Greece has received support from several secotrs and stakeholders after they passed what it considers to be the European Union’s strictest refugee deportation policy earlier this month.
The law was put to use on 12 September, when three Turkish citizens were convicted of illegal residence and handed stiff jail sentences. Two men were given two years of imprisonment and fines of 5,000 euros (US$ 5,870), while the third, aged 19, the youngest of the group, was handed a 10-month prison sentence.
Athens plans to test-drive the law through a likely minefield of legal challenges in the coming months. Humanitarian organisations say the measure unfairly includes children and stigmatises refugees and migrants as criminals.
Greek Minister for Migration and Asylum Thanos Plevris told Parliament on 2 September that the law was "the strictest returns policy in the whole EU" and claimed there was "a lot of interest from European countries, especially EU members, to adopt this law as a law that will force an illegal migrant to return."
Rights groups, which are gearing up to challenge the legislation, say it far outshoots a draft Returns Regulation the European Commission wants to make binding on all member states by June 2026.
The new law has shortened deadlines and raised penalties for unauthorized residence.
For example, rejected asylum applicants will be fitted with ankle monitors and given just two weeks to remove themselves voluntarily. If they do not, they face, like the two Turkish nationals, a 5,000-euro (US$ 5,870) fine and between two and five years of confinement in closed camps.
Children, more than a fifth of arrivals this year, are not exempt. If people wish to appeal, they have to do it in four days.
"We always claim that it’s not legal to put children in detention," said Federica Toscano from Save the Children. The law is "not aligned with the [UN] Convention on the Rights of the Child", and is "absolutely challengeable."
The Greek Ombudsman, an independent authority monitoring public services, also objected to the law’s maximum reprieve of 60 days, down from 120, so children can complete their school year.
Plevris has defended the hardened law, arguing that Greece guards external EU borders.
"It’s easy to defend borders when there’s three or four countries people have to cross to get to you. Compare us to other first reception countries," he said.
Since 2015, Greece has been the arrival point of 46 percent of more than 2.8 million undocumented people entering Europe, according to UNHCR.
Many have moved on to other EU member states, but because of EU rules, rejected asylum seekers or asylum recipients who lose their protected status would be returned to their country of arrival in the EU for deportation.