Pushback (migration)

In migration, pushback is "a set of state measures by which refugees and migrants are forced back over a border – generally immediately after they crossed it – without consideration of their individual circumstances and without any possibility to apply for asylum". Pushbacks violate the prohibition of collective expulsion of asylum seekers in Protocol 4 in countries party to the European Convention on Human Rights and often violate the international law prohibition on non-refoulement.

Pushback is contrasted with "pullback", a form of extraterritorial migration control the country seeking to repel asylum seekers arranges with a third country to prevent them from leaving.

Neža Kogovšek Šalamon considers that there is no single, recognized definition of a pushback, but in general they can be characterized as "informal collective forced returns of people who irregularly enter the country back to the country they entered from, via procedures that take place outside legally defined rules in protocols or agreements signed by the neighbouring countries". Pushbacks target migrants indiscriminately, regardless of whether they have grounds for international protection, and without the opportunity to apply for asylum. In many cases the forced return is enforced with police violence and is often accompanied by threats, humiliation, and theft of migrants' belongings and mobile phones. Pushbacks are typically done in a clandestine fashion, frequently without informing the authorities of the country that is receiving the pushed-back migrants. Therefore, there is usually no documentation that a pushback took place and it is difficult for victims to seek redress.

According to Niamh Keady-Tabbal and Itamar Mann, writing for the European Journal of International Law, the word "pushback" is related to "an erosion of refugee law, and a parallel license to inflict ever more extreme violence upon people on the move who are not bone fide refugees". In the case of pushbacks in the Aegean, they doubt that pushback is an appropriate word for "a human rights violation that encapsulates a will to eliminate a person’s presence on the face of the planet".

If the refugees are at risk of life or freedom due to "race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion" with the exception of "danger to the security of the country" the pushbacks violate the principle of non-refoulement in international law, including the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

In some regions additional laws apply, in Europe pushbacks often violate the prohibition of collective expulsion of asylum seekers in Protocol 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Refoulement, as well as summary expulsions, are also prohibited by Articles 18 and 19 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Depending on the circumstances, pushbacks may themselves constitute torture, or ill-treatment, or violate the right to life, prohibited by international law including the ECHR and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Marco Stefan and Roberto Cortinovi, at the European University Institute, describe pushbacks as "a major threat to the fundamental rights and rule of law standards established under EU primary and secondary legislation". There have also been attempts to challenge pushbacks on the basis that they could amount to forced disappearances or crimes against humanity in especially severe cases.

UNHCR has urged European countries to put an end to pushbacks at Europe's land and sea borders, calling them "simply illegal". Both the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights have ruled that Hungary's policy of systematically deporting migrants to the Serbian border was unlawful. 72,000 people have been affected by this policy since 2016, which Hungary continues despite these rulings. However, Frontex suspended its operations in Hungary.

Pushbacks by the Hungarian authorities often involve police brutality - beating up asylum seekers and setting the dogs upon them - that in several cases end with death. The Hungarian authorities usually fail to investigate these tragedies effectively, and the cases are taken to the European Court of Human Rights. In Hungary, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee examines and reports about these abuses, provides free legal assistance to the plaintiffs, and takes them to court.