Only one in three illegal immigrants and failed asylum seekers are expelled from the European Union each year

Reuters:

In 2004, the 25-nation bloc decided to send back 650,000 non-EU nationals but only 212,000 people were actually deported or left voluntarily. Many of those facing expulsion go missing.

Britain alone says it has 280,000 failed asylum seekers and up to 570,000 illegal immigrants, and the government there has been attacked by media and opposition lawmakers for losing track of many who have been refused residency.

The Commission wants to halt 'asylum shopping', where illegal immigrants barred from one European state move to another. Brussels is proposing that a person banned from one country should automatically be barred from all 25 member states for a period of five years.

"We introduced ... the provision of a re-entry ban issued by a member state and valid throughout Europe ... for a maximum of five years but even longer in case of a person posing a threat to national security like a suspected terrorist," EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini told a news conference.

Under the current system, a person deported from one EU state can lodge an asylum application in another.

The Commission also wants to end confusion over what to do when an illegal immigrant is detected in one EU country but arrested elsewhere in the bloc.

Under the plan, illegal immigrants would be sent back to the state in which they were detected, preventing them from remaining in other countries which might offer more opportunities to contest a return order.

Human rights groups have raised concerns over the forced expulsion of immigrants to countries with dubious human rights records such as Libya.

EU member states must agree the proposal by unanimity for it to be turned into law.

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