In July 2024, a big group of over 90 organizations that work to protect human rights and help people in need came together. They wanted to send a strong message to the European Union (EU). The EU is a group of countries in Europe that work together. These organizations were worried because the EU was going to have its first big meeting with newly elected leaders.
The message from these organizations was very serious. They wanted the EU to remember two important things: the right to asylum and following the law. Asylum means when a person asks another country for protection because they are not safe in their own country. Following the law means that everyone, including the government, must obey the rules.
Some of the well-known organizations in this group were Amnesty International, the Danish Refugee Council, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam. These groups work all over the world to help people and make sure their rights are protected.
These organizations were worried because they had seen some EU countries trying to do something different. These countries were trying to send people who ask for asylum to other countries outside the EU. This is a big problem because international laws say that if a person comes to a country and asks for protection, that country should look at their request and decide if they can stay.
To make their message clear, these 90 organizations wrote a letter together. In this letter, they asked the EU to stop thinking about these plans to send asylum seekers away. They said these plans go against the laws that the EU already has. They also don’t fit with a new set of rules about migration that the EU just agreed on. Instead of these plans, the organizations want the EU to make rules that are kind to people, that can work for a long time, and that are realistic.
Maria Gonzalez, who works for Human Rights Watch and knows a lot about how the EU deals with people moving to new countries, said something important. She said that countries have tried before to send asylum seekers to other places, but this has always been seen as a bad idea. She mentioned that some countries tried to send asylum seekers to faraway places, but these plans didn’t work well. Maria said the EU should learn from this and not waste time and money on plans that are expensive, not kind to people, and hard to do.
The organizations also talked about what happened when countries tried these kinds of plans before. They said it often caused big problems. Many people were kept in places like jails for a long time without a good reason. These people didn’t know what would happen to them or how long they would be kept. This was very stressful and scary for them. Also, these plans cost a lot of money, which comes from the taxes that people in these countries pay.
The organizations pointed out something else important. Right now, most of the people in the world who have had to leave their homes because of war or other big problems are living in countries that don’t have a lot of money. When rich countries in the EU try to send asylum seekers away, it looks like they don’t want to help. This is not good because all countries should work together to help people who need protection.