The Hot Button: Deportations

Our current Hot Button issue is deportations. This contentious subject has been particularly visible lately, especially as it relates to the case of Nigerian asylum seeker Eze Okafor. After four years in Iceland, the Immigration Appeals Board gave Eze their official opinion that he could no longer be deported under the terms of the Dublin Regulation, and that he should ask the Directorate of Immigration to re-examine his case. Upon doing so, though, he was arrested and put on a plane to Sweden. By the time you read this, he may be back in Nigeria, where he faces almost certain persecution from Boko Haram. The case has raised questions about what purpose the Immigration Appeals Board serves, the competence of the Directorate of Immigration, and the arbitrary nature of deportations from Iceland in general. It is for this reason that deportations are the current hot button.