Is Europe building its own ICE?

With Westminster consumed by political drama this week, a potentially consequential development passed through the European Parliament with remarkably little attention.

On June 17, European lawmakers voted to approve controversial measures designed to accelerate the deportation of undocumented migrants. The proposals include the possibility of detaining individuals for up to two years and transferring people to offshore processing centres. Under the new system, member states will be allowed to establish so-called “return hubs” in non-EU countries. A migrant or asylum seeker could find themselves in “return hubs” in other countries that have an agreement with EU member states. The “return regulation” is the EU’s toughest shift in migration policy in decades. 

The newly proposed stricter rules are part of the EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum, designed to standardise border management, asylum processing, and responsibility-sharing across the European Union.

The vote comes at a moment when hard-line immigration policies are gaining momentum in Europe. Britain is also moving towards tougher enforcement.

Despite UK net migration nearly halving, from 331,000 in the year ending December 2024 to 171,000 in the year ending December 2025, immigration remains a central political battleground. The latest figure is the lowest since the post-Brexit immigration system was introduced in 2021, yet politicians continue to push for deeper cuts.

Last year, Reform UK unveiled plans to “identify, detain and deport” hundreds of thousands of migrants, with proposals to expand detention capacity dramatically and curtail legal obstacles to removal. Meanwhile, Labour has begun adopting a firmer position on border enforcement. Earlier this year, the Home Office faced criticism over a Donald Trump-style TikTok video promoting deportations and immigration raids. The 20-second clip, posted by Secure Borders UK, featured handcuffed migrants being escorted onto planes and enforcement officers carrying out workplace raids, accompanied by the slogan: “Restoring order and control to our borders” and ending with the message: “And it’s just getting started.”

The videos drew comparisons with the White House’s social media output, where fast-paced montages celebrating Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations have become a regular feature. While critics on the right dismissed Labour’s campaign as gimmickry rather than substance, the imagery reflected a political shift taking place on both sides of the Atlantic: the growing normalisation of a more aggressive, enforcement-first approach to migration.

Such an approach was on full display in the European Parliament this week. An alliance of centre-right and far-right lawmakers joined forces to back the harsh deportation plans, with MEPs voting 418 to 218 in favour. The result sparked confrontation in the chamber. Right-wing MEPs reportedly leapt to their feet, punched the air and chanted “send them back,” while opponents responded with cries of “shame on you.” Human rights organisations condemned the proposals, warning they risk undermining fundamental rights and legal protections. Sixteen UN experts  outlined more than a dozen ways in which the measures could contravene international human rights obligations. Amnesty International France described the plans as “absurd, cruel and discriminatory.”

Javi López, a Socialist MEP and vice-president of the European Parliament, called the session “disgraceful,” accusing supporters of treating human beings like parcels.

“Families. Minors. Deported to third countries. This is the Europe they are imposing.”

The legislation faces further negotiations before becoming law, yet the significance of the vote is unmistakable. The 2024 European elections delivered a record number of nationalist and far-right MEPs, reshaping the debate on migration across the continent and expanding the boundaries of what is considered politically acceptable. Policies once associated with Europe’s nationalist fringe are being embraced by the political mainstream. As anti-migrant sentiment rises across the continent, so too does support for tougher enforcement measures that echo the hard-line approach associated with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, better known as ICE.

Europe’s ICE moment

The developments raise an uncomfortable question: is Europe beginning to construct its own version of America’s ICE?

In the United States, ICE has become one of the most polarising institutions in public life. The agency oversees vast detention and deportation operations and has long been accused by civil liberties groups as prioritising enforcement targets over due process and humanitarian concerns. Earlier this year, its aggressive tactics were thrust into the global spotlight as Minnesota became the centre of bitter confrontation immigration enforcement. A series of shootings by federal agents enforcing Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration, including the fatal shooting of a woman by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, sparked angry protests across the country. Images of heavily armed agents and clashes with protesters reverberated far beyond America’s borders.

The American Civil Liberties Union argues that when governments prioritise rapid removals over individual circumstances, the consequences extend beyond immigration policy. They affect fundamental protections against arbitrary detention, discrimination and abuses of state power.

The social costs are equally profound. Families are separated, communities lose trust in law enforcement, and entire groups of people come to fear contact with public authorities.

The question is not whether Europe has created an exact equivalent of ICE. It hasn’t. The question is whether European governments are increasingly embracing the same underlying logic: more detention, faster removals, fewer legal obstacles and broader enforcement powers.

There is growing evidence that they are.

The French blueprint

Last June, France offered a glimpse of what that future could look like.

Train stations across the country were transformed into what TruthDig journalist Phineas Rueckert described as “impromptu immigration checkpoints.” Citing a surge in illegal immigration, then-interior minister Bruno Retailleau deployed 4,000 police officers and immigration agents to more than 800 railway stations nationwide.

Over two days, authorities boarded more than 1,200 trains and arrested nearly 700 people. Around 200 received deportation orders, roughly half of whom were returned to the Italian border. Only a small proportion of those detained had criminal records.

Speaking at Paris’s Gare du Nord after the operation, Retailleau delivered an unrelenting message:

“Don’t come to France. We will accept nothing. This is zero tolerance.”

Retailleau has since become leader of the centre-right Les Républicains party and is widely expected to be a major contender in France’s 2027 presidential election. Worryingly, many of the ideas he has championed nationally are now finding support at the European level.

In March, Retailleau celebrated a European Parliament vote expanding deportation powers across the EU. The reforms owed much to the lobbying efforts of François-Xavier Bellamy, vice-president of Les Républicains, who hailed the outcome as a “decisive victory” and a “major advancement.”

More than 250 charities and NGOs have condemned the measures, describing them as “coercive, traumatising, and rights-violating” and part of a wider shift towards treating migration itself as a security threat.

The road to Britain

If Europe is moving in this direction, could Britain follow?

The answer is that, in many ways, the debate has already arrived.

Last year, Reform unveiled what it called a five-year plan to “identify, detain and deport” hundreds of thousands of migrants who entered Britain illegally. Dubbed Operation Restoring Justice, the proposal would involve detaining arrivals at disused RAF bases and expanding removal centres to hold up to 24,000 people.

Launching the plan, Nigel Farage argued the only way to stop small-boat crossings was by “detaining and deporting absolutely anyone who comes via that route.”

“If we do that, the boats will stop coming in days because there will be no incentive,” he said.

At first glance, it might appear to be simply another tough immigration policy. But a closer look suggests something more radical.

More than an immigration bill

Researchers at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at the University of Oxford note that the proposal would require Britain to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, repeal the Human Rights Act and suspend key obligations under the Refugee Convention.

“The policy reflects a major departure from the 75-year postwar consensus in Europe that countries should not send people to countries where they could face persecution,” COMPAS argues.

Worryingly, while the policy would almost certainly face court challenges, the Tory government’s controversial, multi-million-pound policy to deport asylum seekers who crossed the English Channel to Rwanda, demonstrated that governments possess considerable power to limit judicial oversight if they are determined to do so.

Writing on Substack this week, Labour peer Tom Watson argued that Reform’s proposal is not merely about immigration enforcement but about concentrating executive power.

Clause 2 would require the home secretary to create and maintain at least 24,000 detention places. The locations would be determined later, under a schedule left blank in the draft legislation. The sites themselves would be selected at the home secretary’s “absolute discretion.”

That phrase should alarm anyone concerned with democratic accountability. As Watson points out, “absolute discretion” is not the language of democratic administration. It’s the language of unchecked executive power.

The bill would also disapply a range of existing safeguards. Planning law, procurement rules, detention centre regulations, immigration bail provisions, modern slavery protections and child welfare duties.

These laws exist because governments require scrutiny when they imprison people and spend public money. Their removal would not merely streamline deportations. It would weaken the mechanisms designed to hold power accountable.

Supporters will argue that extraordinary migration pressures require extraordinary measures. Opponents will counter that democracies are defined precisely by their willingness to uphold legal protections under pressure.

What is undeniable is that the political tone is shifting.

Across Europe, ideas once associated with the hard right are increasingly being adopted, normalised and institutionalised.

The European Parliament vote is only the latest example. France’s station raids offered another. Reform UK’s proposals and Labour’s MAGA-style deportation videos on TikTok suggest Britain may not be far behind.

The danger is not simply the prospect of more deportations. It’s the broader model of government that can emerge alongside them: one in which detention expands, judicial oversight contracts and ministers acquire powers that would once have been considered politically unthinkable.

Today’s justification may be small boats.

The question is what those powers are used for tomorrow.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch