Asylum

Asylum, migration and borders

The increase in migration has presented opportunities and 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 also outline policy alternatives and best practices.

Highlights

  • Handbook / Guide / Manual
    8
    October
    2025
    The Entry/Exit System (EES), launching in 2025, will register non-EU nationals crossing the EU’s external borders. This FRA guidance helps border guards apply the new rules in line with EU fundamental rights. It offers practical tips on informing people, collecting biometric data and supporting people with specific needs. Based on fieldwork at 10 border crossing points in 6 Member States, the guidance will ensure rights are respected under the new system. A separate guidance publication for managers accompanies this publication.
  • Opinion / Position Paper
    23
    July
    2025
    This position paper examines how the EU can counter the instrumentalisation of migrants while also upholding fundamental rights. Instrumentalisation refers to countries outside the EU using migration to exert political pressure. This position paper defines the phenomenon, provides examples, and outlines legal obligations under EU law. It provides legal analysis and warns that some responses risk undermining fundamental rights at the EU’s external borders, including the right to asylum. To counter instrumentalisation and uphold fundamental rights, the position paper proposes practical measures for Member States to take, such as sanctions, border controls, and cooperation with private operators.
  • Periodic updates / Series
    20
    June
    2025
    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 1 June 2025.
  • Page
    This page describes the activities of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) on migration and asylum. It also explains how these activities can help the European Union (EU) and its Member States to implement the Pact on Migration and Asylum in a fundamental rights-compliant manner.
    Publications and data
    February
    2020
    In today’s media landscape the way in which journalists and editors receive, process and publish news is constantly changing. Journalists face immense time pressure, as news frequently breaks online To facilitate training on the coverage of migration news, this Trainer’s Manual is a tool to be used together with the e-Media Toolkit.
    18
    February
    2020
    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. It addresses key fundamental rights concerns between 1 October and 31 December 2019.
    16
    January
    2020
    All language versions now available
    16 December 2021
    This leaflet assists officers and authorities to inform asylum applicants and migrants in an understandable and accessible way about the processing of their fingerprints in Eurodac.
    19
    November
    2019
    Over 2.5 million people applied for international protection in the 28 EU Member States in 2015 and 2016. Many of those who were granted some form of protection are young people, who are likely to stay and settle in the EU. The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights interviewed some of them, as well as professionals working with them in 15 locations across six EU Member States: Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Sweden. This report presents the result of FRA’s fieldwork research, focusing on young people between the
    ages of 16 and 24.
    Handbook / Guide / Manual
    18
    February
    2013
    Based on its findings and research FRA provides practical guidance to support the implementation of fundamental rights in the EU Member States. This series contains practical guidance on: Initial-reception facilities at external borders; Apprehension of migrants in an irregular situation; Guidance on how to reduce the risk of refoulement in external border management when working in or together with third countries; Fundamental rights implications of the obligation to provide fingerprints for Eurodac; Twelve operational fundamental rights considerations for law enforcement when processing Passenger Name Record (PNR) data and Border controls and fundamental rights at external land borders.
    20
    November
    2019
    French and German versions now available
    21 April 2020
    Child rights come first. Measures to ensure child protection and participation apply to all children in the EU. This brochure guides you to relevant FRA reports and tools that can support you when promoting and protecting the rights of all children in the EU.
    4
    November
    2019
    The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights has been regularly collecting data on asylum and
    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. It addresses fundamental rights concerns between 1 July and 30 September 2019.
    In this edition Michael O'Flaherty reports back from his visit to the asylum seeker facility in Lesbos and calls for the support of all EU Member States to improve in particular the situation of unaccompanied children.
    18
    September
    2019
    Individuals who are not entitled to stay in the European Union are typically subject to being returned to their home countries. This includes children who are not accompanied by their parents or by another primary caregiver. But returning such children, or finding another durable solution, is a delicate matter, and doing so in full compliance with fundamental rights protections can be difficult. This focus paper therefore aims to help national authorities involved in return-related tasks, including child-protection services, to ensure full rights compliance.
    12
    September
    2019
    FRA’s second EU Minorities and Discrimination survey (EU-MIDIS II) collected information from over 25,000 respondents with different ethnic minority and immigrant backgrounds across all 28 EU Member States. The main findings from the survey, published in 2017, pointed to a number of differences in the way women and men with immigrant backgrounds across the European Union (EU) experience how their rights are respected. This report summarises some of the most relevant survey findings in this regard, which show the need for targeted, gender-sensitive measures that promote the integration of – specifically – women who are immigrants or descendants of immigrants.
    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.
    FRA attended the annual meeting of the EUAA training reference group in Malta on 5 March. It was joined by representatives of the European Commission, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), the UN Refugee Agency, the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) and the EU Asylum Agency’s Consultative Forum.
    On 26 and 27 February, FRA visited the Closed Controlled Access Centre of Mavrovouni in Lesvos. The visit to this initial reception facility relates to FRA’s commitments under the December 2020 Greece-EU Memorandum of Understanding on a Multi-Purpose Reception and Identification Centre in Lesvos.
    On 5 March, FRA attended a Plenary meeting of the EU Migration Preparedness and Crisis Blueprint, a mechanism established by the European Commission for better monitoring and anticipating migration movements.
    FRA took part in a meeting of the Austrian task force on Ukraine on 1 March in Vienna.
    FRA attended a meeting of the EU Migration Preparedness and Crisis Blueprint. The meeting on 27 February marked the second anniversary of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
    FRA and the UN Refugee Agency were re-elected as co-chairs to the Frontex Consultative Forum on fundamental rights.
    FRA took part in a meeting on one of the subgroups of the European Labour Authority (ELA) Platform tackling undeclared work. The Subgroup looks at safe reporting and complaint mechanisms for workers to denounce abuse and seek support.
    In a meeting on 5 February, FRA introduced its project on data collection on fundamental rights at external borders in 18 EU Member States and candidate countries.
    FRA presented the Agency’s perspective during an expert roundtable on the European Border and Coast Guard Agency’s (Frontex) legal and non-judicial accountability in light of recent case law of the EU Court of Justice (CJEU).
    The Greek Ombudsman and FRA held an expert workshop for staff of the Cypriot and Greek ombuds bodies who work as forced return monitors
    On 23 January, FRA and the Frontex Consultative Forum on Fundamental Rights attended the Frontex Management Board meeting. They addressed the protection of fundamental rights in Frontex operations.
    The Council of Europe’s Special Representative on migration and refugees hosted a visit from FRA and the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA).
    On 11 January, FRA held the inception meeting for a new project on the Entry/Exit System (EES) with partners from its research network, FRANET.
    On 18 December 2023, FRA presented its report on human rights defenders to the Visa Committee which brings together all EU Member States.
    A new joint publication from the Council of Europe and the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) outlines the relevant human rights standards at Europe’s borders that apply to children.
    On 6-8 December 2023, the Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum in collaboration with the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) and the EU Asylum Agency (EUAA) provided a training of trainers on guardianship for unaccompanied children.
    On 8 December, FRA contributed to discussion on human rights compliant asylum procedures in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons. FRA reported about obstacles in accessing asylum procedures at EU’s external borders as described in its report Asylum and migration:
    Longer-term plans, better information and administrative flexibility would support local authorities providing people who fled the war in Ukraine improved access to housing, education, jobs and healthcare in the EU, finds an EU Agency of Fundamental Rights (FRA) report. It examines how authorities responded to the first-ever activation of the EU’s Temporary Protection Directive. It identifies good practices and suggests how authorities can tackle the many shared challenges they face.
    FRA took part in the first meeting of the Council of Europe consultation group focusing on children from Ukraine. The meeting focused on applicable law, guardianship, reception and mental health programmes.
    On 5 December, FRA presented key developments in terms of fundamental rights for asylum seekers and migrants during the plenary meeting of the EU Migration Preparedness and Crisis Blueprint.