Migration

US judges affirm migrants must have opportunities to voice safety concerns before deportation to unfamiliar nations.

A US federal appeals court has rejected the Trump administration’s policy of rapidly deporting migrants to countries other than their own – a ruling that could next go before the Supreme Court.

On Friday, a three-judge panel of the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston largely upheld a February decision that found the Department of Homeland Security’s so-called third-country removal policy unlawful.

The case stems from a class-action lawsuit testing what due process migrants are owed before being sent to nations with which they have no ties.

Writing for the panel, US Circuit Judge Seth Aframe said migrants must be given a “meaningful” chance to raise safety concerns before removal, rejecting the Trump administration’s narrower reading of the law.

The court did overturn part of the ruling on procedural grounds, concerning whether officials must first try deporting migrants to countries they have ties to.

Trina Realmuto, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said the decision confirmed that “due process and the protections Congress enacted against persecution and torture cannot be circumvented by putting someone on a plane to a country that was never part of their removal proceedings”.

The DHS did not immediately comment. The Trump administration is expected to appeal the ruling.

Under Trump, the US has struck agreements allowing it to send more than 25,000 migrants to at least 29 third countries, most often Mexico, according to Third Country Deportation Watch, a tracker run by the rights groups Refugees International and Human Rights First.

The policy, adopted in March 2025, allowed removals with only minimal notice if officials had diplomatic assurances against persecution.

The controversial programme has reached the Supreme Court twice.

In 2025, the justices cleared the way for eight men, including nationals of Cuba, Myanmar and Vietnam, to be deported to South Sudan, a country the US State Department advises against visiting because of “crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict”.

The DHS called the removals “a win”, while rights groups said they flouted basic protections.

The Trump administration’s immigration agenda has faced a string of setbacks this month.

A federal judge blocked planned caps on student and journalist visas, calling the government’s justification “exceptionally weak”, while a coalition of 22 states and Washington, DC, sued to stop a separate rule that would let officials deny green cards to immigrants who lawfully use public benefits.

Magdalena Andersson will likely face several challenges as she tries to get Sweden’s other left-wing parties to unite.

Sweden’s opposition leader has officially begun talks to form a coalition government after the country’s left-wing bloc won a slim majority in last week’s election.

Magdalena Andersson, leader of the centre-left Social Democrats, was asked by Parliament Speaker Andreas Norlen on Friday to begin efforts to form a new government.

Norlen’s request follows the resignation of centre-right Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who stepped down on Thursday after the general election result was confirmed.

“I have now been tasked with exploring the possibility of forming a government. A task I undertake with great humility and will act constructively to put together a new government,” Andersson said in a statement posted on Instagram.

“My approach to the work that is now taking place is that all political forces now need to put party tactics aside and put Sweden and the Swedish people first.”

Andersson will likely face a series of challenges as she tries to persuade Sweden’s other left-wing parties to unite and form a new administration. The left-wing bloc won 176 of Parliament’s 349 seats in last week’s vote, securing a razor-thin majority of three seats.

Andersson is expected to seek the support of three other left-wing parties: the Greens, the Centre Party and the Left Party.

The socialist Left Party says Andersson will have to award some of its MPs cabinet posts to win their support. However, the liberal Centre Party insists it will not support such a government.

Andersson has until September 28 to form a government. If she fails, Kristersson, whose centre-right bloc won 173 seats, will try to form a coalition.

Coalition and minority governments are common in Sweden because the country has two major left- and right-wing blocs, both of which contain four parties.

The process of forming a government following the 2022 election took more than a month.

United Nations says 22 million people need humanitarian aid as conflict intensifies.

More than 112,000 people have been displaced in Yemen and close to 3,000 have fled the conflict to Djibouti, according to the United Nations, as fighting intensifies between the Iran-allied Houthis and Saudi-backed forces loyal to the internationally recognised government.

“Our resources are very, very, very limited and our stocks will be depleted very soon,” Abdusattor Esoev, mission chief in Yemen for the International Organization for Migration, told reporters on Friday.

Most of the more than 112,000 internally displaced people have been displaced over the last two weeks, mainly along the west coast and in the provinces of Taiz and Lahj, he added.

The displacement began when the Houthis made a rapid advance, seizing control of the entire Red Sea coast of Yemen to tighten their grip on the vital shipping route, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

Esoev estimates 22 million Yemenis – or nearly half the population – are in urgent need of humanitarian aid.

More than 65,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers in Yemen, mainly from Somalia and Ethiopia, are also threatened.

3,000 Yemenis flee to Djibouti

The crisis is growing “by the hour”, warned Francesco Galtieri, a representative for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), adding that thousands of women who have lost all their possessions are on the run with their children.

Galtieri estimates that 2,000 pregnant women are among the displaced and around 200 are expected to give birth shortly.

Around 3,000 Yemenis have fled Yemen by boat to Djibouti, the UN refugee agency said. The shortest route across the Bab al-Mandeb Strait is just over 25 kilometres.

The UNHCR reports that more than 2,400 people made the voyage in the past week – mostly women, children and older people.

The influx is adding pressure on Djibouti and population of about one million people. It already hosts around 36,000 refugees, most from Somalia and Ethiopia, said UNHCR representative Sandrine Desamours.

“While the number may sound small,” it must be seen in proportion to the population, she added.

The strategically important Bab al-Mandeb links the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and has become an alternative shipping route as the United States’ war against Iran choked the Strait of Hormuz.

World Cup winners Spain choose Cueta to announce Nations League squad in solidarity with migration crisis in region.

Spain coach Luis de la Fuente announced his Nations League squad from Ceuta on Friday in a show of support for the Spanish city in northern Africa that has become the centre of a migration crisis.

For his first squad announcement since Spain won the World Cup in July, De la Fuente revealed his list in a video featuring him in Ceuta accompanied by residents of the Spanish exclave. More than 70,000 people stormed across the border in late July from Morocco, with more than 100 dying in the chaos. Most quickly returned, but a few thousand remain in the city of just over 80,000.

De la Fuente did not directly mention the border crossing or its impact, but did say: “This is Ceuta, this is Spain.” It echoed the rise in sentiment in Spain that Ceuta – a territory that until the mass crossing was mostly an afterthought for most mainland Spaniards – needs to be supported.

Spain opens the Nations League against England at Wembley Stadium on September 26 , when its players will wear two stars on their shirts for the first time since winning their second world title.

After visiting London, Spain will host Croatia on September 29 and the Czech Republic on October 3 , before visiting Croatia on October 6 .

De la Fuente kept his World Cup squad mostly intact.

Inter Milan goalkeeper Josep Martinez replaces Barcelona’s Joan Garcia, who is out with a minor knee issue. Real Madrid defender Dean Huijsen is in for Marcos Llorente, who retired from international football. Fermin Lopez replaces fellow Barcelona midfielder Gavi, while Espanyol striker Roberto Fernandez got his first call-up, replacing Borja Iglesias.

Ceuta is one of two Spanish territories on the north African coast along with Melilla. Ceuta has been in Spanish possession since 1580. Christians and Muslims, Spanish and Moroccan residents and day workers all live there in relative harmony behind a border fence that many migrants from across Africa attempt to cross or swim around for a better life in Europe.

A Real Madrid supporters’ group has demanded a public apology from their star striker Kylian Mbappe and two of his teammates after the trio declined to fully wear a T-shirt in support of the people of Ceuta.

Mbappe, Vinicius Junior and Ibrahima Konate wore a tribute shirt along with the rest of the squad ahead of Madrid’s 3-2 win at Elche on Tuesday in La Liga, although theirs were partially rolled up to cover the message.

Spain’s Nations League squad:

• Goalkeepers: Unai Simon (Athletic Bilbao), David Raya (Arsenal), Josep Martínez (Inter Milan)
• Defenders: Aymeric Laporte (Athletic Bilbao), Pau Cubarsi (Barcelona), Eric Garcia (Barcelona), Marc Pubill (Atletico Madrid), Alejandro Grimaldo (Atletico Madrid), Marc Cucurella (Real Madrid), Dean Huijsen (Real Madrid), Pedro Porro (Tottenham).
• Midfielders: Rodri Hernandez (Barcelona), Pedri Gonzalez (Barcelona), Fermin Lopez (Barcelona), Martin Zubimendi (Arsenal), Mikel Merino (Arsenal), Fabian Ruiz (Paris Saint-Germain), Alex Baena (Atletico Madrid).
• Forwards: Lamine Yamal (Barcelona), Dani Olmo (Barcelona), Ferran Torres (Paris Saint-Germain), Yeremy Pino (Crystal Palace), Nico Williams (Athletic Bilbao), Mikel Oyarzabal (Real Sociedad), Victor Munoz (Liverpool), Roberto Fernandez (Espanyol).

The ex-Oklahoma state trooper’s nomination had stalled in the Senate as ICE faced growing scrutiny over its operations.

The White House has withdrawn the nomination of former Oklahoma state trooper Lance Schroyer to lead United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), without giving a reason for the decision.

The withdrawal was announced on Thursday. Schroyer, a senior adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, was nominated by President Donald Trump in June but had yet to receive a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who chairs the committee, had refused to hold a hearing until the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) provided information he had requested about civilian deaths during ICE enforcement operations.

“I don’t have a concern with who the nominee was. I had asked them to give me an update on the internal investigation into civilian deaths,” Paul told The Associated Press news agency.

Paul said he had intended to hold a hearing on Schroyer’s nomination but learned that it had been withdrawn when the White House made the decision public.

ICE remains under scrutiny

Schroyer had little experience in immigration and had not previously worked at ICE or led a major law enforcement agency. Two US officials told the Reuters news agency when he was nominated that he had been a surprise choice for the position.

When announcing Schroyer’s nomination in June, Trump said on Truth Social that he had “firsthand experience getting Illegal Aliens OFF our streets” and called on the Senate to confirm him “IMMEDIATELY”.

The withdrawal comes as ICE remains under scrutiny over its enforcement operations as the Trump administration carries out its immigration crackdown.

Critics have raised questions about how the agency has recruited and trained officers as it rapidly expanded its workforce. Federal immigration officers have also shot and killed multiple people during enforcement operations, including two US citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year.

ICE arrests have continued to increase, reaching nearly 51,000 in August, the highest monthly total of Trump’s second administration.

ICE has not had a Senate-confirmed director since 2017. David Venturella is serving as acting director after Todd Lyons resigned earlier this year.

The White House has not indicated when it might announce another nominee to lead the agency.

Sydney: Australia will reduce migration by curbing “visa hopping”, tightening rules on students and working holiday makers as well as cracking down on overstayers, its interior minister said Thursday, as the far-right surges in the polls.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told the National Press Club in Canberra that immigration was “fundamentally a strength” for Australia, but accepted that housing pressures required changes.

He denied his ruling Labor party was tightening visa rules in response to the rise of One Nation, which has become one of the country’s most popular parties this year with pledges to drastically slash migration. Business groups warned such cuts would cause economic damage.

“We need immigration to soften enough that housing has a chance to catch up,” he said, while stressing the housing shortage was not caused by migrants.

Net overseas migration – the net gain or loss to the population through movement to and from Australia – reached a peak of 538,000 in 2022 after a surge in arrivals when borders re-opened after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Numbers fell to 292,100 in the year to March, data on Thursday showed.

Burke said this was 47 percent below the post-Covid peak — and that policy changes would help to reach a target of 225,000 for next year.

Australians want to know the government was “taking control” of migration but also “being decent about it”, he said.

Students are the largest group of arrivals, with 753,000 international students in Australia, most from China and India, data shows.

Under the new rules, family members seeking to join students in Australia will face new curbs and it will become harder for students to move between courses to extend their stay, Burke said.

A backlog of applications from the UK for working holiday visas would continue to be processed slowly after a record 80,000 applications — a matter that is under discussion with the UK government, he said.

Working holiday makers in rural areas will enter a ballot to stay for a second or third year, with just 5,000 visas available for the latter.

Family members seeking to visit Australians will have “no further stay” conditions attached to their temporary visas.

Migrants with construction and housing skills will be prioritised for visas, he said.

Australia would return to a policy of a decade earlier in which visa overstayers were given two weeks to leave the country or face detention and deportation, he said.

An additional 100 compliance officers and 250 more beds in immigration detention centres would show there are consequences to overstaying a visa, he said.

But he stressed “this is not the sort of operation that some people have seen on TV happening in other countries” — a nod to hardline immigration policies in the United States.

A third of Australia’s resident population of 27.6 million was born overseas, the latest census data shows.

At least 51 people rescued as search operation continues off the island of Gavnos near Crete.

One person has died, 25 are missing and 51 people have been rescued after a boat carrying migrants sank off a Greek island near Crete, according to the country’s coastguard.

“Fifty-one were picked up by two boats that were in the area,” a coastguard spokesman said on Monday.

He said survivors had reported that 77 people were on board when the boat went down near the island of Gavdos.

Search and rescue efforts were ongoing, with four ships, boats, Frontex aircraft and a coastguard helicopter operating in the area, Greece’s public broadcaster ERT News reported.

The 51 rescued people were due to be brought to Crete, “where the prescribed procedures will be followed”, ERT reported.

After arriving in Crete, undocumented migrants generally face immediate arrest and temporary confinement before being transferred to closed detention camps on the Greek mainland. Under Greek law, individuals are subject to extended administrative detention, severe penalties and fast-track deportation.

Strong winds blowing through the area have been hampering the search operation, ERT said.

Crete and Gavdos, about 320km (200 miles) from the Libyan coast, have become the main point of entry for asylum seekers in Greece.

In late August, Greece’s ANA news agency published figures from the Ministry of Migration and Asylum that indicated that migrant arrivals in the country fell from about 61,000 in the year to August 2025 to 42,000 in the following 12 months – a decline of about 31 percent.

Greece’s conservative government in July suspended all asylum claims for migrants arriving by sea from North Africa for three months, a move it argued helped deter crossings.

The ban passed in parliament amid a surge in asylum seekers reaching Crete and after talks with Libya’s Benghazi-based government to stem the flow were cancelled in July.

The government remains at odds with regional authorities in Crete over a plan to build a permanent transit facility on the island. It is preparing draft legislation that would mandate imprisonment for people whose asylum claims are denied and require ankle monitors during a 30-day compliance period before deportation.

Authorities in Europe have tightened their immigration rules over recent years as far-right, anti-immigrant political parties have won increasing support throughout the continent.

Greece has been in discussions with Germany and several other European Union countries on setting up “return hubs” outside the bloc for processing migrants’ claims.

Srinagar: Every spring, mason Mohammad Ghulam Sarwar boards a train to Indian Kashmir, seeking higher wages despite the risk of being targeted by militants in the disputed Himalayan region.

Sarwar, 25, is one of an estimated half a million migrant workers who stream into the Himalayan region each year, forming the backbone of an economy increasingly reliant on labour from some of India’s poorest states.

The dependence has endured despite decades of insurgency and a series of militant attacks that have made migrant workers vulnerable targets.

Since 2019, at least 24 migrant workers have been killed in militant attacks across the territory, according to local media reports.

More than 1500 people were killed in the same period, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, 219 of them civilians.

The latest attack last month saw gunmen shoot dead two brick kiln workers from the central state of Chhattisgarh.

But for workers like Sarwar, the rewards outweigh the risks.

“Kashmir is real paradise. I will keep coming every year for as long as I have the strength to work,” Sarwar, from the eastern state of Bihar, told AFP.

While millions of Indians seek jobs in the Gulf, some workers say Kashmir offers nearly comparable earnings without the costs and complications of overseas migration.

Sarwar earns 1,200 rupees ($12) a day in Kashmir, compared with about 700 rupees in Bihar for the same work, if he could find any at all.

The Muslim-majority region, battling some of India’s highest unemployment rates, has become increasingly dependent on outsiders to perform jobs that many locals consider menial, including domestic work, agriculture and construction.

Local businesses say they struggle to find workers willing or able to take up many jobs.

“Outside the handicrafts sector there is not nearly enough local skilled labour available in Kashmir,” said Mohammad Ashraf Mir of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

“We see a rising dependence on migrant workers, tending towards absolute dependence.”

Waiting to be hired

Each morning, groups of labourers gather at prominent squares in the main city of Srinagar, waiting to be hired.

Most stay for about eight months before departing ahead of Kashmir’s harsh winter, when construction slows and agricultural activity dwindles.

Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence in 1947, while an insurgency against Indian rule that erupted in 1989 has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Although the rebellion has been largely weakened in recent years, sporadic attacks continue.

Sarwar said he saw a barber from his home state shot dead by suspected rebels some years ago.

While he was saddened by the incident, it failed to deter him.

“Life and death are in the hands of God,” he said.

“If I remain fearful, I will have nothing. But if I overcome, I will have everything.”

Sarwar shares a building in Srinagar with around 200 other labourers. Some 7-10 workers squeeze into tiny rooms, sleeping and cooking in the same cramped space while paying little more than five dollars a month each.

Outside, security is conspicuous.

Paramilitary troops, armoured vehicles and police special operations units patrol streets. CCTV cameras monitor the compound around the clock.

“They have been soft targets for the terrorists in the past,” a senior security official said on condition of anonymity.

“But security arrangements for them have become robust over time.”

‘Feels peaceful’

Police encourage labourers to live in clusters and avoid venturing out after dark.

A labourer from West Bengal said many Hindu workers adopt Muslim-sounding names while in Kashmir, fearing that displaying their religion could make them targets.

Rebel groups say they target migrant workers to avenge police harassment of their families.

Many labourers are reluctant to discuss security concerns publicly.

“I face no troubles here,” said Mohammad Iqbal, a 53-year-old painter from Uttar Pradesh state who has worked in Kashmir since before the insurgency began and is now accompanied by his son.

“It feels peaceful.”

Others are more candid.

“I am afraid of terrorists here,” said Shahid Sofi, a 24-year-old mason from Bihar who previously worked in Delhi and Mumbai.

“But overall working conditions here are good, the weather is good, and I like working in the wide, open spaces of Kashmir.”

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) warns that the figure is rising ‘by the hour’ as it calls for safe humanitarian access.

More than 46,000 people have been driven from their homes in Yemen in the wake of the latest escalation in fighting between Houthi rebels and government forces, according to United Nations data.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) warned that the figure is rising “by the hour” in a statement issued on Friday.

The UN agency called on all parties to the conflict to guarantee safe humanitarian access and protect civilians, aid workers and humanitarian assets on the ground.

“Families are being forced to flee for the second or third time in this conflict, with almost nothing left,” Amy Pope, head of the IOM, said in the statement.

The agency said many people had reportedly fled Mocha with their belongings overnight after the Iran-allied Houthi rebels captured the strategically important Red Sea port city from the internationally recognised government on Thursday.

Entire villages were said to have been abandoned in some areas of the war-torn country. The IOM urged the parties to the conflict to guarantee humanitarian access and ensure the safety of aid workers.

The statement came amid reports on Friday that the Houthis had captured a strategically located island in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and now control Yemen’s entire Red Sea coast.

‘Two new crises’

Separately on Friday, the UN also voiced concern over the Houthis seizing a key humanitarian compound and its assets in Mocha, warning that humanitarian personnel and facilities must be protected.

“The compound houses staff of UN agencies working to provide humanitarian assistance to vulnerable communities in the area,” UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters.

All UN personnel working at the compound had left before the seizure and were “safe and accounted for”, Haq added.

Haq stressed that humanitarian personnel, premises and assets “must be respected and protected at all times”, while calling for safe and unimpeded humanitarian access so life-saving assistance can continue reaching people in need.

Farea Al-Muslimi, a Yemen researcher at the London-based Chatham House thinktank, told Al Jazeera that deteriorating humanitarian conditions in Yemen will build on what was already one of the world’s worst crises.

“Yemen was already going through one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world,” Al-Muslimi said.

“It got terribly worse after the Houthis cracked down on aid organisations in northern Yemen. But the war continued despite the fragile truce, and what that meant was the destruction of what remained of the economy, with millions of families left without income,” he said.

Al-Muslimi warned that the latest escalation “will create two new crises”, one being further internal displacement, noting that “we’ve already seen more than 10,000 families displaced in the last week alone”, and the other being rising prices for goods inside Yemen.

“Since this is [happening in] a maritime [trade] corridor, it will, for sure, drive further violence inside Yemen, but also from outside Yemen,” Al-Muslimi added.

“The Yemeni population will continue to suffer, first and foremost, more than anyone else, inside or outside the country.”

After lower house approval, the bill to grant tens of thousands of Sahrawis citizenship now goes to the Spanish Senate.

Spanish lawmakers have backed legislation that would grant citizenship to tens of thousands of Western Saharans who were born when Spain ran the disputed territory now largely controlled by Morocco.

Spain’s lower house of Parliament on Thursday approved the legislation 168-31, with 145 abstentions.

The bill still requires Senate approval before becoming law.

The text grants Spanish nationality to Sahrawis born before September 29, 1977 and to their children through naturalisation, even if they never resided in Spain.

Although the exact number of beneficiaries is unknown, Sahrawi groups estimate that between 70,000 and 120,000 people could benefit from the legislation, which supporters described as addressing a “historical injustice” by colonial Spain in the Western Sahara.

Tensions with Morocco

The vote comes at a particularly sensitive time for Madrid’s historically delicate relations with Rabat due to the migration crisis in Spain’s north African territory of Ceuta, and the mass arrival of at least 70,000 migrants from Morocco in July.

Spain’s leftist government has avoided blaming Morocco – which does not recognise Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta and Spain’s other North African territory of Melilla – but the right accuses Rabat of orchestrating the surge for political motives.

Morocco claims sovereignty over Western Sahara and began asserting control over the territory after Spanish ⁠rule ended.

The Algerian-backed Polisario Front independence movement seeks recognition ⁠of an independent state called the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

Many Sahrawis live in refugee camps in Tindouf in western Algeria, or elsewhere abroad, while others remain in Western Sahara.

Against this backdrop, the initiative to grant Spanish nationality to Sahrawis has divided opinion in Morocco but not prompted condemnation from the government.

Moroccan media quoted Ramadan Messaoud, a member of the Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs, as saying in July that Rabat had “no problem” with Sahrawis obtaining Spanish citizenship. Others had done so “over the past few years”, noted Messaoud, who is also president of the Sahrawi Association for Human Rights.

‘Restoring’ identity

Western Sahara was a Spanish colony until 1975, when Spain relinquished its administration under agreements with Morocco and Mauritania.

Spain’s ruling Socialist Party and its junior left-wing partner Sumar, which filed the initiative, were among those who supported the bill, ‌while the opposition conservative People’s Party abstained and far-right Vox voted against it.

“With the adoption of this legislation, we are restoring – and I emphasise, restoring – the Spanish national identity card to those Sahrawis who once held it and from whom this state took it away,” said Tesh Sidi of the leftist Sumar coalition, the first woman of Sahrawi origin ⁠to serve in Spain’s Parliament.

The bill will now go to the Senate, where amendments are expected, before returning to the lower house for final approval.

Rabat: Morocco said on Thursday there were “no facts” establishing its involvement in the massive migrant rush into Spain’s North African exclave of Ceuta in July.

More than 70,000 migrants entered Ceuta from Morocco on July 30 and 31 in an unprecedented, chaotic surge that left scores dead and sparked European Union infighting over the touchy issue of migration.

The Moroccan foreign ministry said there were “no facts or reports proving any involvement by the Moroccan authorities”.

The ministry added that Rabat refused to become the “scapegoat for political score-settling” in Spain.

The statement marked the kingdom’s first official reaction to a Spanish police report accusing Morocco’s security forces of “total permissiveness” when the mass crossing took place.

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has consistently avoided blaming Morocco, noting that there was no “solid proof” that the North African country orchestrated the migrant rush.

BRUSSELS: Asylum applications to the EU dropped to a five-year-low in the first half of 2026, continuing a downward trend partly brought about by a hardening of migration policy, the bloc’s asylum agency said Thursday.

The European Union plus Switzerland and Norway (EU+) received 332,000 applications for international protection from January to June, 17 percent fewer than in the same period last year.

“This is the lowest number recorded in the first half of a year since 2021,” the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) said.

The agency attributed the decrease to the political transition in Syria, which has resulted in a massive drop in applications filed by the country’s nationals, as well as to the EU’s “efforts in cooperating with countries of origin and transit”.

Brussels has recently struck deals with Northern African countries including Tunisia and Mauritania, providing aid and investments in return for help with migration.

War in the Middle East had also not translated into a feared increase in applications from the countries affected, the EUAA said.

Afghans were the largest group of applicants, with 39,000 requests for protection, followed by Venezuelans and Bangladeshis.

Less than a third of applications processed in the first six months of the year were successful, the agency said, noting that this was due to have an impact on future requests.

Under rules that came into force in June, applicants from countries that have a recognition rate of less than 20 percent undergo an expedited procedure linked to swift deportation in case of rejection.

The same is true for applicants from countries the EU deems “safe”.

“In the first half of 2026, nearly 56 percent of applications were from citizenships meeting one or more of these criteria,” the EUAA said.

Among EU nations, France received the highest number of applications (69,000), followed by Italy (66,000), Spain (55,000) and Germany (55,000).

With 23,000 requests Greece was the country that received the most applications per capita.

Bettiah, India – Neyaz Miya was adjusting a kitchen handle. Mehadi Hassan was fixing a bracket for a bed.

They were at different construction sites – Miya in a half‑constructed home, a little higher up the hill, while Hassan was on the ground floor of Ganesh Hotel, closer to the Trishuli River that flowed through Syafrubesi, a bustling market town near the Nepal‑Tibet border, now wiped off the map by the August 26 flash floods.

More than 1,200 bodies have been recovered since then, at least 4,000 people remain missing, and more than 13,000 have been rescued.

“First came the terrifying loud sound. Then the ground trembled, and dark clouds descended upon us,” recalls 34‑year‑old Miya, who ran further up the hill with his phone and slippers that morning, five or six others running alongside him.

Hassan, lower on the slope, did not wait to reach for his slippers or his phone. He just ran, climbing a narrow, stair‑like path, up the hill, stopping only when he reached roughly 60 metres (200ft) above the road.

At some point, Miya and Hassan found each other. Around them were 60 to 70 other survivors who had also gathered high up on the hill.

A decade earlier, Miya had arrived in Syafrubesi as a carpenter. Three years later, he brought Hassan with him – both men from Bihar’s Bettiah district. Over the years, they built the town’s interiors – sofas, beds, almirahs, and kitchens for hotels and homes.

On that Wednesday morning, they watched all of that washed away. The multi‑storey hotels where they had worked – Red Panda, Garden Hotel, Buddha Hotel, Sunrise Hotel – were all swallowed by the flood.

“The town was gone in a blink,” Miya recounts, now sitting in his home in Turhapatti village of Bihar, India, just across the Nepal border. “There were only three kinds of people who survived that day: Those who were out of town, those who were at work and managed to run, and those who lived a little higher up the hill.”

Based on what he witnessed, Miya says only a few hundred people in Syafrubesi, a town that had a population of 2,271 in the 2011 census, likely survived.

Miya and Hasan are among them. Three of their close friends and colleagues, also migrant workers from Bihar, are not.

A workday like no other

When the floods reached Syafrubesi, the men were already at work: Their shifts began at seven in the morning.

“To start at seven, we would wake up at four or five,” Miya recalls. They would leave with empty stomachs and were fed tea with doughnuts or biscuits at the construction site by building owners. Their first break came at 11am, when they returned to the rented one‑room space (3,500 Nepali rupees or $23 a month) that housed five to seven migrants at a time.

On the morning of August 26, they left for work alongside 34‑year‑old Arman Ansari, 20‑year‑old Samir Ansari, and 52‑year‑old Mukhtar Ansari, all migrants from Miya’s Turhapatti village.

In the rented room, two teenage boys, Arman’s 14‑year‑old son, Salman Alam, and his friend Shibu Alam, 17, remained asleep. They had come a month earlier to visit the hills.

“My father had cooked meat bhaat (rice with meat),” Salman recounts. He was waiting for his father to return at 11am so they could eat together.

Arman, his father, was working beside Hassan on the ground floor, pasting sunmica onto the same bed. Samir and Mukhtar were on the top floor of the Full Moon Hotel.

When Hassan ran out of the under-construction building and up the hill, he believed Arman was behind him. But by the time Hassan and Miya met higher up, there was no sign of the other three: Arman, Samir and Mukhtar.

Miya and Hassan found the boys, Salman and Shibu, terrified, on the hill. “Salman was crying, howling and searching for his father,” Hassan said.

The flood, which came with a high speed, took half an hour to recede. Soon, helicopters started hovering above them, airlifting the critically injured.

The four of them – Miya, Hassan and the boys – walked down the hill on foot to search for the three missing in the debris. They found nothing but sludge. Miya’s furniture-cutting tools and machines, worth 80,000 Nepali rupees ($530), were buried in the debris.

When they got back to their room, perched high on a slope, they found that it had survived.

But the army had taken charge, and soldiers herded survivors away from tenements near the river. “They said it [the flood] might come again,” Miya recalls.

They slept that night in a government school building in a village, he says. “At night, we were given daal bhat (rice and daal), and we wrapped ourselves in tarpaulin and slept.”

The next morning, a helicopter took them to another village. From there, another helicopter carried them to an army compound in a town. In the evening, they teamed up with five other migrants and hired an SUV to reach Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, each paying 3,500 rupees ($23).

The next morning, on August 28, they hired another SUV, which charged them 950 rupees ($6) each for a distance of 290km (180 miles) to Birgunj, a town on the India-Nepal border. They then crossed the border on foot before boarding buses for their villages.

It wasn’t the homecoming Indian migrants who work in Nepal usually plan.

‘No regular work’ back home

Turhapatti is among thousands of villages tucked along the 1,715km (1,066-mile) stretch of the India-Nepal border, where generations have crossed back and forth in search of work.

The two countries share an open border, and on both sides, especially in Bihar, the bond is known as a roti-beti ka rishta (a relationship of food and daughters), alluding to ties of livelihoods and matrimonial kinship. People live, work, and marry across the border.

Kathmandu is as close to Turhapatti as is Patna, the capital of Bihar. Per its 2021 Population and Housing Census, Nepal had 700,000 foreign-born residents, 97 percent of them from India.

Miya and Hassan say the wages for a carpenter or a mason on the Indian side are between 600-700 rupees, while for the same work in Nepal, wages are about 900 rupees. That drives migrant workers from India over the border into Nepal.

Nepal, for its part, is facing a major out-migration crisis — its per capita income is the lowest in South Asia, barring Afghanistan, and hundreds of thousands of young men and women leave each year to find work elsewhere. This creates a demand for migrant workers from Bihar, India’s poorest state that lies just across the border.

In Turhapatti, Miya owns only 0.03 hectares (0.06 acres), not enough to feed his family of six children, wife and parents. In recent years, he transitioned from being a carpenter to a contractor, which allowed him to bring in more workers from Bihar.

He had been sending 30,000 Indian rupees ($315) back to his family every month.

Hassan has even less back home: He inherited a 6×8-metre (20×25ft) room from his father and no agricultural land. “There is no regular daily work here,” he says. He would send 15,000 Indian rupees ($157) home from Nepal each month for his wife and four children.

Their story echoes in most homes in Turhapatti. The village had a population of 16,000 people in the 2011 census, India’s latest one. In nearly every household, men have left to work in other parts of India and abroad as carpenters, masons, or labourers mixing cement and sand into mortar.

The destinations are Kashmir, where close to 700 men from the village work; Nepal, with nearly 600; and thousands scattered across Indian cities: Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai. About 100 men have migrated to Dubai, Oman and Saudi Arabia.

The houses they built in Turhapatti stand in stark contrast to those of those who remain in India. The marble-fronted and iron-gated homes belong to men working in the Gulf, while semi-permanent dwellings belong to those who stayed behind.

Migrants in Nepal fall in between: Miya has been able to raise a brick house.

‘My body shivers at the thought’

This economic reality is what drove Arman Ansari to Syafrubesi. On July 26, Arman left for Nepal with Samir and Mukhtar. Arman’s son and his friend Shubu went with the three adults; the teenagers were on a trip to the hills.

Now, Arman’s brother-in-law. Jameel Miya, a carpenter in Kathmandu, scours the city’s hospitals for Arman’s body, telling authorities that his brother-in-law’s right hand and chest had deep scars, cut by shards of glass when he was young.

Arman’s wife, Sahrun Khatun, has only her last phone call with Arman to hold on to. They spoke two hours before the floods swept him away. “He was about to get his wages on September 1 and return home,” she says.

Salman, who had tagged along with his father to see the hills, hasn’t been able to sleep since the flood.

“The moment I close my eyes, I feel the flood is coming for me,” he says.

Mukhtar’s family lives a few lanes away.

Since the floods, Kasmun Khatun, Mukhtar’s wife, has been glued to the internet for any news of her missing husband. Joining her in that remote search are her daughter Asmana (18) and son Sadre Alam (14).

Her eldest son, Osama, 25, a tailor in Kathmandu, has been busy searching for his father in city hospitals.

“After waiting for a week and watching the videos, I submitted my DNA samples,” he says over a phone call. Osama manages to send home 6,000 rupees ($63), but that is no longer enough – his mother needs eye surgery that has already been delayed and cannot be put off much longer.

“The guardian has gone, all of a sudden,” he says, referring to his father.

At the far edge of Turhapatti stands the home of Samir Ansari, the youngest among the missing migrants and youngest of his five migrant brothers.

The Ganesh Hotel project he was working on was only three days from completion.

“He said he found another site to work on,” recalls his father, Hasmuddin Miya, remembering their last phone call on the evening of August 25.

Samir was a mason who specialised in marble tiles, a skill he had learned in Kashmir while working under his elder brothers at construction sites.

The three families are preparing to host a bhoj, the funeral feast – a custom of feeding hundreds of people – having given up on hope.

Meanwhile, the two survivors, Miya and Hassan, are already making calls to find work again. This time, their search turns towards Nepal’s plains. They pledge never to return to the hills.

“My whole body shivers at the thought of going there,” says Hassan.

Germany, Austria, ⁠Greece, Denmark and the Netherlands did not outline where the centres would be located.

Five European nations have agreed on concrete steps towards a deal with an unspecified non-European Union country to host migrant return facilities, senior officials said, in a sign of mounting determination to counter immigration.

Germany, Austria, ⁠Greece, Denmark and the Netherlands, known as the Group of Five, aim to sign deals this year to send migrants without legal residency to countries outside the European Union. The nations expected to host return centres have not been named.

“Around New Year, we expect to have a common understanding with a partner country outside of the European Union,” Danish Immigration and Integration Minister Morten Bodskov told reporters on Friday at a news conference in Copenhagen, without elaborating.

“It’s a new chance to have a life in a partner country,” he said, adding ‌that the five nations would be in dialogue with the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) on their next steps.

A spokesperson for UNHCR said the agency had not been approached with ‌details ‌of the proposal and therefore could not comment.

The Group of Five is set to reconvene in Munich, Germany, at the end of September to advance the plan.

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt confirmed that the group wants “to reach an agreement with ‌third countries this year that will enable the establishment of return hubs”.

The European Parliament in June approved an overhaul of migration policy aimed at speeding up deportations and allowing member states to set up centres abroad, in what some critics of the policy say could weaken safeguards for asylum seekers.

The Council of ⁠Europe, a non-EU body that promotes human rights, democracy and the rule of ⁠law, said in July that the proposed return hubs posed “considerable human rights risks”.

Danish Refugee Council Secretary-General Charlotte Slente said a better policy would be to implement the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, which focuses ⁠on stricter border screening, faster return procedures and expanded digital systems for managing asylum claims.

“Return hubs focus on a small number of returns; they ⁠will not stop people from taking even more dangerous routes, and ⁠they could violate basic human rights,” she said.

Authorities say agent fired into home with people inside, lied about circumstances.

Federal prosecutors in the United States have charged an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer accused of lying under oath to investigators regarding the shooting of a Venezuelan man during an immigration crackdown this year.

Prosecutors alleged that Christian Castro lied to federal investigators about the events that led up to him firing on 24-year-old Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis through the door of a Minnesota home in January.

The Associated Press news agency and The New York Times reported the indictment, quoting a person familiar with the matter who was not authorised to discuss the investigation publicly. It was expected to be unsealed when Castro is detained.

Castro, a former Department of Homeland Security agent, also faces multiple state felony charges in Minnesota related to the nonfatal shooting, including assault with a dangerous weapon.

Authorities in the Midwestern state had sought to extradite Castro from Texas to face trial. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican and President Donald Trump loyalist, declined to cooperate with the request.

The ensuing standoff left Castro detained in Texas for 90 days before his release last week. Under Texas law, the state cannot hold the subject of an extradition order for longer than that. His whereabouts were unclear as of Thursday.

The charges mark a rare move by the Department of Justice under Trump.

Trump’s top officials have repeatedly argued that immigration agents maintain broad protections while conducting enforcement, a position rejected by many legal experts.

For example, no one has been charged in the fatal shootings by immigration agents of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January.

An Associated Press review conducted in February found about two dozen ICE employees and contractors had faced criminal charges since 2020.

An American Civil Liberties Union report released in July documented instances of violent tactics or other civil rights violations in about a third of 1,200 immigration enforcement incidents reviewed in 2025 alone.

Video evidence contradicts statement

The Trump administration distanced itself from the Castro case after video emerged contradicting the agent’s initial accounts of the confrontation.

Castro told investigators that Sosa-Celis had attacked him, which the surveillance footage showed did not happen.

Todd Lyons, then acting head of ICE, said at the time that the footage “has revealed that sworn testimony provided by two separate officers appears to have made untruthful statements”.

Castro and a fellow agent chased Alfredo Aljorna, a Venezuelan national, after a traffic stop, according to charging documents.

Aljorna fled to the home he shared with Sosa-Celis. After a brief scramble, the two men ran inside. Castro then shot through the closed door, “knowing [the home] was occupied by several people”, the documents said.

One witness said there were two children in the house when Castro opened fire. Sosa-Celis was hit in the leg.

Federal authorities have since suspended Castro and dropped all charges against Sosa-Celis and his co-defendant, who were both initially accused of forcibly assaulting an ICE officer. The other agent involved in the incident was also suspended, but has not yet been charged.

Thursday’s indictment comes after ProPublica this week reported that Department of Justice (DOJ) officials had blocked prosecutors from pursuing more serious civil rights charges against Castro, including “deprivation of rights under color of law”.

However, a source close to the investigation told the AP the active investigation could still result in civil rights charges.

The Trump administration has scaled back the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and dismantled several Biden-era police oversight initiatives since returning to office in January 2025.

That has come as the administration has revved up its mass deportation campaign across the country.

In August, immigration agents detained 50,925 people with the Department of Homeland Security hailing it as a new record for the “highest number of illegal aliens arrested in a single month”.

Spain has found no evidence that Moroccan authorities planned or orchestrated the massive migrant surge into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in July, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told parliament. His comments come amid conflicting accounts over whether the unprecedented border crossing was a spontaneous migration event or a coordinated operation designed to overwhelm Spanish border controls.

A Massive Border Surge

More than 70,000 migrants entered Ceuta from Morocco during the July 30 to 31 crisis, overwhelming local authorities and creating a major humanitarian and political challenge for Spain.

The scale of the movement has raised questions about how such a large number of people were able to reach the Spanish enclave within such a short period.

Sánchez Rejects Moroccan Involvement

Sánchez told lawmakers that neither Spain’s diplomatic services, the European Commission nor international organisations had provided evidence showing that Morocco had planned or carried out the incident.

However, he acknowledged that Moroccan security forces allowed crossings to continue during a critical 10 hour period on July 30, when arrivals reached their peak.

Sánchez said Spain had not yet determined whether this reflected deliberate inaction or an inability to control the situation.

Police Report Raises Questions

The government’s position has been complicated by a police report that reportedly described the influx as a planned and phased operation rather than a spontaneous movement.

According to reports on the document, Moroccan security forces were initially deployed in smaller numbers near the Tarajal crossing and did not make a serious effort to disperse the crowds. Some uniformed officers were also allegedly seen directing people towards the crossing.

However, the report did not identify individual officers or provide independently verified evidence that Moroccan authorities had ordered the operation.

Morocco Denies Enabling the Crossing

Moroccan authorities have rejected accusations that they deliberately facilitated the mass movement into Ceuta.

The controversy has nevertheless put renewed pressure on Spain’s relationship with Morocco, a crucial partner in controlling migration across the western Mediterranean.

Conflicting Accounts in Spain

The allegations have also created a political problem for Sánchez’s government.

Spanish authorities have previously attributed the surge largely to misinformation circulating online and the activities of smuggling networks. Reports suggesting possible Moroccan involvement therefore challenge part of Madrid’s explanation for how the crisis developed.

Spain’s police leadership has also pushed back against claims that an official police report conclusively blamed Morocco for orchestrating the incident.

Why Morocco Matters to Spain

Morocco plays a central role in Spain’s efforts to manage migration from North Africa. Any deterioration in bilateral cooperation could make it harder for Madrid to control future crossings and could turn migration into a wider diplomatic dispute.

Ceuta and Melilla are particularly sensitive because they are Spanish territories located on the North African coast and represent the European Union’s land borders with Africa.

Analysis

The central issue is no longer simply whether thousands of migrants crossed into Ceuta, but who enabled the conditions that made the surge possible.

Sánchez’s position protects Spain’s strategically important relationship with Morocco and avoids directly accusing Rabat without conclusive evidence. At the same time, the reported police findings create a credibility problem for Madrid because they suggest that Moroccan security forces may have played some role in allowing or directing the movement, even if they do not establish government-level planning.

The distinction between deliberate orchestration, passive border enforcement and inability to control the crowd is therefore crucial. Evidence of Moroccan officials physically facilitating crossings would not necessarily prove that the Moroccan state ordered the operation.

For Spain, the episode also exposes the vulnerability of Ceuta’s border to sudden mass movements and information campaigns. For Morocco, the accusations carry diplomatic costs because migration cooperation is an important component of its relationship with Spain and the wider EU.

The immediate challenge for Madrid is to establish what happened without turning an unresolved border investigation into a diplomatic confrontation with Rabat.

With information from Reuters.