Brief description:

This project investigates the situation of irremovable migrants in the UK and Germany from a socio-legal perspective. The number of migrants caught in situations of unreturnability has risen over the past years. Statistically speaking most deportations fail, as confirmed by recent data from the EU Commission according to which only 21% of return decisions were enforced in the year 2021.
Faced with the impossibility of enforcing removals, states have resorted to alternative means of 'managing' situations of unreturnability. While these exact approaches differ from state to state, they seem to pursue a shared objective, which is to indirectly induce the return of irremovable migrants through the creation of a hostile environment.
This project will examine state responses to situations of unreturnability in the UK and Germany from an empirical perspective. In particular, the project will zoom in on their impact on migrants' rights. In a final step, the project will question the legality of these approaches under international human rights law.



Deportations are contentious and complicated. Statistically speaking most deportations fail, as confirmed by recent data from the EU Commission according to which only 21% of return decisions were enforced in the year 2021.

Germany: Of 23.337 planned deportations only 12.945 were carried out in 2022. A similar phenomenon can be observed at supranational level, where EU-wide statistics record a considerable discrepancy between the number of people that were formally ordered to leave and the actual number of returns. According to the EU Commission only 21% of return decisions were enforced in the year 2021. A similar development can be observed in the UK, where the number of both enforced and voluntary returns have fallen every year since 2013. At the same time, the number of asylum applications has remained high, with rejected asylum seekers becoming trapped in limbo.

Methodology:

Keywords: comparative legal analysis, Deportation, EU Return Directive, Germany, Human Rights, Removal, Return Deficit, united kingdom, socio-legal, nonremovability

Home University:

University of Bristol

Faculty:

School of Law

Supervisor: Diego Acosta Arcarazo

Added to catalogue on: 30-04-2023

Additional information: