The government of Kosovo reportedly agreed this week to “temporarily” accept a small number of migrants deported from the United States until they can be returned to their home countries.
Government spokesman Perparim Kryeziu told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) on Wednesday that up to 50 migrants will be accepted, for up to one year, with the goal of “facilitating their safe return to their country of origin.”
“The government has expressed its willingness to engage, with the possibility of selecting individuals from a proposed list, as long as they meet certain criteria related to the rule of law and public order,” Kryeziu said.
Bloomberg News reported last week that the State Department is putting out feelers to Balkan nations, including Serbia, Moldova, and Kosovo, to accept deported illegal aliens.
Bloomberg rushed to insinuate Serbia was high on the list because President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner wants to build a hotel in Belgrade, and because Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic is an “avid fan of Trump” who has “cultivated ties with the MAGA world.”
As it turned out, Kosovo was the first country to accept U.S. requests to house deportees. This could be a point of some friction with Serbia, since Kosovo seceded from Serbia in 2008, and the Serbian government does not recognize its independence.
Kosovo’s embassy to the United States said on Wednesday the deported migrants would be selected from a “proposed pool,” and must “meet specific criteria related to the rule of law and public order.”
“We welcome cooperation on this key Trump Administration priority,” the State Department said in response. “We are grateful to our partner Kosovo for receiving third country nationals removed from the United States and facilitating those aliens’ safe return to their home countries.”
Kosovo is holding similar discussions with the United Kingdom and has already agreed to house criminals who were deported from Denmark.
In late May, the British government reportedly began discussions to open “return hubs” for failed asylum seekers. Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani said she was willing to hear proposals for locating such a hub in her country.
“There’s been no formal talks with the UK on this issue. It hasn’t been raised so far. We would be open to discussing it, however, I can’t say more than that because I don’t know the details,’ Osmani said in May.
The deal with Denmark involves a prison in the eastern Kosovar city of Gjilan. The facility is currently being emptied of domestic inmates so it can be expanded and upgraded to meet Danish penal standards. When the renovations are complete, Denmark plans to house about 300 deported criminals from non-European Union countries in the facility.
The parliament of Kosovo formally approved the deal with Denmark last week. Denmark pledged to play $228 million over the next ten years for use of the Gjilan prison. Kosovar officials said the agreement would bring much-needed income to their impoverished country, and would also build “trust and mutual respect” with Denmark and Europe.
“This is crucial for us to secure more Danish prison places and will help bring our hard-pressed prison system back into balance. At the same time, it sends a clear signal to criminal foreigners that their future is not in Denmark, and therefore they should not serve their time here,” Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard said when the deal was approved by the parliament of Kosovo.
Italy was the first European country to actually send deported migrants to Eastern Europe, transferring 40 rejected asylum seekers to Albania in April. Italian law would permit the migrants to be detained for up to 18 months before final deportation.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had planned to send a much larger contingent of migrants to camps in Albania, but Italian court rulings obliged her to send only migrants whose application for asylum have been decisively rejected.
Italy, and other European countries, could step up their use of “return hubs” in third-party countries if the European Commission (EC) implements proposals for a strong, unified deportation system.
The EC noted the proposed reforms are necessary because “persons ordered to leave an EU country frequently escape the authorities.” In addition to third-country detention facilities, the proposals include “reinforced rules to prevent unauthorized movement” by migrants, and “stronger obligations for returnees to cooperate with national authorities.
Kosovo previously agreed to accept several hundred refugees from Afghanistan after President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
Some of the Afghans were not happy with their accommodations, which they described as more akin to a prison than a refugee camp. While most of the Afghans sent to Kosovo were processed quickly and moved on to other destinations, including the United States, a few were stuck in the “lily pad” camps for much longer than expected, usually because their applications for asylum to the U.S. and other countries were rejected.
Human rights and migration groups strongly oppose all efforts to establish deportation hubs in third countries. In the case of Kosovo, migration advocates complain Kosovar authorities have a history of mistreating detainees. One of the reasons it took so much time and money to prepare the Gjilan facility to receive deportees was that Denmark wanted to bring the facility up to Danish penal standard, but human rights groups are still unsatisfied with the arrangement.
“Prolonged detention of migrants without adequate safeguards puts people at risk of rights violations,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) Europe and Central Asia director Hugh Williamson said in May, after the UK proposed sending detainees to Serbia, Albania, Bosnia, and Herzegovina.
“Adding rejected asylum seekers from the UK, or potentially the EU, to Bosnia’s already troubling detention system would only exacerbate existing issues and worsen abuses,” Williamson said.
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