NEW SCHENGEN BORDERS’ CODE RISKS LEADING TO MORE RACIAL AND ETHNIC PROFILING The European Commission has proposed a new Schengen Borders Code which would turn the Schengen area into a tech-controlled space with more ethnic/racial profiling, and where people, including children, could be quickly transferred between member states without any safeguards. The proposed revisions to the Schengen Borders Code set a new procedure to “transfer people apprehended at the internal borders” where there are indications that they crossed the internal border irregularly. The undocumented person, children included, would be transferred back within 24 hours - during which they can be detained without any safeguards. Since internal border controls are prohibited in the Schengen area, border police will likely decide who to check based on racial, ethnic, national, or religious characteristics - which is against international and EU law. In addition, the new code would allow member states to temporarily introduce border controls at all or specific parts of its internal border in cases of “serious threat”, which now would include “large scale unauthorised movements of third country nationals". Member states would also be able to limit the number of entries and the opening hours of crossing points, and intensify border surveillance including through drones, motion sensors and border patrols, in cases of “instrumentalisation of migrants”, which is defined as “a situation where a third country instigates irregular migratory flows into the Union by actively encouraging or facilitating the movement of third country nationals to the external borders”. Read our preliminary analysis here.