities decided to be deported to Croatia, their entry point under Dublin regulation. The sisters sent the case to the European Court of Justice, along with a Syrian citizen in Slovenian, in a similar situation. And the court decided that crossing the Croatian border on their part should be considered irregular based on the framework of “Dublin”.
Only because an EU state allows non-European citizens to enter its territory on humanitarian grounds is this authorisation not valid in other EU countries. The decision, according to experts, will affect hundreds of asylum seekers.