A girl holds a placard that reads "Free Liam" as people protest against deployment of ICE agents during the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics on January 31, 2026 in Milan, Italy.Maja Hitij / Getty Images The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has filed an expedited request to terminate the asylum claims of a 5-year-old Ecuadorian boy and his family, after the boy's arrest by federal agents last month made international headlines.
Ter Apel, a small, unassuming Dutch town near the German border, is a place tourists rarely have on their itinerary. There are no lovely old windmills, no cannabis-filled coffee shops and on a recent visit it was far too early for tulip season. When foreigners end up there, it is for one reason: to claim asylum at the Netherlands' biggest refugee camp, home to 2,000 desperate people from all around the world.
In the summer of 2020, I was working as a paralegal in Austin, Texas, remotely filling out asylum applications for migrants who were trapped in a dangerous limbo. A landmark policy of the first Trump administration-euphemistically called the "Migrant Protection Protocols," or MPP-was keeping tens of thousands of immigrants stateless and often homeless in Mexico's border regions while their asylum cases were adjudicated in U.S. border courts.
A Palestinian citizen of Israel has been granted asylum in the UK on the basis of a well-founded fear of persecution despite a former home secretary's attempt to block the claim. Hasan (not his real name) is believed to be the first Palestinian with an Israeli passport to be given refugee status in the UK. But the decision came only after two about-turns by the Home Office and a protracted legal battle.
A lawsuit filed Friday in Boston's federal court alleges that the suspension of casework by the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office is not authorized by immigration or administrative law. The pause has stopped people from claiming asylum, getting work authorization, renewing student visas and processing green cards. It has even pulled people out of citizenship ceremonies, the last phase of the naturalization process.
Under the first Trump administration, people seeking asylum at the United States-Mexico border would typically be met by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents who would turn them away. While some cases of asylum seekers being turned away at the San Ysidro border crossing occurred in 2016, the turn-back policies, called "metering" by the government, weren't written and widely instituted until the first Trump administration. This turn-back policy created a humanitarian crisis at the border that impacted thousands of people seeking refuge from danger.
Starmer and Frederiksen, who have toughened immigration policies in their countries, called for a "modernisation of the interpretation" of the ECHR, which came into force in 1953. The leaders said their proposal is "so that the convention system, which we believe in, can evolve to reflect the challenges of the 21st century". They argued that without a change "the forces that seek to divide us will grow stronger," in a clear reference to surging support for hard-right political parties across Europe.
