Since the EU pact on migration and asylum came into force on 12 June, its implementation leaves more questions and concerns than results.
The pact, which purported to speed up migrant processing with more aggressive screening, has already stepped up surveillance in many member states – without disincentivising migrants who still embark on the costly journey to Europe.
“The guards are really bad with us. They are blackmailing us for deportation,” said a Syrian asylum seeker, currently detained in a closed reception centre in Bulgaria for at least 18 months.
In the last few weeks, he said a climate of oppression has only intensified. “Frontex came here. They started to take all the people’s fingerprints,” he told Euobserver of the day the pact was implemented.
Officials assured detainees that screening would only mean problems for those that had a criminal record, but the next day, a van came to pick up a fellow detainee.
