From the United States, Germany, and Greece to Kenya, Iran, and the Dominican Republic, national governments in 2017 reinforced their determination to return unwelcome migrants and, in some cases, refugees to their countries of origin. As the political and economic costs of protracted or seemingly uncontrolled migration mounted, many migrants and refugees faced return to impoverished or violent homelands, such as Afghanistan, Haiti, and Somalia. In these countries and others, migrants returned to find economies, infrastructure, and public service systems frayed from years of war, natural disasters, or political mismanagement. Countless returnees have lived abroad for decades, and have lost their connection to local livelihood opportunities and social support networks. In some cases, they are returning to countries they barely know.

The return of migrants who have no legal right to stay in a country is the sovereign right of national governments and a legitimate means of managing migration, but in the past has often been implemented in a way that recognizes competing priorities, such as the capacity of origin countries to absorb returnees, the development impacts of a loss of remittances, the humanitarian case for family unity, and the dangers migrants would face in their homelands. In 2017, the space for such mitigating factors seems to have shrunk, even as return has been consolidated as a policy priority. The threat of return affected many categories of individuals outside their countries of origin, including registered refugees, failed asylum seekers, unauthorized immigrants, and people benefiting from Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in the United States.

Read the full article about forced returns of refugees and migrants at Migration Policy Institute.