Expanding EUrope's border regime: Berlin-Brandenburg Airport to become mass deportation centre

The German government plans to convert Berlin-Brandenburg (BER) Airport’s Terminal 5 into a mass deportation centre, starting from 2025. People awaiting verdicts from asylum cases will be indefinitely detained, with limited access to legal recourse and wide constraints on fundamental rights. Expanding BER Airport’s capacity to detain asylum seekers represents a coherent development within a wider European border regime – rooted in strategies of isolationism and deterrence. Furthermore, the policy aligns with the proposed fundamental reform to the EU’s asylum system, which would see even stricter border regulations, a permanent integration of “third countries” in the processing of asylum seekers and a grim neglect of state responsibilities – set out under international law. Read the article here