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Joint statement condemning EU law enabling home raids, policing of public services and racial profiling

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Country/Region

16 February 2026

The EU must withdraw all provisions to expand and normalise immigration raids and surveillance measures under the proposed Deportation (“Return”) Regulation. A statement signed by Statewatch and 87 other organisations warns of the real and immediate threat posed by the proposals which purport to legitimise ICE-style immigration enforcement measures across the EU.

Image: ep_jhu, CC BY-NC 2.0

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Alamara Khwaja Bettum, Executive Director of Statewatch, says of the proposals:

“Increasing surveillance, policing, and racial profiling will only fuel racism and a far-right agenda – not reduce migration. If accepted, these proposed measures will undermine the most basic of civil liberties to disastrous ends, which is the real threat we should be addressing.”[1]

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This statement was coordinated by the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants

The EU is currently negotiating a Deportation (“Return”) Regulation to expand and normalise immigration raids and surveillance measures across our communities. They want to oblige Member States to “detect” undocumented people – turning everyday spaces, public services, and community interactions into tools of ICE-style immigration enforcement. In the US, this has already led to a public health crisis where undocumented people avoid accessing basic medical care for fear of being reported or kidnapped. 

In practice, detection measures proposed by the Commission could result in (and indeed some of them are already happening in various EU member states):

• Police raids in private homes, enabling authorities to enter living spaces to search for undocumented migrants – without a judicial mandate – as well as offices and shelters run by humanitarian organisations. 

• Police raids in public spaces – such France’s deployment of 4 000 police agents in June 2025 to carry out sweeping checks across bus and train stations, with the aim to arrest and detain undocumented people, or Belgium’s introduction of internal border checks on highways, stations and airports. 

• Surveillance and technology – such as the collection of people’s personal data in bulk and exchanged between police forces across the EU and the use of biometric identification systems to track people’s movements and increase policing of undocumented migrants and racialised people. 

• Mandatory reporting obligations imposed on public authorities – such as those that have been imposed on the social welfare office in Germany since the 1990s, or those under discussion in Sweden. 

• Racial profiling – Checks and controls based on appearance, language or perceived origin, rather than individual conduct, leading to discriminatory targeting of racialised communities, already a routine practice in Europe. 

This threat is real and immediate. The European Commission’s proposal explicitly promotes detection measures and, in December last year[2], Member States endorsed a position calling for even more harsh policies, including police raids on private homes to locate undocumented migrants.[3]Moreover, most of the political groups in the European Parliament, from the liberals to the far right, have presented amendments that support the mandatory inclusion of detection measures.  

Detection measures create fear, discrimination and persecution, and break social ties and communities. They deter people from accessing essential healthcare (including pregnancy-related care, chronic disease treatment and vaccinations), as well as education and social services; trap people in situations of violence, exploitation and abuse; erode trust between professionals and those they serve; enable racial profiling and systemic discrimination; and violate fundamental rights to privacy and data protection. 

These risks have been raised at international level. On 26 January, 16 UN Special Rapporteurs, Independent Experts, and Working Groups, addressed a joint letter to the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council of the EU, warning that the proposed Deportation Regulation may impose reporting duties on professionals, discouraging access to essential services and undermining fundamental rights. 

Embedding detection measures in binding EU legislation would fund, legitimise, expand and standardise them across Europe, and legitimise illegal practices like racial profiling. This would consolidate a punitive system, fuelled by far-right rhetoric and based on racialised suspicion, denunciation, detention and deportation. Rather than protecting fundamental rights, the EU is on course to codify an ideology of criminalisation that targets people simply because of their administrative situation.  

Europe knows from its own history where systems of surveillance, scapegoating and control can lead. 

We call on policymakers, public authorities, public service workers, civil society organisations and communities across Europe to reject detection in all its forms, and to mobilise against policies that criminalise people on the basis of their residence status and erode fundamental rights for all. 

The European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union must listen to these concerns and reject the Deportation Regulation. 

Total Signatories: 88

European networks/organisations:

Access Now

Border Violence Monitoring Network

Bridge EU

Equinox Initiative for Racial Justice

Eurochild

European Disability Forum

European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU)

European Network on Statelessness (ENS)

European Roma Grassroots Organisations (ERGO) Network

European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance (ESWA)

European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA)

ILGA-Europe

International Planned Parenthood Federation – European Network (IPPF EN)

Jesuit Refugee Service Europe

Missing Children Europe

Médecins du Monde International Network

Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM)

Quaker Council for European Affairs

Statewatch

Trans Europe and Central Asia (TGEU)

National organisations:

11.11.11

Africa Advocacy Foundation

Algeciras Acoge

AlgorithmWatch

Apoyo Positivo

ARCI

Asociación Evangélica Nueva Vida

Asociación Madrileña de Salud Pública (AMaSaP)

Association for Integration and Migration (SIMI)

Caritas diocesana di Pesaro

Centro Sociale Ex Canapificio

Cesida (National Coordinator of HIV and AIDS)

CIRÉ

Collective Aid

Community Rights in Greece

Consorzio Italiano di Solidarietà (ICS)

Convenzione dei Diritti nel Mediterraneo

Coordinamento Fiorentino contro il Riarmo

Coordinamento Nazionale Comunità Accoglienti (CNCA)

COSPE

Defence for Children International Czechia

Defence for Children International Italy

Défense des Enfants International Belgique

Dynamo International

Europasilo – Rete Nazionale per il Diritto d’Asilo

Federación SOS Racismo

Finnish Refugee Advice Centre

Fondazione Città Solidale ETS

Forum Per Cambiare l’Ordine delle Cose

Fucina per la Nonviolenza

Fundación Cruz Blance

Fundación Entreculturas

Fundación de Solidaridad Amaranta

Greek Council for Refugees (GCR)

Gruppo Melitea

Hermes Center

Institute Novact for Nonviolence

International Child Development Initiatives

Irídia-Center for the defense of human rights

Iuventa – Jugend rettet

Jesuit Refugee Service Portugal

La Cimade

Missing Voices (REER)

Mission Lifeline International e.V.

Mobile Info Team

Movimiento de Mujeres Migrantes de Extremadura

Mujeres Supervivientes

M.V. Louise Michel

Oxfam Novib

Pilotes Volontaires

Progetto Accoglienza e Integrazione Un sole per tutti

Red Acoge

Refugees in Libya

Rete Vesuviana Solidale

Right to Protection Charitable Foundation

RiVolti ai Balcani – Diritti in Movimento

Salvamento Marítimo Humanitario (SMH)

Sea-Watch e.V

Sharazade – Cultura e spettacolo senza frontiere

SolidarityNow

Stichting LOS

Studio legale D’apruzzo

The Swedish IMER Association

Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights FTDES

VERLATA SOC. COOP. SOCIALE A R.L.

Watch the Med AlarmPhone 

WILPF ITALIA

WISH (Women in Solidarity House)

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/16/eu-deportations-plan-ice-style-enforcement-rights-groups-warn

[2] Article 6, Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and the Council, establishing a common system for the return of third-country nationals staying illegally in the Union, and repealing Directive 2008/115/EC of the European Parliament and the Council, Council Directive 2001/40/EC and Council Decision 2004/191/EC.  ↩︎

[3]  Article 23(a), “Investigative measures” Council General Approach on the Return Regulation proposal.  ↩︎

 

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