Spanish
More than 150 NGOs asked the European Commission on Monday to withdraw its Return Regulation proposal, considering that it criminalizes migrants instead of ensuring their protection and facilitating their inclusion.
They also urged the European Parliament and the Council (EU countries) to "reject the proposal in its current form".
Organizations reacted this way in a joint statement to a legislative proposal that the permanent representatives of the member states are scheduled to adopt this week.
That legislation, intended to replace the current Return Directive, seeks, according to the organizations that support the declaration, "detention, deportation, externalization, and punishment".
They also claim that it will "push more people" into a legal limbo and dangerous conditions."
And they believe that Brussels' position "is part of a broader shift in EU migration policy that characterizes human movement as a threat to justify exceptions to the guarantees of fundamental rights."
Among the points of the future legislation they denounce is the extension of the detention of immigrants "to unprecedented levels".
Among the signatories is the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), a network of international organizations based in Brussels that works to ensure social justice and human rights for undocumented migrants.
Silvia Carta, from PICUM, said that this regulation "will pave the way for a dystopian regime of detention and deportation, with tens of thousands of people locked up in migrant detention centers across Europe, families separated, and people sent to countries they don't even know."
The proposed regulation to establish a common system for the return of migrants, presented by the Commission last March, gives EU member states the possibility of sending migrants who have received a return order to third countries.
The legislation also provides for "forced return" and entry bans for foreign nationals who cannot remain in the European Union and pose security risks.
The objective of the new regulation, which, being a regulation, will be directly applicable in the Member States, is to ensure that returns are managed uniformly throughout the Union, through a simplified procedure.
