In Episode 18 of ASSEDEL’s interview series, Member of the European Parliament Murielle Laurent discusses the proposed EU Return Regulation and its potential consequences for migrants’ rights, detention policies and the protection of vulnerable people.
Throughout the interview, Laurent argues that migration is increasingly being addressed through a security-based and punitive approach across the European Union. In her view, political debates surrounding the regulation reveal a broader tendency to criminalise migration and present migrants as a source of insecurity.
The political instrumentalisation of migration
Laurent considers that security concerns are being used, particularly by right-wing and far-right political forces, to justify increasingly restrictive migration measures. She also notes that this approach is not limited to one political group or country, pointing to the hardening of migration policies across several European governments.
According to Laurent, migration has become one of the first issues blamed for broader social and political problems. However, she rejects the idea that reducing migration would automatically solve the challenges facing European societies.
She refers to regularisation initiatives in Spain as an example of an alternative approach. Such measures, she explains, concern people who are already living in the country and seek to provide them with a clearer legal status rather than encourage new arrivals.
Unprecedented restrictions on migrants’ rights
Laurent describes several provisions under discussion as unprecedented in their severity. These include the extension of detention periods to up to 24 months, as well as the possibility of detaining unaccompanied minors and families with children.
Rather than seeing the proposal as a simple return to earlier policies, she argues that it introduces a new and much harsher framework. In her view, these measures risk weakening the principle that human rights should apply universally, regardless of a person’s migration status.
She also questions the assumption that stricter rules will discourage people from attempting to reach Europe. People leave their countries for many different reasons, she explains, including political persecution, armed conflict, insecurity and the growing consequences of climate change.
More restrictive policies are therefore unlikely to remove the causes of migration. Instead, Laurent warns, they may push people towards more dangerous routes and increase the risks they face during their journeys.
The detention of children and families
A central part of the interview focuses on the treatment of children, unaccompanied minors and families. When asked whether the regulation provides sufficient protection for these groups, Laurent responds that detention cannot be regarded as a form of protection. “You do not protect families and children by placing them in detention,” she argues. Instead, she calls for policies based on support, accompaniment and return procedures that respect individual circumstances and human dignity.
Laurent also expresses concern about the wider use of detention as a standard migration-management tool. Although detention already existed under the previous legal framework, the proposed extension of its duration represents, in her view, a significant escalation.
She further questions its effectiveness, arguing that longer periods of detention do not necessarily result in more successful returns and may, in practice, make return procedures more difficult.
A political and ethical debate
The interview concludes by addressing claims that support for the regulation is based on pragmatism rather than on traditional left-right political divisions. Laurent rejects this interpretation. She argues that decisions concerning detention, children’s rights and human dignity inevitably reflect political values and priorities.
From her perspective, a regulation containing measures that are so restrictive and potentially harmful cannot be separated from questions of ideology and political sensitivity. She maintains that political groups committed to humanist values should not support a proposal that fails to place dignity and fundamental rights at its centre.
The conversation highlights the growing tension between security-oriented migration policies and the European Union’s commitment to fundamental rights. It also raises broader questions about whether stricter detention and return measures can provide effective solutions without undermining the rights of migrants, children and families.
Regardez l'interview complète sur notre chaîne YouTube ! YouTube channel.