Trapped inside Europe: Undocumented migrants unable to leave

A new report called 'Point of no return. The futile detention of unreturnable migrants' published in January 2014 showed that an unknown number of migrants in the EU were being caught in a legal limbo, denied basic rights in some member states and unable to return to their home countries.

The report was an outcome of the awareness-raising project 'A Face to the Story: The issue of unreturnable migrants in detention”, which was made possible by the support of EPIM, the European Programme on Integration and Migration.

The project ran from September 2012 to February 2014, and involved qualitative research based on the stories of 39 unreturnable migrants with experiences of detention in Belgium, France, Hungary or the United Kingdom.

One of the key activities of the project was to collect testimonies from unreturnable migrants in Europe so that they can be used as advocacy tools at the national and the EU level in order to increase momentum amongst policy-makers to limit detention and find solutions for unreturnable migrants. These personal stories thus 'put a face to the story'.

• Primary Source

Report: Point of No Return, January 2014 http://pointofnoreturn.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Point_of_no_return.pdf

ESO: Background information: Nick Clegg backs 'eminently sensible' EU benefit changes http://www.europeansources.info/record/nick-clegg-backs-eminently-sensible-eu-benefit-changes/

ESO: Background information: Labor Market: Does Germany Benefit from Balkan Immigrants? / Migration debate in Germany http://www.europeansources.info/record/labor-market-does-germany-benefit-from-balkan-immigrants-migration-debate-in-germany/

Website: Point of No Return http://pointofnoreturn.eu/

Website: European Programme for Integration and Migration (EPIM) http://www.epim.info/

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