Asylum

Asylum, migration and borders

The migrant crisis has triggered challenges across Europe. FRA encourages rights-compliant responses.

We provide practical expertise on this complex issue. This includes regular updates, focus papers and toolkits. We outline policy alternatives and best practices.

Highlights

  • Handbook / Guide / Manual
    1
    August
    2024
    Migrant workers are particularly at risk of labour exploitation. Workplace inspectors play a role in protecting non-EU workers' rights. This report guides inspectors to identify abuse and protect migrant workers. In autumn 2024, FRA will publish a manual with extensive resources to support workplace inspectors.
  • Report / Paper / Summary
    30
    July
    2024
    Fundamental rights violations on the EU’s land and sea borders often go unreported. Investigations into these violations need to be more effective. This report gathers examples of alleged rights violations of migrants and refugees between 2020 and 2023. It sets out 10 steps to promote prompt and effective national investigations into incidents of ill-treatment at borders.
  • Periodic updates / Series
    1
    July
    2024
    The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights regularly collects data on the operations of NGO vessels involved in search and rescue in the Mediterranean. This includes any legal proceedings against them, as well as any difficulties in disembarking migrants in safe ports. This paper provides an overview of criminal investigations and other legal proceedings initiated by European Union (EU) Member States against civil society organisations deploying search and rescue vessels and aircraft in the Mediterranean and/or against individual crew members. The latest update covers the period from 2018 up until the end of May 2024.
  • Handbook / Guide / Manual
    17
    December
    2020
    The European Convention on Human Rights and European Union law provide an increasingly important framework for the protection of the rights of foreigners. European Union legislation relating to asylum, borders and immigration is developing fast. There is an impressive body of case law by the European Court of Human Rights relating in particular to Articles 3, 5, 8 and 13 of the ECHR. The Court of Justice of the European Union is increasingly asked to pronounce on the interpretation of European Union law provisions in this field. The third edition of this handbook, updated up to July 2020, presents this European Union legislation and the body of case law by the two European courts in an accessible way.
    Products
    Periodic updates / Series
    29
    July
    2019
    The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights has been regularly collecting data on migration since September 2015. This report focuses on the fundamental rights situation of people arriving in Member States and EU candidate countries particularly affected by migration movements. It addresses fundamental rights concerns between 1 April and 30 June 2019.
    In the latest edition of his video blog, FRA Director Michael O'Flaherty focuses on the migration situation in the Mediterranean Sea and makes three proposals.
    27
    June
    2019
    The EU Return Directive (2008/115/EC) in Article 8 (6) introduced an important fundamental rights safeguard for third-country nationals ordered to leave the EU because they do not or no longer fulfil the conditions for entry and/or stay. According to the directive, Member States must provide for an effective forced-return monitoring system.
    25
    June
    2019
    This report is the EU Fundamental Rights Agency’s fourth on the topic of severe labour exploitation. Based on interviews with 237 exploited workers, it paints a bleak picture of severe exploitation and abuse. The workers include both people who came to the EU, and EU nationals who moved to another EU country. They were active in diverse sectors, and their legal status also varied.
    Fundamental Rights Report 2019: Not all children benefit equally from efforts to guarantee child rights.
    Some groups face particular difficulties.
    Fundamental Rights Report 2019: Although migrant arrivals to the EU continue to drop, it remains a divisive issue politically and
    across society. Nearly 4 in 10 Europeans think immigration is more of a problem than a solution.
    And nearly a half overestimate the number of irregular migrants in their country.
    19
    June
    2019
    In 2018, some 2,299 people are estimated to have died or gone missing at sea while crossing the sea to reach Europe to escape war or persecution or to pursue a better life. This is on average more than six people per day. Before mid-2017, a significant share of migrants in distress at sea have been rescued by civil society vessels deployed with a humanitarian mandate to reduce fatalities and bring rescued migrants to safety. In 2018, however, authorities in some Member States viewed civil society-deployed rescue vessels with hostility. As a reaction, they seized rescue vessels, arrested crew members, and initiated legal procedures against them (more than a dozen altogether). In some cases, rescue vessels were blocked in harbours due to flag issues.
    13
    June
    2019
    New language versions: FI, MT, PT, CS, LV, LT, SK, SL, SV, ET
    03 November 2020
    Children deprived of parental care found in another EU Member State other than their own aims to strengthen the response of all relevant actors for child protection. The protection of those girls and boys is paramount and an obligation for EU Member States, derived from the international and European legal framework. The guide includes a focus on child victims of trafficking and children at risk, implementing an action set forth in the 2017 Communication stepping up EU action against trafficking in human beings, and takes into account identified patterns, including with respect to the gender specificity of the crime.
    6
    June
    2019
    How much progress can we expect in a decade? Various rights-related instruments had been in place for 10 years in 2018, prompting both sobering and encouraging reflection on this question.
    6
    June
    2019
    The year 2018 brought both progress and setbacks in terms of fundamental rights protection. FRA’s Fundamental Rights Report 2019 reviews major developments in the field, identifying both achievements and remaining areas of concern. This publication presents FRA’s opinions on the main developments in the thematic areas covered, and a synopsis of the evidence supporting these
    opinions.
    Periodic updates / Series
    16
    May
    2019
    The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights has been regularly collecting data on migration since
    September 2015. This report focuses on the fundamental rights situation of people arriving in
    Member States and EU candidate countries particularly affected by migration movements.
    It addresses fundamental rights concerns between 1 January and 31 March 2019.
    27
    March
    2019
    This report looks into the fundamental rights situation of asylum applicants and beneficiaries of international protection in the EU throughout 2018. It pulls together the main issues identified in FRA’s regular updates on fundamental rights related to asylum, migration and borders in selected EU Member States, which the agency has been publishing since September 2015.
    11
    March
    2019
    In November 2016, FRA formulated 21 individual opinions to address the fundamental rights shortcomings identified in the implementation of the hotspot approach in Greece and Italy. Despite genuine efforts to improve the situation since November 2016, many of the suggestions contained in the 21 opinions FRA formulated at the time remain valid.
    Periodic updates / Series
    18
    February
    2019
    The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights has been regularly collecting data on migration since
    September 2015. This report focuses on the fundamental rights situation of people arriving in
    Member States and EU candidate countries particularly affected by large migration movements.
    17
    January
    2019
    This Opinion by FRA aims to inform the European Parliament’s position on the legislative proposal for a recast Directive on common standards and procedures in Member States for returning illegally staying third country nationals (Return Directive), presented by the European Commission on 12 September 2018.
    6
    December
    2018
    This Opinion by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) aims to inform
    the European Parliament’s position on the legislative proposal on the European Border and
    Coast Guard (EBCG) presented by the European Commission on 12 September 2018.
    5
    December
    2018
    Last versions available are EL and NL
    11 March 2021
    This guide explains what profiling is, the legal frameworks that regulate it, and why conducting profiling lawfully is both necessary to comply with fundamental rights and crucial for effective policing and border management. The guide also provides practical guidance on how to avoid unlawful profiling in police and border management operations.
    Over the last eight years, the EU and its Member States took important steps to strengthen the fundamental rights protection of migrants and asylum seekers. But, despite progress, challenges persist ranging from the treatment of migrants at EU borders to difficult conditions in detention and reception centres, finds the latest migration bulletin from the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA).
    FRA attended a workshop on the EU’s Entry-Exit-System.
    FRA spoke at the annual ‘spring conference’ of the Hungarian National Directorate-General for Aliens Policing.
    On 11 May, FRA presented an overview of fundamental rights challenges at borders at a break-out sessions during the 13th World Conference of the International Association of Refugee and Migration Judges.
    FRA delivered fundamental rights training at the Frontex organised EES (Entry-Exit System) training event for border guards.
    FRA participated in the EU Asylum Agency’s (EUAA) third High-Level Roundtable meeting on judicial developments in the field of the Common European Asylum System.
    The EU Asylum Agency organised the second meeting of working groups drafting standards and indicators on reception conditions and on asylum seekers in vulnerable situations.
    On 28 March, FRA delivered presentations on fundamental rights for Europol’s guest officers who will be deployed to Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Italy, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia.
    FRA’s general guidance on Establishing national independent mechanisms to monitor fundamental rights compliance at EU external borders is now out in Croatian, English, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Polish and Spanish.
    On 28 February, FRA attended the European Migration Network (EMN)'s National Contact Points meeting.
    On 24 March, FRA attended a project meeting on EU situational awareness, early warning and forecasting capacity development.
    FRA spoke in a panel of the EU Asylum Agency (EUAA) conference on legal assistance and representation in asylum procedures.
    FRA moderated a debate on the role of media in forming public opinion on migration and integration.
    On 28 February, the EU Asylum Agency’s Training Reference Group held its annual meeting.
    The European Excellence Exchange in Journalism project and the Permanent Conference of Mediterranean Audiovisual Operators invited FRA to present two new courses of its eMedia Toolkit on migration.
    On 1-2 March, FRA hosted the Greek Fundamental Rights Officer for a two-day induction meeting.
    On 28 February, FRA attended a plenary meeting of the Migration Preparedness and Crisis Blueprint network.
    Across the European Union, the professional backgrounds and skills of guardians of unaccompanied children vary widely. This led the EU Agency of Fundamental Rights (FRA), in close coordination with the European Guardianship Network, to develop training material for guardians and trainers.
    People fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are widely supported across Europe. But they face challenges in education, finding work and making ends meet, as results from the latest survey from the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) reveal. The results should guide policymakers to find sustainable solutions that benefit both the people who fled and their host societies.