An IMGW News Report
Britain’s post-Brexit migration strategy is facing fresh legal headwinds, as lawyers mount a challenge against deportations to Bulgaria – a nation accused of violating the very rights European law seeks to uphold.
Following Labour’s 2024 electoral victory, the UK has ramped up removals, with over 24,000 enforced or voluntary returns, including more than 200 to Bulgaria. The Home Office justifies these expulsions via bilateral arrangements, arguing that migrants who transited through Bulgaria may be safely returned. Yet mounting evidence paints a darker picture.
“Anyone unlawfully in the UK with refugee status in another country will be returned if that country is deemed safe,”
Human rights lawyers argue that returnees risk inhumane and degrading treatment, in breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The NGO No Name Kitchen reports that among 21 asylum seekers deported to Bulgaria – most of them Syrian – more than two-thirds were later coerced into signing “voluntary return” papers, with some allegedly threatened with extended detention.
First-hand accounts offer little comfort. A Syrian woman deported from Germany said she was threatened with 18 months in detention if she refused to return to Syria. Another man deported from the UK said he suffered repeated beatings at the hands of Bulgarian police, leaving him with a broken nose.
“A man deported from the UK said he suffered repeated beatings at the hands of Bulgarian police, leaving him with a broken nose”
These testimonies are not isolated. The European Council on Refugees and Exiles recently flagged substandard conditions in Bulgaria’s asylum infrastructure, citing poor sanitation, lack of heating, and vermin infestations. Reports of Bulgarian border guards allegedly obstructing the rescue of Egyptian teenagers who later froze to death have further compounded concerns.
Lawyers representing multiple Syrian clients, argued that “deporting individuals to a country where systemic mistreatment is well documented undermines the UK’s legal obligations and moral standing.”
Yet the Home Office remains unmoved. “Anyone unlawfully in the UK with refugee status in another country will be returned if that country is deemed safe,” it insists.
But with Bulgaria’s track record increasingly in question, the very definition of “safe” may soon be tested in the courts.
