Europe Border Pushbacks and Migrant Abuse
Recent Developments
01January 2025: Human Rights Watch said EU migration and asylum policy in 2024 increasingly prioritized deterrence, fueling unlawful pushbacks, deaths at sea, and returns of asylum seekers to abusive situations.
022025: PRAB’s annual report documented at least 80,865 pushbacks across Europe, including 14,754 in Poland and 13,568 in Bulgaria, and said violence during pushbacks remained commonplace.
032025 European Parliament briefing: a nine-organization consortium recorded at least 120,457 pushback incidents at the EU’s external and internal borders in 2023, underscoring the scale of the problem.
042023 Council of Europe/CPT findings, as cited by Amnesty International, identified widespread violence, intimidation, prolonged detention, and clear patterns of physical ill-treatment in pushback operations across Europe.
Interventions
- EU-level monitoring and rights oversight through the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency, which documents border rights violations and gaps in protection.
- Civil-society documentation and advocacy by groups such as PRAB and the Border Violence Monitoring Network, which collect testimonies and incident data on pushbacks and border abuse.
- Frontex fundamental-rights oversight mechanisms, although rights groups say these have not yet reliably prevented or remedied abuses at borders.
What Works
- Independent monitoring at borders helps document violations and preserve evidence for accountability, as shown by PRAB and BVMN reporting.
- Immediate access to asylum procedures and individualized assessment reduces the risk of summary return and non-refoulement violations, which the European Parliament briefing identifies as central harms caused by pushbacks.
- Effective investigations and prosecutions of abusive border conduct are necessary to deter repeat abuse; the 2025 PRAB report explicitly calls for independent monitoring and accountability for all allegations of ill-treatment.
How to Help
- Support organizations documenting border abuses and assisting asylum seekers, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Border Violence Monitoring Network, and PRAB-related partners.
- Volunteer with refugee support groups, legal aid organizations, or monitoring initiatives working along European borders.
- Advocate for stronger oversight, transparent investigations, and access to asylum by contacting national and EU representatives.
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Verified Organizations
Organizations Helping(5)
The Danish Refugee Council addresses pushbacks through the Protecting Rights at Borders (PRAB) initiative, working with partner organizations across Europe to document abuses, support victims, and use legal and field-based evidence in strategic litigation and advocacy. The network has established field presence in multiple countries, enabling direct access to victims and systematic reporting on border violence.
GCR participates in PRAB, where it contributes direct field presence, documentation of pushback cases, and legal support for strategic litigation and accountability efforts. Its role is part of a broader cross-border protection network that gathers evidence from affected people and challenges unlawful border practices.
ECCHR works on border justice by using legal interventions, supporting affected people to document and tell their stories, and developing transnational legal strategies with partner organizations. It reconstructs and verifies accounts of pushbacks, collects and analyzes evidence, and pushes for changes in border practices and policies through litigation and public advocacy.
BVMN documents pushbacks and collective expulsions through field reporting and testimony collection, then uses those findings for multi-jurisdictional advocacy to denounce border violence and pursue accountability. Its work also includes research and investigations into border technologies and how they contribute to border violence.
