Michael McNamara: Rejecting Return Hubs for Minors
MEP Michael McNamara addresses the recast returns directive and objects to the creation of return hubs, particularly for minors. He says the EU needs a common returns framework but must not create hubs that consign children and families to places with no future.
Michael McNamara argues that the EU does need a recast returns directive with common return orders that member states can implement. However, he firmly rejects return hubs that would allow the transfer of minors and families to third countries they do not know and where they lack prospects.
McNamara highlights the moral distinction between parents and children and stresses that minors who have committed no offence should not be treated as political collateral. He says sending children to facilities designed as places 'you do not want to be' is unacceptable.
The MEP points to real-world examples that question the effectiveness of return hubs: large sums spent in Italy and the UK produced minimal or no returns. He labels previous investments as wasteful and asks why such measures are written into law if member states might not use them.
McNamara warns that return hubs risk shifting irregular migration flows between neighbouring states and may be deliberately framed to provoke court challenges. He calls for solutions that are firm, humane and grounded in reality rather than political stunts.
Main argument
Michael McNamara argues that the EU does need a recast returns directive with common return orders that member states can implement. However, he firmly rejects return hubs that would allow the transfer of minors and families to third countries they do not know and where they lack prospects.
Humanitarian concerns
McNamara highlights the moral distinction between parents and children and stresses that minors who have committed no offence should not be treated as political collateral. He says sending children to facilities designed as places 'you do not want to be' is unacceptable.
Cost and effectiveness
The MEP points to real-world examples that question the effectiveness of return hubs: large sums spent in Italy and the UK produced minimal or no returns. He labels previous investments as wasteful and asks why such measures are written into law if member states might not use them.
Political and legal consequences
McNamara warns that return hubs risk shifting irregular migration flows between neighbouring states and may be deliberately framed to provoke court challenges. He calls for solutions that are firm, humane and grounded in reality rather than political stunts.
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Transcript
The question for me is not whether we need a recast returns directive. We do. One that contains common returns orders that can be implemented by any EU member state when made by one. One that seeks to compel all states with whom the EU has relations to accept returns of their nationals. The question is about whether we need return hubs, in particular whether we need return hubs for minors who can be sent to states of which they know nothing and have no future. Minors who have committed no legal or moral transgression, who are in Europe only because their parents brought them or begot them here so that they could have a better life. To the extent that that amounts to moral culpability on the part of the parents, we usually separate the wrongs of parents from the wrongs of their children in our society. I cannot support a law that could be used to send families, including young children, to return hubs. The whole point of return hubs is that they're places that you don't want to be and where people have no future. To date return hubs have been a waste of money. Italy has spent over 670 million euros and only a tiny number of people have ever been transferred to their return hubs. The UK's Rwanda policy cost over 700 million pounds to British taxpayers and nobody was ever moved there. To those who point out that member states can conclude agreements with third countries for return hubs but that they don't have to, I ask why then is it contained in the law? And will it not be the case that when one country makes an agreement for a return hub, irregular migrants will move to other neighbouring states as happened to Ireland when the Tories set up their Rwanda policy before it was struck down by the courts there? Lastly, I often wonder if these return hubs are being established with the intention that they will be struck down by the courts. A display of let me at them hold me back politics and false bravado of those who fail to engage with reality. Because in doing so and in failing to engage in that reality, they're no better than those on the opposite side of the house who say there is no problem whatsoever with immigration in Europe. There clearly is a problem now but it has to be dealt with firmly and humanely but above all in a manner that's grounded in reality not political stunts.