Belgian plan for ICE-style immigration raids on homes criticised as 'law of fear'

Belgium could see ICE-style home raids, echoing the US crackdown on immigration, rights campaigners have warned, after MPs approved a law that allows police to forcibly enter properties to remove undocumented people. For months, intense debate has swirled across Belgium over measures introduced by the ruling right-leaning coalition to ramp up expulsions of people who have been denied the right to stay in the country. In the run-up to the parliamentary vote last Friday, more than 60 protests were held across the country, adding to criticism voiced by NGOs, judges and lawyers’ associations over the measures. Some have drawn parallels with the US, where arrests by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement have soared under Donald Trump’s administration. The law, which is set to take effect next spring, gives the Belgian immigration office the power to ask an investigating judge to authorise entry into residences that may be housing anyone without papers, including homes where migrants are being hosted by friends or family. Once this warrant has been obtained, police will be able to enter people’s homes without consent between 5am and 9pm, potentially in the presence of children. Once inside, they can detain people and carry out searches for identity documents. “It’s a law of fear,” said Carine Thibaut, the director of Amnesty International’s French-speaking Belgian section, citing the impact the raids could have on children and on people who had opened their homes to migrants. “It really disseminates fear.” Officials have said the measures will be targeted at people who have been denied asylum in Belgium, who have ignored orders to leave and who are seen as a threat to public order or national security. A broad range of critics have argued that the law is vague on what constitutes a public threat, citing cases where these terms were used for people who had carried out undeclared work, run a red light or shoplifted, meaning it will be up to individual judges to determine whether private homes can be turned into sites of immigration enforcement. According to Amnesty International, the judges would not have full investigative powers but instead would be limited on who they could ask for additional information, while the legislation fails to provide a means for people to appeal or challenge any decisions that are made. “They always say it’s for criminals,” Thibaut said. “We always answer that they already have all the tools to address this problem, because they can do that through the normal justice system.” Her organisation is among the 20 rights groups that have warned that the law perpetuates the conflation of lack of legal status with delinquency. “The home is inviolable. This constitutional principle should never depend on the administrative status of those who live there,” they said. The view was echoed at the Brussels-based Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, known as Picum. “This really has nothing to do with people who have committed crimes,” said Chiara Catelli, an advocacy officer. “It’s really about wanting to return people, deporting people, which is an administrative procedure.” She added: “We’ve all seen the devastating consequences of home raids in the US, where they fuel fear and violence and tear families apart. It’s deeply alarming that an EU member state is now moving in the same direction.” Catelli noted that similar, hardline measures were already in place in countries such as the Netherlands and Germany. The EU’s recently approved returns regulation, aimed at ramping up deportations across the bloc, includes similar provisions, meaning other member states could soon adopt comparable measures, she said. “We’re really afraid that this is the beginning of something that will become more widespread.” Thibaut warned that the measures such as those in Belgium would gradually chip away at the rights of everyone. “It’s the beginning of reducing the state of law and the respect for human rights,” she said. “This time it is for people without papers; after that, it might be people who are using drugs,” Thibaut added. “That’s the way you slowly, slowly dismantle a society based on human rights, on respect for justice and on separation of powers.”