A/80/302 assistance upon arrival. In practice, however, children are effectively detained in precarious conditions in those so-called safe areas. 49 20. In 2025, the European Commission put forward a proposal for a European Union regulation on a common system for the return of third-country nationals. The proposed regulation, which would replace the European Union Return Directive, would expand the possibility under European Union law of sending persons in an irregular situation to third countries. 50 If adopted, member States would be allowed to send persons who have received return decisions, except unaccompanied children and families with children, to a third country that is not necessarily a transit country. Under the proposed regulation, States would be required to have an agreement with the third country and the third country would be required to respect international human rights standards and principles, including the principle of non-refoulement. 51 Return hubs raise concerns regarding detention and onward return. 21. When Italian courts blocked the implementation of the protocol concluded by Italy and Albania (see para. 15), Italy approved a decree in March 2025 to repurpose one of the two migrant processing centres into a repatriation hub. Under the new framework, the centre is designated to hold migrants whose asylum requests have been rejected or declared inadmissible in Italy and who are awaiting deportation. Although Italian law formally applies to the asylum procedure, in practice, the application of the right to legal defence raises concerns because of the distance of the centre from Italy. Other concerns include uncertainty about the applicability of return standards stipulated by Italian and European Union law and the implementation of detention safeguards. 52 22. In another example of a State returning or expelling persons to a third State, the United States entered into bilateral agreements in early 2025 with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama to allow the transfer of refugees and migrants. At the time of writing, 299 persons of various nationalities had been sent to Panama and 200 to Costa Rica, including 81 children. Some 252 Venezuelans, including asylum-seekers purportedly with criminal convictions, were deported to El Salvador to be detained in its maximum-security Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (known as CECOT). 53 More recently, the United States signed agreements for “third country deportations” with Eswatini and South Sudan, as confirmed by official statements issued by the Governments of those countries. 54 On the basis of those agreements, the United States has carried out removal flights to those countries and is seeking to sign additional agreements with other countries. 55 While the aforementioned agreements appear to differ in terms of procedure and have thus far affected individuals with different legal status, including stateless persons, all of these __________________ 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 10/23 Submission by Asylex. European Commission, “Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a common system for the return of third-country nationals staying illegally in the Union” (2025). Izabella Majcher, “The New EU ‘Common System for Returns’ under the Return Regulation: evidence-lacking lawmaking and human rights concerns”, EU Law Analysis (2025). Submission by Associazione per gli Studi Giuridici sull’Immigrazione; and European Parliament, “Returns of migrants from detention centres in Albania and breach of Directive 2008/115/EC by the Italian Government”, Parliamentary question (1 July 2025). Communications USA 14/2025 and SLV 1/2025. See https://mofaic.gov.ss/official-statement-on-the-arrival-of-third-country-nationals-and-southsudanese-deported-from-the-united-states-of-america-to-south-sudan/; and https://x.com/EswatiniGovern1/status/1945482350567055605. See https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/07/un-experts-alarmed-resumption-usdeportations-third-countries-warn. 25-12609