EU countries are considering withdrawing trade privileges from partner countries that refuse to take back failed asylum seekers. Rights groups say the proposal uses trade as economic blackmail to control migration.
A protest was organized in Brussels on Monday to occupy a public building and demand an emergency solution for some 50 asylum seekers who are currently lacking accommodation.
EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson has reiterated that the EU needs migration. During a press conference announcing future EU migration policy, she declared that "investing in safe and legal routes is the only sustainable soultion to save [migrants'] lives."
A lack of available spots in state-run shelters left asylum seekers Fazal, Ukunde and Pascal with nowhere to go. NGO-operated shelters offer them refuge for now.
Belgium says there has been a massive drop in the number of irregular migrants using it as a transit country to reach Britain.
Fast-track temporary visas for survivors of the Syrian-Turkish earthquakes are available only to Turkish nationals, despite widespread reports that Syrians were also eligible under new special procedures.
The housing crisis for migrants and asylum seekers in Brussels appears to have worsened. Since the recent evacuation of several hundred people from a squat, the number of tents along the city’s canals and streets has multiplied.
In Brussels, hundreds of asylum seekers are homeless and many are spending cold nights in the streets. Belgium is overwhelmed with the rising number of asylum seekers and unable to provide everyone with housing. InfoMigrants reports.
A transgender activist from Cameroon has arrived in Belgium, where she was given asylum. Despite suffering violent attacks, she had to spend over a year in exile in Nigeria while her claim in Belgium was being processed.
At a meeting between two top officials from the foreign ministries of Italy and Belgium, migration was one of the key issues discussed.
The European Commission has presented a new strategy to increase the return of irregular migrants. EU member states were called on to work closer together as well as collaborate with EU authorities like Frontex.
In the EU capital city Brussels, an estimated 3,000 migrants and asylum seekers sleep homeless or in temporary accommodation. It is a similar story in neighboring Netherlands.