Five EU Nations Agree to Offshore Migrant Hubs

Denmark and four other European Union countries agreed Friday on a model for "return hubs" in non-EU nations and hope to begin sending rejected asylum seekers there as early as 2027.

The deal came out of a one-day meeting in Copenhagen attended by ministers from Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Greece.

The five have been negotiating with governments mainly in Africa over where the facilities would sit. They did not name the countries.

"We are moving forward toward what is actually a fundamental transformation of the common European migration and asylum system," said Morten Bodskov, Denmark's minister of immigration and integration.

What a Return Hub Is

Under the plan, a migrant whose asylum claim is rejected and who is ordered to leave Europe would not be sent home. He would be sent to a facility, not yet built, in a third country outside the 27-nation bloc.

Bodskov rejected the description of the hubs as detention and deportation centers, and said the International Organization for Migration and the UN refugee agency would monitor them.

"We are not talking about camps, we are talking about opportunities, for a new chance for irregular migrants who cannot return to their own country today and who have no legal grounds to be in our countries," he said.

The UNHCR told the Associated Press it "has not been approached with details of such a proposal" and could not comment on the arrangements or on any role for the agency.