Governments should be legally permitted to deport migrants to third countries, even when those countries are not their countries of origin

What's this about?

People disagree about whether states may send migrants to third countries, rather than their home countries.

The key question is whether those transfers can keep people safe and follow the law.

What supporters say

• Third-country deals could share the duty of helping people who flee war and danger.
• A safe country could check asylum claims and offer shelter under a clear deal.
• Supporters say these deals might stop some people from taking risky, illegal trips.
• Such deals could spread the work fairly, instead of leaving nearby states to help most refugees.

What critics say

• Rich states might shift their work to poorer states without making sure people stay safe.
• Sending people away could block their chance to ask for asylum and get fair help.
• A third country might send people on again to a place where they face harm.
• Governments still must check for risks of abuse, torture, or unfair return before removal.

How to read this

The number of points on each side does not show who is right; the strength of each point matters more.

The bottom line

The evidence supports third-country transfers only with strict, clear, and enforceable safety rules.

The critics have stronger support, especially because safety and access to asylum may fail.

The claim is that governments should be allowed to send migrants to countries other than their countries of origin. The evidence supports that power only under strict, enforceable safeguards—not as a general right to deport people to any third country.

The case for

The strongest argument is burden-sharing. Refugees are often concentrated in countries near wars and crises, placing heavy pressure on a relatively small number of states. Third-country agreements could spread responsibility more fairly, especially when the receiving country has a functioning protection system and accepts clear legal duties. UNHCR reporting shows both the scale of forced displacement and the disproportionate burden carried by neighboring countries (see Figure 1). 1

Supporters argue that a formal agreement with a capable protection state could replace ad hoc arrangements with shared responsibility and enforceable commitments. In that model, a transfer would be lawful only if the receiving country could provide access to asylum, humane treatment and protection from further removal. Responsibility would be shared through consent, rather than simply pushed onto poorer or nearby countries (see Figure 2).

Governments also say third-country processing could reduce dangerous or irregular journeys. The UK government presented its Rwanda partnership partly as a deterrent, and comparative research treats cooperation with other countries as a possible migration-control tool. But the available evidence does not establish that deterrence reliably reduces irregular travel. The case for third-country transfers is therefore stronger as an argument about sharing responsibility than as an argument about controlling migration.

The case against

A third-country label cannot remove a government’s legal duties. Under the Refugee Convention, the Convention against Torture and European human-rights rules, governments must consider the risk of persecution, torture or onward removal in the proposed destination—and in countries to which the migrant might later be sent. People must also have an effective way to challenge the transfer before it happens. 3

The strongest practical objection is that externalized asylum systems can make protection harder to obtain. Offshore arrangements may involve weak procedures, detention, limited oversight and inadequate protection from onward refoulement, meaning removal to a place where someone faces serious harm. Analyses of Australia’s offshore system, as well as studies of the UK-Rwanda plan, identify asylum capacity, treatment standards and safeguards against onward removal as decisive issues. 4

There is also a concern that these agreements may shift responsibility rather than share it. Wealthier governments may transfer administrative and humanitarian burdens to poorer states or countries closer to conflict zones. Research warns that such systems can produce unequal treatment, reduce access to protection and make it harder to identify who is accountable when things go wrong. Deterrence cannot substitute for an individual assessment of each person’s claim. 5

The bottom line

The evidence favors a tightly limited and reviewable power, not unrestricted permission to deport migrants to third countries. Transfers could be lawful where the receiving state offers accessible asylum procedures, legal admission and status, humane reception, protection against onward removal, independent monitoring and a meaningful remedy that can stop an unsafe transfer.

Those conditions must be checked for each person before removal. Formal promises alone are not enough: governments must verify that protection works in practice and continue monitoring it after transfer. The evidence is reasonably balanced on whether third-country cooperation could help distribute responsibility, but the case against broad permission is better supported on non-refoulement, procedural access, oversight and unfair burden-shifting. Confidence in this qualified conclusion is high, although uncertainty remains over how consistently governments can classify conditions and verify compliance in particular receiving countries.