The UN rights chief said on Saturday he deeply regretted the EU’s new migration rules, which allow for more sweeping detention powers and the creation of deportation centers outside the bloc.
The rules approved on Wednesday enable 27 EU countries to open “return hubs” outside the bloc’s borders, where they can send asylum seekers and migrants they do not deem to have the right to remain.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said the EU and its member states must ensure that the rules fully comply with international human rights and refugee law.
“EU countries cannot outsource their human rights obligations to third states in this context,” he said in a statement.
“The detention of vulnerable people, including children, and their return to other countries is a particularly sensitive exercise of state power and carries a high risk of human rights violations.