EU Lawmakers Vote to Make it Easier to Set Up Migrant Detention Centers Outside the Bloc

European lawmakers voted Thursday to ease the setting up of new migrant detention centers outside the European Union, known as “return hubs.” 
 
Any EU nation can now negotiate on its own or in small coalitions to deport migrants not to their home countries but to facilities yet to be built outside the 27-nation bloc. 
 
Already, Greece, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and Denmark have entered into negotiations with governments mainly in Africa to host sites to hold migrants denied asylum. 
 
However, human rights groups say migrants are being brutalized and pushed back illegally at EU borders, while legal protections are increasingly being hollowed out. 
 
Marta Welander, EU advocacy director for the International Rescue Committee, said the vote was “a historic setback for refugee rights.” 
 
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