Findings & Recommendations

work on progress…

work on progress…

Key Findings:

• The study of Return Migration Infrastructures (RMIs) highlights the non-linear, relational, complex and dynamic character of the everyday reality of return procedures. Returns are implemented in practice by a vast web of actors characterized by multiscalar, asymmetric, and competitive power relations with each other.

• Contrary to the prevailing perception among many actors of a rigid dichotomy between enforced and voluntary return, the different RMIs are in practice situated along a continuum of coercion. Within this continuum, assistance, persuasion and enforcement of return are not distinctly separated but rather interwoven.

• Return Migration Infrastructures are marked by entrenched informal practices—often accompanied by a lack of transparency and accountability. These informalities permeate various aspects of the return processes, including procedural mechanisms, the actors’ practices and the relations among the actors involved. They may manifest in various forms, such as persuasion techniques targeting returnees, unlawful activities such as arbitrary detention, and even illegal pushbacks and pushforwards. Thus, informalities become systematically instrumentalised, while the return processes also generate and reinforce informal practices.

• The protection of human rights and human dignity are often overlooked in return processes. First and foremost, the implementation of return policies by EU countries is predominantly based on the reproduction of irregularisation, the extensive use of detention, and the imposition of marginalization; all incentivizing migrants to return. The simultaneous existence of standardized, uniform, and seemingly ‘one-size-fits-all’ procedures, and of a ‘case-by-case’ and individualized assessment approach often results in differentiated treatment among returnees. Migrants’ ‘collaborative’ behavior tends to be rewarded through the type of return migrants are subjected to; yet another factor impacting the ‘voluntariness’ of returns which is achieved via subtle forms of enforced cooperation.

• While reintegration support has gained visibility and is increasingly incorporated in the stated goals and actual doings of multiple actors, its actual implementation remains inconsistent, limited, or altogether absent. This shortfall is especially evident within the infrastructure of forced returns, but it also extends to assisted returns, revealing a broader neglect of reintegration across the return migration landscape.

• Return Migration Infrastructures, understood as actors, doings, places, and materials that regulate migrants’ ‘exit’, clearly overlap with infrastructures and spaces of ‘entry’, reception and protection, as well as with detention facilities and infrastructures. These overlaps reflect the fluid boundaries between (not so) different phases of migration governance. Moreover, spatial arrangements designed to improve institutional coordination—such as the ‘co-location method’ aimed at minimizing dispersal—further complicate the landscape. The diversity and evolving nature of the sites devoted to the implementation of returns contribute to the formation of complex, shifting, and expanding geographies across all types of RMIs.

• Funding, knowledge (and knowledge production), as well as force, in its physical sense (including detention as part of both assisted and forced returns) seem to be three basic sources of power in RMIs.

• Complex power relations among actors reproduce entrenched inequalities between the Global North and the Global South, between wealthier and poorer countries, and between the core regions of the EU and its peripheries. An EU ‘integration’ of returns transpires, with some, mostly Northern EU countries, being increasingly involved in shaping the agenda and processes of returns as well as the RMIs (in national, EU, extra-territorial, third country places).

Policy Recommendations

• The immediate cessation of pushbacks and pushforwards is vital. Ensure that out-of-law return practices and violations (even in cases of ‘emergency’) by state and supra-state authorities and other institutional or related actors are effectively discouraged and punished.

• Disassociate the implementation of returns from the use of physical force, strictly avoid and punish the use of physical violence as a means of enforcement in any step of the return procedure. Disassociate the implementation of returns from migrant detention. Moreover, replace soft-power techniques of coercion in the daily operation of RMIs with free legal aid and access to reliable information provided by involved actors, including those contesting the operation of the RMIs.

• Do not implement any return procedure in/from spaces within the infrastructures of asylum and reception. Make sure that infrastructures of entry and international protection are not used in practice as grey zones of coercion to return.

• Enhance multi-level international cooperation in monitoring and evaluating the operation of RMIs, especially incorporating voices from the civil society in countries of return and transit countries. Enhance NGOs and CSOs that provide advocacy and legal aid.

• Make sure that actors are held responsible for the data they collect and create and data production is discussed and negotiated among actors with different points of view. Make sure that returnees and their representatives (legal or otherwise) have access to their own data. Increase measurability, transparency and accountability in funding mechanisms.

Key Findings:

• Migration management in the African and Middle Eastern regions has shifted from initial solidarity and/or pragmatism to an increased focus on coercing return. This follows from the ever more protracted nature of displacement as well as the EU’s emphasis on externalization and containment.

• Similar to practices in EU countries, regional host countries predominantly seek to return humanitarian migrants by creating push factors for self-return through irregularization and marginalization.

• Return migration governance in the settings studied is often highly informal and opaque as a consequence of securitization. Overtly coercive forms of return (pushbacks and deportations) in particular are not monitored.

• International organizations, often funded by the EU, play a fundamental role in providing the financial, legal, technological, institutional, and operational support that is necessary for assisted returns. Such capacities may also be used for deportation and pushbacks. There is thus a risk that European support for assisted return in regional host countries is repurposed for coerced return.

• Current forms of return migration governance in the African and Middle Eastern regions often undermine migrant protection and erode the principle of non-refoulement. EU and member states can be complicit in this in the form of chain refoulement.

Return migration governance has become a key agenda item and a key instrument of political leverage in international relations between regional host countries and the  EU.

Policy Recommendations:

1. Acknowledge the potential negative rippling effects of the EU’s focus on externalization and return for regional host countries in terms of intra-regional mobility.

2. Be transparent about the EUs internal conflicts of interest between externalization of migration governance on one hand, and upholding the adherence to the Refugee- and Human Rights conventions.

3. Prioritize protection over containment. Stop funding schemes and capacity building that in practice enable violations of refugee and human rights.

Ensure the systematic independent monitoring of return practices and demand access of independent observers to return centers and border sites, and the systematic inclusion of the capacity and voice of migrant-led organizations in return planning and monitoring.

work on progress…

Key findings

The following fifindings and recommendations stem from a large online survey on public attitudes towards return, with over 5,900 participants across Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden, conducted from August 2024 to January 2025 via social media recruitment.

• The public in all five countries (Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Greece, Poland) support return of irregular migrants if home conditions improve, if they break any rules, or if they rely heavily on welfare.

• Germans emphasizes integration and economic contribution, resisting return of well-integrated or working asylum seekers.

• Right-leaning political orientation strongly predicts support for return; on the other hand, higher education, being of migrant background, levels of personal contact, and trust levels reduce support for return.

• Return is widely seen as easing pressure on social services, and in some cases also as creating job opportunities.

• The levels of dissatisfaction with government performance on asylum and return are widespread.

 Policy Recommendations

• Engage with public perceptions while addressing fairness, integration, and human rights concerns.

• Adapt return strategies to national contexts rather than relying on one model.

• Improve transparency and communication on asylum and return processes.

• Promote opportunities for meaningful citizen–migrant interaction to reduce hostility.

• Recognize and address polarization along political, educational, and income divides.

• Invest in trust-building measures in institutions and communities.

Key Findings

1. Transit states turned destination countries: Turkey, Greece, Morocco, and Poland have transitioned from being transit zones to de facto host countries, reflecting broader geopolitical shifts in global migration governance. This transformation has created hybrid migration regimes - simultaneously oriented toward containment, temporary protection, and return.

2. Differential and securitized return governance: Return migration has become a central policy tool, increasingly framed by securitization and deterrence. Across the four countries, return practices range from “voluntary” programs to pushbacks and deportations, often blurring the boundaries between voluntary and forced return. Nationality-based hierarchies shape policy responses, producing unequal access to protection and reintegration.

3. Migrant agency within constraint: Despite restrictive environments, migrants actively negotiate their mobility within the limits of legality, economy, and security. Their strategies - ranging from invisibility and informal work to onward migration - illustrate resilience and adaptation rather than passivity. Economic resources remain the main enabler of such agency.

4. Persistent barriers to return: Security risks, political instability, and economic precarity in origin countries are the main deterrents to return. Legal insecurity, deportability, and psychosocial costs (such as the stigma of “failed migration”) further reinforce migrants’ reluctance to go back, even when host conditions are harsh.

5. Onward migration as an enduring aspiration: Rather than returning, many migrants aspire to move onward to Western European destinations where they perceive greater legal stability, economic opportunity, and inclusion. Restrictive policies and the high costs of irregular travel, however, trap many in a state of “involuntary immobility.”

6. Converging patterns across diverse contexts: Despite differing political and economic settings, the four countries show convergent outcomes: precarious legal statuses, fragmented mobility trajectories, and limited prospects for secure settlement or return. These shared dynamics challenge rigid, state-centred distinctions between “transit,” “host,” and “origin” countries and call for migrant-centred analytical frameworks.

Policy Recommendations

An effective and ethical return migration policy in Europe and its partner countries must move beyond coercion and deterrence to embrace rights-based, realistic, and sustainable approaches. The following recommendations draw on findings from the GAPs research project in Turkey, Morocco, Greece, and Poland.

1. Uphold the Principle of True Voluntariness

Return should be a genuinely informed, autonomous, and uncoerced decision, not one made under threat or deprivation.

• Separate voluntary and forced returns institutionally and procedurally to avoid blurred lines between consent and coercion.

• Ensure migrants have access to independent legal advice, counselling, and psychosocial support, and adequate time to make decisions.

• Remove indirect forms of pressure such as service withdrawal, detention threats, or punitive deadlines.

• Pilot exploratory return visits - temporary, reversible visits to origin countries - to enable informed decision-making without loss of rights or residence status.
  Embedding voluntariness at every stage is key to procedural fairness, legitimacy, and long-term policy effectiveness.

2. Enhance Counselling, Information, and Support Mechanisms

Comprehensive, multilingual, and context-sensitive return and reintegration counselling should accompany all return initiatives.

• Information must be accessible, culturally appropriate, and tailored to individual situations.

• Counselling should address stigma and psychosocial burdens, particularly where return is perceived as a failure.

• Integrate post-return follow-up mechanisms to ensure reintegration support and reduce cycles of re-migration.

3. Address the Predicament of Migrants in Legal and Mobility Limbo

Many migrants are trapped between unsafe return and blocked onward mobility. To respond effectively:

• Ensure that mutual recognition of return decisions across EU Member States does not undermine procedural justice or individual assessment.

• Provide sectoral support (training, legal pathways, work permits, and access to services) to those at risk of return but unable to safely repatriate.

• Replace deterrence-oriented approaches with mobility governance that prioritizes protection, solidarity, and fairness.

• All measures must comply with non-refoulement obligations and ensure individual case review before implementation.

4. Leverage Migrant and Diaspora Networks

Diaspora and transnational networks are critical in facilitating sustainable and informed returns.

• Actively involve migrant and diaspora organizations in the design, implementation, and monitoring of return and reintegration programs.

• Recognize these networks as partners and sources of social capital, not merely beneficiaries or intermediaries.

• Support migrant-led initiatives that provide peer guidance and community-based reintegration.

5. Reconsider the Use of Return Hubs

The proposed return hubs raise serious ethical and operational concerns.

• Without clear rights-based safeguards, these hubs risk replicating coercive detention-like environments and exacerbating migrant precarity.

• For many migrants, transfer to a third-country hub constitutes an additional displacement, reinforcing insecurity and trauma.

• Unless they guarantee voluntary participation, transparent procedures, and legal oversight, such hubs should not be implemented.

• Any model inspired by the “hotspot” approach must be re-evaluated to avoid legal limbo, procedural delays, and rights violations.

6. Address the Root Causes of Migration Before Promoting Return

True voluntariness cannot exist when the drivers of displacement persist.

• EU migration partnerships should integrate development, trade, and diplomatic policies to address structural conditions - conflict, repression, poverty, and lack of opportunity - in origin countries.

• Returns should be embedded in comprehensive cooperation frameworks that aim to stabilize and support local livelihoods, not only enforce readmission.

• Sustainable return depends on tackling the economic, social, and political roots of forced migration, ensuring that those who wish to return can do so in safety and dignity.

7. Move Toward a Rights-Based and Realistic Model of Return Governance

Across all levels - EU, national, and local - return governance must:

• Center migrant dignity, rights, and agency over enforcement rationalities.

• Ensure independent monitoring of all return and detention sites, with access granted to humanitarian and legal observers.

• Develop evidence-based policy through ongoing qualitative research that reflects migrants’ lived realities and aspirations.

Only by aligning return policies with human rights principles and social realities can the EU and its partners achieve ethical and effective migration management.

work on progress…

work on progress…