BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union is expanding its powers to track, raid and deport migrants to “return hubs ″ in third countries in Africa and elsewhere, quietly adopting tactics of the Trump administration that have drawn public criticism across the 27-nation bloc.
The EU continues to tighten migration policies after right-wing parties took power in some countries in 2024. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, from the center-right European People's Party coalition, has said the new measures will prevent a repeat of the 2015 crisis caused by Syria's civil war, when about 1 million people arrived to seek asylum.
“We have learnt the lessons of the past. And today, we are better equipped," von der Leyen has said. The new policies, known as the Pact on Migration and Asylum, go into effect on June 12.
Far-right parties in Europe have praised the deportation policies of U.S. President Donald Trump and called for the EU to adopt a similar approach. Human rights groups warn that authorities are already illegally pushing back migrants at EU borders and hollowing out their legal protections.
The EU already spends millions of dollars to deter migrants before they reach its shores, and has supported tens of thousands of Africans returning home, voluntarily or by force.
What's envisioned now is an expansion of what Italy has created under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her “tough on migration” stance. It operates two migrant detention centers for rejected asylum-seekers in Albania. One currently holds at least 90 migrants, said lawmaker Rachele Scarpa, who said she found people confused and scared during a recent visit.
In addition, Meloni’s Cabinet has approved an anti-immigration package that would allow the navy to halt vessels in international waters for up to six months if they are deemed a threat to public order; return intercepted migrants to countries of origin or third countries; and speed up the deportation of foreign nationals convicted of crimes.
An “informal group” of EU nations including Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Greece are pursuing deportation center agreements, said Bernd Parusel, a researcher at the Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies.
Kenya is one country they are speaking with, said a Dutch member of the European Parliament, Tineke Strik. Whether consciously or not, the plan is similar to Trump’s deals with nations like El Salvador to take in deported migrants, she said.
Other countries are exploring similar ideas. Sweden’s migration minister has said the conservative ruling coalition approves setting up hubs outside Europe, especially for Afghan and Syrian asylum-seekers.
During the Winter Olympics in Italy, protests erupted over the deployment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to provide security to the U.S. delegation. But others in Europe have praised ICE’s actions and called for setting up deportation-focused police units.
The EU border service Frontex began sending officers along on raids with Belgium’s police in 2024 to detain and deport migrants. It is not clear whether it is doing this in other countries.
The European Commission has declined requests to take a position on U.S. federal immigration policies.
In Britain, which left the EU several years ago, the center-left Labour Party government has made curbing unauthorized immigration a key focus.
The Home Office in February said almost 60,000 people had been deported since the government was elected in July 2024. It said 9,000 arrests were made of people working without permission in 2025, up by more than half from the year before.
Under the principle of non-refoulement in EU and international law, a person cannot be returned to a country where they would face persecution.
But European immigration enforcement tactics include so-called pushbacks, where people trying to cross into the EU are forced back across a border without access to asylum procedures.
Authorities in Europe carry out an average of 221 pushbacks a day, according to a February report by a group of humanitarian organizations. More than 80,000 pushbacks were recorded in 2025, the report said, mostly in Italy, Poland, Bulgaria and Latvia.
"Men, women and children — including individuals in critical medical condition — are routinely subjected to beatings, attacks by police dogs, forced stripping, forced river crossings and theft of personal belongings," according to the report.
European agents are brutalizing migrants just like in the U.S., said Flor Didden, migration policy expert at the Belgian human rights group 11.11.11. Some, like in Greece, even wear masks.
"The images are shocking and the outrage is justified,” he said of the U.S. “But where is that same moral clarity when European border authorities abuse, rob and let people die?”
The groups also have recorded an expansion of surveillance technology like drones, thermal cameras and satellites to monitor people on the move.
Other human rights groups warn of a weakening of legal protections.
The EU’s new migration regulations allow for more police raids in private homes and public spaces and more use of surveillance and racial profiling, said a letter to EU institutions in February from 88 nonprofit groups including the Brussels-based Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants.
“We cannot be outraged by ICE in the United States while also supporting these practices in Europe,” said the platform's director, Michele LeVoy.
Olivia Sundberg Diez, EU migration advocate for Amnesty International, said Europe retains more protections for vulnerable migrants than the United States but shares much of the political momentum toward harsher policies.
“There’s a level of institutions' and courts' independence and human rights compliance in Europe that you can’t disregard,” she said. “But the fundamental political impulse is the same, and I worry that the human consequences will be the same.”
Zampano reported from Rome. Associated Press writers Elena Becatoros in Athens, Jill Lawless in London, Paolo Santalucia in Rome, Claudia Ciobanu in Warsaw and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.
Migrants trying to reach Britain, walk on a beach shore in Gravelines, northern France, Wednesday, March 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)
Regional powers plan to meet Sunday in Pakistan to discuss how to end the fighting in the Middle East as about 2,500 U.S. Marines arrived in the region and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels entered the monthlong war.
Pakistan said Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt will send top diplomats to Islamabad for talks. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian held “extensive discussions” on regional hostilities.
The war has threatened global supplies of oil and natural gas, sparked fertilizer shortages and disrupted air travel. Iran’s grip on the strategic Strait of Hormuz has shaken markets and prices.
The United States and Israel continue to strike Iran, whose retaliatory attacks have targeted Israel and neighboring Gulf Arab states. More than 3,000 people have been killed.
The Houthis’ entry could further hurt global shipping if they again target vessels in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait off the Red Sea, through which about 12% of the world’s trade typically passes.
Here is the latest:
The Defense Ministry said it intercepted and destroyed 10 drones attacking the oil-rich country Sunday morning.
Hakan Fidan met Sunday with Pakistan's Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar in Islamabad, with both sides calling for dialogue and diplomacy to ease tensions in the Middle East.
According to a statement from Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the two sides emphasized the need for de-escalation, diplomatic engagement and closer coordination to promote peace and stability in the region.
Kuwait says air defense systems intercepted four drones attacking the oil-rich country Sunday morning.
Radar systems at the Kuwait International Airport were damaged in a strike Saturday.
The Israeli military says residents in “relevant areas” have received warnings and air defenses are working to intercept the incoming fire.
The Israeli military says it struck targets in Tehran and other parts of the country.
Egypt’s top diplomat met Pakistan’s foreign minister in Islamabad Sunday to discuss efforts to help bring the United States and Iran back to the negotiating table and ease tensions in the region, officials said.
Ishaq Dar and Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty will hold bilateral talks on regional developments, according to a statement by Pakistan’s foreign ministry.
The Egyptian foreign ministry said that the meeting will discuss “the developments of the military escalation … and de-escalation efforts in the region."
During a stop in Qatar Saturday, Abdelatty said their efforts aim to establish a “direct dialogue” between the United States and Iran.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan arrived in Pakistan late Saturday. Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat is expected in Islamabad Sunday.
The Revolutionary Guard’s warning on Sunday said it would consider Israeli universities and branches of American universities in the region “legitimate targets,” state media reported.
“If the U.S. government wants its universities in the region spared, it should condemn the bombardment of (Iranian) universities by 12 o’clock Monday, March 30, in an official statement,” the Guard said in a statement, urging the evacuations of American and Israeli educational facilities and telling students and staff to stay at least one kilometer (0.6 miles) away.
The Guard also demanded the United States stop Israel from striking Iranian universities and research centers, which have been attacked in recent days. Israel’s military has acknowledged striking Iranian universities it says are connected to weapons development.
This is the first time Iran has threatened to strike Israeli and American universities.
The Israeli military identified the dead soldier as Sgt. Moshe Yitzchak Hacohen Katz, originally from New Haven, Connecticut.
Rabbi Yehoshua Hecht, a relative in Connecticut, spoke to Israel’s Army Radio station, describing his great nephew as a “very special young man” who was religious, a good student and “enjoyed every moment of life.”
Katz was killed in combat in southern Lebanon as Israel expands an invasion there.
Israel’s military said early Sunday that a soldier had been killed while three others were wounded in combat in southern Lebanon.
This brings the total to five Israeli soldiers killed in southern Lebanon since the conflict with Hezbollah reignited after the militant group fired rockets into Israel on March 2.
Two Israeli strikes early Sunday killed six Palestinians, including three police officers, in the Gaza Strip, hospital authorities said.
One strike hit a police checkpoint while another hit a group of people in the southern city of Khan Younis, according to Nasser hospital, which received the bodies.
The Israeli military didn’t immediately comment on the strikes.
The people killed were the latest fatalities among Palestinians in the coastal enclave since an October ceasefire deal attempted to halt a more than two-year war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Interceptions and drone activity were heard for hours overnight Saturday across Irbil, the capital of the semiautonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, including drones shot down while attempting to target the U.S. consulate and nearby bases.
AP journalists in the area reported nonstop loud explosions and saw at least one drone headed toward American facilities, in one of the most intense days of attacks since the war began.
Iran-aligned militias in Iraq have stepped up repeated drone and missile attacks on U.S. bases, including in Irbil.
In a statement on Saturday, the U.S. condemned what it called “despicable terrorist attacks” by Iran’s militant groups, saying the strikes on Kurdish regional President Nechirvan Barzani’s residence in Irbil earlier that day were “a direct assault on Iraq’s sovereignty, stability and unity.” The attack caused material damage but no casualties, and the residence was empty at the time.
Hezbollah's al-Manar TV correspondent Ali Shoeib, who was killed in an Israeli strike in Jezzine with other journalists on Saturday, March 28, 2026, speaks on his mobile phone in Marjayoun town, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A member of the Iranian Red Crescent Society stands at Hypercar, an auto service center, amid damages which according to the company's officials were caused by strikes on March 1, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, March 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People collect leaflets scattered on the ground at a site where a projectile carrying them hit an apartment building in Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, March 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
