Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Wednesday that the EU Migration and Asylum Pact, set to come into force on Friday, creates harmful changes to the EU’s asylum system.

Originally adopted in 2024, the pact introduces stricter regulations aimed at broadening applicant screening, increasing health and security checks, expediting examination procedures, and providing free counseling services. The pact consists of 10 pieces of binding legislation, which HRW argues will make it easier for governments to rush decisions, limiting safeguards for migrants and extending the time migrants spend in detention.

In a news release, HRW’s senior refugee and migrant rights advisor, Judith Sunderland, stated:

The new EU asylum pact, despite the trumpeting of EU leaders, slams the door in the face of people who deserve to be treated with dignity and to have a fair hearing of their claims for protection. The Pact takes a sledgehammer to the right to asylum at a time when the world needs Europe more than ever to champion human rights.

HRW has criticized that the new pact will enable European countries to designate non-EU member states as “safe third countries.” This allows an EU member to refuse to examine an asylum claim, instead having the applicant file their claim with a third country to which they may have no familial or cultural ties.

The pact has faced challenges in the past, particularly from right-wing governments that opposed its adoption and later threatened to withdraw from the pact entirely.

Governments across the West have been increasingly adopting anti-immigration measures. Canada recently passed the widely criticized Bill C-12, which migrants rights groups have warned will enable the mass cancellation of immigration applications. In the US, headlines of abuses by immigration enforcement agents have been common since Trump took office, including the tragic deaths of migrants in custody, and the killings of Renée Good, Alex Pretti, Keith Porter, Ruben Ray Martinez and Silverio Villegas González.