On 14 June 2021, the EPSCO Council unanimously adopted the Council Recommendation establishing a European Child Guarantee. In a clear signal to both children and governments, the Council’s text states that all children in need should be able to benefit from the Child Guarantee-funded actions, irrespective of their migration status. While activities supporting undocumented people have been excluded from EU funding in the past, undocumented children and families will now be able to benefit from the European Child Guarantee-funded activities that ensure effective and, in certain cases, free access to early childhood education and care, education (including school-based activities), healthcare, healthy nutrition and adequate housing. It is now up to EU member states to identify target groups (including undocumented children), develop national action plans with the input of civil society and present these plans to the European Commission by March 2022.

A recent report from the EU Court of Auditors into Frontex’s finances highlights gaps in the agency’s financial reporting. For instance, Frontex was reported to only provide global budgets with no data disaggregated by operation. Besides transparency issues, the report finds that the agency has failed to deliver in the areas of information exchange, vulnerability assessments and operational response. While this report does not look into alleged pushbacks and other violations by Frontex, a forthcoming report on returns and readmission of irregular migrants, set for September 2021, may cover rights violations as well.

In a recent interview in The Guardian, former Frontex deputy director Gil Arias Fernández paints a bleak picture of the EU border agency. In particular, the former official said that while he does not believe Frontex engaged proactively in human rights violations, at the very least the agency “turned a blind eye on them”. Arias Fernández pointed to the lack of mechanisms in the recruitment system to adequately filter out extremist people, as well as to the lack of human rights training for the agency’s personnel.

The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers has adopted a new Action Plan on Protecting Vulnerable Persons in the Context of Migration and Asylum in Europe (2021-2025). The new action plan aims at addressing main challenges and opportunities identified since the previous Action Plan, which focused on migrant children, was completed in 2019. Children remain an important focus of the new plan, which is structured around four pillars: ensuring protection and promoting safeguards by identifying and responding to vulnerability; ensuring access to law and justice; fostering democratic participation and enhancing inclusion; and enhancing co-operation between migration and asylum authorities in Council of Europe member states.

The European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs adopted in June a resolution denouncing the treatment of children at the Spanish-Moroccan border in the enclave of Ceuta. The Parliament calls on the Commission to provide emergency funding to address the situation in Ceuta, including funding additional shelter capacity for unaccompanied children. In their own motion, the Greens/EFA group calls on the EU and all Member States to relocate the children in Ceuta to ensure their dignified reception, and recalls that the expulsion of unaccompanied children is illegal. Some 1,100 unaccompanied children continue to be housed in three unfit warehouses in the enclave, according to reports.

On 13 June, Ingeborg Beugel, a correspondent for the Dutch magazine De Groene Amsterdammer, was arrested on the island of Hydra, Greece, for hosting a 23-year-old Afghan who had been staying with her while appealing a negative asylum decision. The journalist now risks up to a year in prison and at least € 5,000 in fines on charges of facilitating the stay of a person in an irregular situation on the Greek territory.

On 12 May 2021, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants submitted a report to the UN Human Rights Council on the human rights impact of pushbacks of migrants on land and at sea. In particular, the report mentions concerning activities carried out by Frontex in the context of pushbacks at sea. Overall, the UN report shows the increasing normalization of pushbacks as integral components of global border governance. The Special Rapporteur recommends ending pushback practices, establishing effective independent mechanisms to monitor human rights at borders and decriminalising NGO activities at borders.

A new report by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) provides evidence on the factors increasing COVID-19 transmission, and outlines ways to increase vaccine uptake, among migrants across Europe, including migrants with irregular status. One of the key factors increasing vulnerability to the virus is the lack of access to public healthcare for undocumented migrants. Ensuring that migrants who are excluded from health systems can access the vaccine is therefore a priority. The report notes that there is a lack of trust in health systems by undocumented migrants because of the risk of being identified and deported if they present to health systems for testing, treatment or vaccination. Communication campaigns on the vaccine are key and need to be tailored to specific groups, including undocumented migrants, who need to be reassured that registering for the vaccine will not result in immigration consequences.

The European Parliament has adopted a new report on labour migration which includes several  recommendations relevant to labour migrants with precarious or irregular status. The report acknowledges that the current framework regulating regular migration falls short of limiting labour exploitation. It recommends the use of temporary residence permits in cases of exploitation, improved workplace monitoring and complaints mechanisms, and for work permits to allow the worker to change employer. The report also calls on the European Commission to regulate recruitment agencies; to create pathways for workers across sectors; to analyse inefficiencies in labour market tests which do not respond to real labour market needs; and for the EU and its Member States to ratify the ILO Convention 189 on domestic work and ensure the full application of employment standards.

A new report by the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre examines the impact on COVID-19 on “modern slavery”, identifies some good practices and provides recommendations, many which are relevant to undocumented migrants. The report highlights the importance of the economic and social support provided by some countries to undocumented migrants who have become unemployed during the pandemic, and who otherwise might be at greater risk of several labour exploitation due to loss of income. The report also recommends regularisation programmes and permit extensions to empower victims to report exploitation, as well as to facilitate access to healthcare and other support services, to ensure that all victims can access protection without discrimination.

A new study, commissioned by Oxfam Germany and ActionAid France, examines the potential contribution that the forthcoming EU human rights and environmental due diligence legislation could make to the protection of women migrant workers in global food supply chains. The report highlights the particular vulnerability of undocumented women migrant workers to exploitation, and recommends that a gender and intersectional perspective should be mainstreamed into relevant policy documents. The report also asserts that access to effective remedy in the case of rights violations should apply to everyone regardless of immigration status.

Ten years after the adoption of the International Labour Organisation’s Domestic Workers’ Convention, a new ILO report finds significant challenges for domestic workers’ rights, and highlights the particular vulnerabilities facing undocumented domestic workers. The report finds that vulnerabilities have increased with job losses during the pandemic. The report recommends granting special protections or temporary residence permits to undocumented migrants so that people can report exploitation or abuse without fear of being reported to immigration enforcement. The report also calls for greater formalisation of domestic work, including through regularisation schemes, and for the enforcement of social and labour protection law for all domestic workers.