If you read Washington's latest security strategy slamming European migration policies and claiming the continent faces "civilisational erasure," you might think the EU was throwing its borders wide open.

In fact, irregular migration to the bloc is falling, and EU states just advanced their most restrictive migration rules yet in a bid to make it easier for members to swiftly detain and deport rejected asylum seekers.

Denmark's Immigration Minister Rasmus Stoklund said new reforms would help fix a "dysfunctional" EU system and restore a sense of "control." 

But the moves have also drawn stark criticism from human rights watchdogs, with Amnesty accusing the bloc of mirroring the "harrowing, dehumanizing and unlawful mass arrests, detention and deportations in the US." 

Sending migrants to overseas detention centers?

The raft of reforms backed by EU home affairs ministers on Monday includes a legal rubber-stamp on the idea of so-called "return hubs." That could mean detention centers outside the EU where migrants may be sent to have asylum claims processed — or even as part of a one-way ticket out from Europe.

The rule rewrite, which still needs to be negotiated with the European Parliament, would allow individual EU governments to strike up deals with states beyond the bloc's borders and send migrants there — even if they have no ties to the country.

While Denmark began mulling ways to send migrants to Rwanda back in 2021, the first EU member to try it out in practice was Italy. It set up centers in its non-EU neighbor Albania last year, but Rome's hubs were beset by legal challenges and put on hold.

Italy's interior minister said on Monday that agreement among ministers leaves Albania-based centers well-positioned to become the first real-world example of an EU return hub and to "resume" operations.

But migration policy analyst Helena Hahn said the "jury is still out" on what return hubs could look like beyond Italy's model — and above all, which non-EU states would be willing to host migrants bound for Europe.

'Shirking responsibility?'

Charities and campaigners including Human Rights Watch and Oxfam have in the past slammed the EU for "shirking responsibility" by trying to outsource asylum processing.

"The EU is attempting to further push its responsibilities onto countries who already host the majority of refugees with often far fewer resources," dozens of NGOs said last year.

Their statement insisted EU pledges to uphold migrants' rights were "empty words."

Denmark's Stoklund pushed back on those accusations on Monday. "If we send someone to a return center, we will be responsible for respecting their human rights," he told reporters after talks in Brussels.

Faster deportations by designating 'safe' countries

EU states also backed new proposals designed to speed up deportations, with harsher penalties for migrants who ignore expulsion orders. That follows an earlier agreement on EU plans to downgrade trade ties with countries which fail to cooperate on deportations.

Ministers also gave a green light to a centralized list of "safe" countries which national authorities can use to fast-track decisions and deny residency to those least likely to be granted asylum.

Only around 4% of Bangladeshis seeking asylum in the EU last year were accepted, for example, and Bangladesh heads up the list of countries deemed safe by Brussels. Other states on the list include India, Colombia, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia.

Ministers agreed EU candidate states such as Montenegro, Moldova or Serbia should also be deemed safe, except in cases of conflict or restrictions on fundamental rights.

Relocate migrants or pay for support

EU states finalized one plan that analyst Helena Hahn sees as somewhat bucking the trend toward more restrictions.

The so-called "solidarity pool" will see member states from Europe's North and East either take in more migrants from Southern states where most asylum seekers arrive — or pay into a funding pot to support the likes of Cyprus, Spain, Italy or Greece.

Hahn describes this as "a mechanism to organize and to coordinate responsibility sharing over asylum seekers amongst member states" — and she thinks it's a "big step."

"Questions around relocations, quotas, the distribution of asylum seekers across Europe in a 'fair' way has always been — for the longest amount of time now — one of the main political sensitivities, in particular, that have plagued the implementation and functioning of the common European asylum system," she explained.

Details of which countries will pay what remain under wraps, but EU member Hungary has already vowed not to follow the rules — something which could tee up future legal clashes between Brussels and Budapest.

Voter concerns and a surging far right

EU citizens often cite irregular immigration as one of their top concerns. Bloc-wide survey data from earlier this year saw people rank it second only to Russia's war in Ukraine in a list of the biggest challenges facing the EU — ahead of the cost of living, climate change, and security and defense issues.

Far-right parties which focus on anti-immigrant messaging are gaining popularity in many EU countries, with centrist forces trying to claw back votes.

"We are looking at a largely restrictive immigration agenda," researcher Helena Hahn told DW, noting more and more countries are trying to come up with so-called "innovative solutions" to deter, detain and deport migrants.

"But we have seen very few outcomes so far," Hahn explained. "So that also, I think, speaks to the political feasibility of some of these ideas that seem to suggest that it would be quite easy to move people from A to B, without any particular kind of respect to political, diplomatic or practical considerations."

Edited by: Jess Smee