Human Dignity Along a Spectrum: Practicing Dignity in the Enforcement of Returns of Non-Citizens From the EU

Introduction

The word dignity is rooted in the Latin word dignitas (“to be worthy, to be meritorious of honor”). As a key humanitarian concept, “dignity” provides a reading that recognizes the status of human beings as worthy of and entitled to respect. Definitions of dignity are omnipresent in legal, philosophical, ethical, political and religious domains together with the function that the term is made to serve for the “human.” Indeed, conceptions and perspectives of human dignity abound, with some authors calling it a “vacuous” (Bagaric and Allan 2006), “useless” (Macklin 2003), or “elusive” (O’Mahony 2012) concept in many of its areas of application. Others added that dignity is “nothing but a phrase to the theory of human rights” (Beitz 2013), in consideration also of the fact that its interpretations in law are “culturally dependent and eminently malleable” (Feldman 1999, 698).

Very important explorations of “human dignity” have investigated the concept as a binding legal norm (Resta 2020), a principle (as expressed, for instance, in constitutional documents: McCrudden 2008; Steinmann 2017), a status (Waldron 2009), an aspiration (Feldman 1999), and as the link of differing cultural-religious frameworks (Schroeder and Bani-Sadr 2017), as well as consider it relevant to political power (Gilabert 2015), equality (Grant 2007; O’Mahony 2012), poverty (Fukuyama 2012), to name a few. Since human dignity is not (exclusively) a legal concept (Spijkers 2011), some interpretations of it as “inherent” to all human beings have been largely treated as empirical facts (Andorno 2001). This ‘standard’ attitude to dignity is typically associated with the unique value conferred to human beings so that equal respect can be given to all regardless of any political or religious system (Steinmann 2017, 10). Kant's principle of treating a person as an end, but never as a means, is often mentioned when discussing readings that reinforce the intrinsic relevance of dignity: no person should be regarded as an “object” (Mahlmann 2012). The recognition of an individual's dignity is key to respecting their rights.

In particular, the recognition of their dignity-rights is especially salient for non-European Union (EU) migrant citizens (addressed in this article) who are subjected to return procedures and positioned, through an “us versus them” rhetoric, in the normative and legal distinctions of citizenship (Anderson 2013). While citizenship rights can be extended to migrants (Soyal 1994), and migrants can constitute them as citizens through “acts of citizenship” (Isin and Nielsen 2008), we contend that their channeling into enforced return processes restricts, complicates, and ultimately reinforces their status as non-EU citizens, insofar as protections are articulated primarily through human rights claims rather than grounded in citizenship and the right to stay in the EU. Consequently, non-EU citizens face significant challenges in the recognition of their rights and dignity, as human rights are, in general, the only rights migrants can refer to (Crosby 2014, 120). This makes dignity and its correlation with human rights so important in their case. The law can illegalize them (Bauder 2014), and “the theoretical status” of migrant “illegality” results in their legal and socio-political designation as “deportable” with related consequences (De Genova 2002).

Addressing the status of refugees, Fassin (2005, 367) discussed the “moral evaluation of difference” that contemporary states impose on those “who are deprived of their human rights by lack of citizenship,” eliciting treatments of compassion and repression for individuals recognized as “bare life.” The construction of such moral priorities and responsibilities produces what Bauman (2016, 35) referred to as “adiaphorization,” namely, the removal of certain categories of migrants and the actions directed at them from the sphere of moral evaluation. According to this, irregularized and deportable non-citizens do not have the same “moral worth” in our societies and, as such, their dignity is not even recognizable.

This considered, therefore, a key question for this article is to analyze how human dignity is (1) recognized by return practitioners, including both direct service providers and authorities overseeing it, and (2) what meaning it carries within enforced return processes that place dignity on a spectrum. To address this, this article is organized into four main sections. In the “Human Dignity in Human Rights Discourse: Recognizing the Dignity of Migrants as Non-Citizens in the EU” section, we zoom in on the concept of human dignity, showing some of its framings and functions, by ultimately arguing that dignity requires the active respect of individuals. Thereafter, we sketch out a brief analysis of how dignity is mobilized in discourses and practices surrounding migration governance and the treatment of non-EU citizens. In the “Enforcing Returns From the EU: Dignity Along a Spectrum” section, we discuss policy and framings of forced-“voluntary” approaches to return, treating them as enforced returns operating across a “deportation-continuum” (Kalir and Wissink 2016). In the “Engaging Human Dignity in Return: Methodology and Fieldwork Limitations” section, we present our methodology and related limitations. Stakeholders directly involved in overseeing and practicing human-rights compliance of return procedures in several EU countries directly or indirectly referred to the dignity of returns in our research. Their views are analyzed in the “Practicing Dignity” Across the Deportation Continuum” section through two main dimensions of dignity-within-return: spectrum one coercion, deportation and “minor acts of care”; and spectrum two “voluntary” return as allegedly the dignified one. In conclusion, we argue that, in practice, dignity in enforced returns procedures is often operationalized as harm mitigation rather than as the meaningful realization of dignity itself, with fieldwork findings demonstrating how dignity is interpreted and recognized along a spectrum — ranging from minimal to more expansive thresholds — depending on the specific procedures through which enforced returns are carried out.

Overall, the article aims to contribute to the field of migration studies, and more specifically to deportation studies (Coutin 2014) on the tactics of deportation enforcement (e.g., Walters 2019; Walters, Lecadet, and Parizot 2022), and literature decoding the functioning of “soft deportations” (e.g., Cleton and Schweitzer 2021), addressing the views of monitors and the role of return practitioners directly involved in the implementation of return policies (e.g., Crane and Lawson 2020) by foregrounding their human rights implications through the lens, language and approaches of dignity.

Human Dignity in Human Rights Discourse: Recognizing the Dignity of Migrants as Non-Citizens in the EU

Positive law and democratic law-making have combined human dignity with human rights (Habermas 2010). Indeed, dignity has been understood in various ways: as the primary source of human rights (Griffin 2008) and, in more pragmatic terms, as the grounding right informing governments’ duty to protect and provide for individuals, especially their citizens (Resta 2020). In so doing, dignity is both a positive obligation and a negative right. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) was key for the emergence of a general use and popularization of “human dignity” in human rights discourse (McCrudden 2008). According to Article 1 of the Declaration, “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” By virtue of this Article, the intrinsic worth of any human person became universal by giving equalization of dignity-rank to what, prior to it, “was formerly accorded to nobility” (Waldron 2009). This view of dignity goes hand in hand with the universality of human rights, enabling individuals to be protected by making dignity a legal principle (Habermas 2010). Since then, further post-war international human rights regulations have fully integrated human rights and dignity with multiple scopes in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966). As Paweł Łuków (2018, 323) observed, with time, “human dignity came to be seen as the founding value of both human rights and action constraints applying to right holders.” Similarly, Article 1 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights states that “human dignity is inviolable. It must be respected and protected,” signaling that “it is the human being that needs to stand at the center of all EU law and policy making” (Toggenburg 2024).

There are a lot of disputes about whether dignity should be treated as a distinctive right (the right to lead a dignified life) or as a value, being rather a guiding principle through which human rights are interpreted (O’Mahony 2012), or just be conceived as a part of the human rights discourse (Łuków 2018). Linking human rights and constraints on actions translates into the function of dignity in morality and law as “articulating minimum standards of humanity” from which serious and systematic violations can be deterred and addressed (Carozza 2008). The dignity of the person is widely invoked “as a legal and moral ground for protesting against degrading and abusive treatment,” to the point that “no other ideal seems so clearly accepted as a universal social good” (Schachter 1983, 849).

As Valentini (2017, 2) has argued, the debate over whether dignity is inherent can be counterproductive to human rights, as it “distracts from their political function: placing constraints on the conduct of powerful actors.” The conduct of states and state-like entities is, in fact, restricted to what does not harm others to the point of their dignity. In other words, even if no clear definition of human dignity exists, a set of minimum humanitarian standards is conducive to positive obligations that power-holders have to respect in cases of dignity violations, such as the prohibition of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment. This association between human dignity and serious forms of degradation and humiliation identifies human dignity as an absolute objective of law. However, dignity may be recognized and articulated in different ways, also as a right to be protected from less serious violations occurring within return enforcement.

Turning to the functions of dignity and the recognition of specific harms, it is interesting to note that the protection of the human body, its preservation and integrity, is the lowest common denominator for the univocal recognition and sanctioning of violations of dignity in law (Riley 2010, 132). From this, limitations to coercion, state responsibility, and duty to protect have advanced (Schachter 1983). Rosen (2012) recognizes the right to be treated with dignity as the behavior that respects someone. The idea of dignified treatment distinguishes between “respect-as-observance” (of another person's right) and “respect-as-respectfulness” (of another person's dignity by showing them respect). This latter behavior can be positive (acting towards others respectfully) or negative (disrespect is refrained) (Rosen 2012, 58). Rosen makes evident that what needs to be respected in others is not simply their rights but also how actions to respect their rights translate into dignity recognition (and protection).

Next to status-dignity, that is the permanent and inherent property of all human persons, Gilabert (2015, 7) introduces condition-dignity as the fulfilment of human rights that enables the enjoyment of a dignified life. This reading of condition-dignity situates status-dignity on a terrain of action, recognizing that human rights are subject to and require power to manifest in practice. This shift from status to conditions of dignity closely resonates with Taylor's (1994) distinction between a politics of universalism, grounded in the equal dignity of all individuals, and a politics of difference, which emphasizes the recognition of particular identities. As Taylor (1994, 36–43) observed, these two modes of politics can come into tension as they both demand equal recognition, while “the withholding of recognition can be a form of oppression.” This tension resonates also with Hannah Arendt's well-known formulation of the “right to have rights” and the oppressive consequences that follow when individuals are denied legal recognition, as is the case with the rights conferred by citizenship (Campbell 2023).

Strictly speaking, migrants are among the non-citizens excluded from the rights and privileges associated with EU citizenship status (Weissbrodt 2008). Indeed, in the context of the governance of migration in the EU, the dignity of individuals is widely (but unequally) invoked for citizens and excluded migrants (Brownsword 2021). Following up on the perspective that human dignity underpins the social recognition of status, Habermas (2010, 464) pointed out that the status of democratic citizenship, that is, membership in a political community, is what ensures the protection of equal rights. Citizens have claims to dignity that are anchored in the ‘appropriateness’ of their legal status (Habermas 2010, 472). Indeed, governmental duties to protect citizens are more strongly associated with fundamental rights than for non-citizens (Waldron 2009, 56). This does not mean that the rights of migrants as non-citizens are not protected, but rather that, above all, the equal dignity of all human beings, as affirmed by legal instruments, including international human rights law, needs to be posited in the context of whether individuals have “legal citizenship” rights or not.

One of the paradoxes of dignity is that to affirm that all human beings possess the same value unconditionally and to suggest that, therefore, they are to be treated as “worthy” of equal respect is often not a possibility afforded by their status. Examining dignity under the theme of a perspective of “other,” Mattson and Clark (2011, 308) highlighted that “dignity, or intrinsic worth, is often afforded to those with full standing as ‘humans’, typically those who are part of a stereotypic in-group. Outsiders are typically considered less than fully human, with lesser claims to dignity.” This is particularly salient in the case of migration, where the distinction between members and outsiders strictly defines the enjoyment of comprehensive rights set by the boundaries of citizenship (Bauböck 2006).

These boundaries are often challenged, for instance, by political responses to migrant deaths and by approaches to protecting and accounting for non-citizens’ dignity at EU external borders (Mavelli and Zambernardi 2024, 170). Justification for migrant deaths can be achieved through appeals that invert morality based on legality. As Fine and Lindermann (2024) have argued, law can be invoked to legitimize processes that condition the protection of migrants’ rights (and the denial of their dignity) with detrimental effects. This, considering that the recognition of migrants’ dignity is shaped by their close association with the political construction of their status as irregular (Squire 2010). While human beings command respect because of their status-dignity, their “worth” is complemented by their condition-dignity as “an irregular migrant [can be] defined as someone who has no current status in the country” (Koser and Kuschminder 2016, 10).

In his analysis of Europe's border regime, Vaughan-Williams (2015) has argued that the figure of the irregular migrant consists of views and practices where “lives worthy of protection” (humanitarianism) are often at the same time “lives from which we [as citizens] should protect ourselves against” (securitization). Humanitarianism and securitization can merge together to legitimize law enforcement practices achieved through human rights protection goals (Pallister-Wilkins 2015, 65). On this account, dignity can be formally recognized as a principle guiding the treatment of migrants, yet its practical realization remains confined to, and shaped by, the logics and constraints of law-enforcement activities. For instance, the 2024 Frontex Code of Conduct (Articles 4(a) and 5(c)) requires all participants in operational activities to respect and protect human dignity and fundamental rights — especially in relations to persons seeking international protection — including by ensuring access to basic necessities such as food, shelter, and medical care (Frontex 2024). Similarly, the Schengen Borders Code (Regulation 2016/399) obliges border guards to fully respect human dignity, particularly when dealing with vulnerable persons. Concernedly, in both cases, direct guarantors of migrants’ dignity are those who implement “securitization through practices” (Léonard 2010).

More expansive views of dignity are proposed by human rights institutions, academics and members of civil society who advocate for more humane immigration policies, and for the rights of migrants, often doing so by presenting findings on the undignified conditions surrounding their reception and detention (Amnesty International 2007; Red Cross EU Office 2016). In some of these cases, forms of solidarity that extended to practical support for migrants, such as search-and-rescue activities, the establishment of reception initiatives, and the provision of life-saving services, such as food and housing, have been widely criminalized. But, is it not solidarity that presupposes respect for human dignity? (Brownsword 2021, 10) This makes evident that not all manifestations of dignity — as giving respect to other people's rights and even accounting for migrants’ immediate needs (with the lack of access to basic needs strongly associated in policy with human dignity (Cornelisse 2019)) — are addressed in practice, especially if these do not align with the more restrictive scope of immigration policies (Brownsword 2021).

Enforcing Returns From the EU: Dignity Along a Spectrum

In line with EU and international human rights conventions, returns need to be carried out in a manner that ensures full respect for fundamental rights and the dignity of the people concerned (Pirjola 2019, 364; UNHCR 2003). This principle, for years, was at the lips of top EU politicians, including European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, who in her 2020 speech delivered to the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), underlined that even though “not all people have the right to stay in the European Union, but all people are human beings with rights and dignity. So even if you have to leave, you have to return, we have to treat people according to their rights and their dignity.” ¹

The core piece of legislation regarding return in the EU, currently under revision, is the Return Directive (RD) (2008/115) (European Commission 2008). The text of the Directive mentions the term “dignity” twice (in the preamble and Article 8), envisaging that return should be carried out “in a humane manner” and “in accordance with fundamental rights and with due respect for the dignity and physical integrity” of a returned person. In policy literature, return is addressed through a categorical approach that mainly categorizes returnees and types of return through binary labels, that is, “forced” (individuals are returned) and “voluntary” (individuals choose to return). While, “forced return” can be understood as referring to individuals who are removed against their will (therefore, deported and physically removed) — keeping in mind that physical compulsion might not be the only determinant of such returns (Collyer, Wimalasena, and Ansar 2009); “voluntary” return assumes “voluntariness” grounding individual decisions, and as such, are held to higher standards in policy for the realization of “return in a dignified manner” (European Commission 2021, 1). Overall, both subcategories of enforced return describe how return is to be implemented as set out in policy, addressing different responsibilities and duties for different actors in such processes, and articulating the standards and markers by which dignity is framed as “more-or-less” respected.

Such markers are particularly evident in the case of deportations, often preceded by punitive administrative migration detention (Bosworth 2024) and their embedment of coercive methods of enforced removal (Borrelli 2021) that profoundly impact the treatment of returnees and their dignity rights. These practices are not just a measure of last resort, but normalized responses adopted by the state to manage irregularity, containing and excluding the “undesirable” within sites of enforcement of state racism (Kalir 2019; Lindberg 2022). During deportation procedures, risks to the right to human dignity are particularly pronounced as individuals’ liberty is mostly restricted and coercive measures are applied more overtly. Within these processes, thresholds of dignity tend to be positioned lower on the spectrum, frequently reduced to a minimum standard of acceptability through the language of compliance with human rights — particularly with regard to the use of force and the conduct of authorities towards deportees.

It is not surprising, then, that fundamental rights monitoring is mandated in Article 8(6) of the RD as a mechanism that can reinforce the observance of fundamental rights only during forced return operations. The European Commission highlighted that “independent and effective monitoring systems can enhance the protection and guarantee the respect of returnees’ fundamental rights and dignity during return operations” (European Commission 2021, 41).

Monitors in forced-return operations are aimed to “act as a control mechanism in return practices and can be a tool for a greater level of transparency to ensure that return operations are carried out in line with fundamental rights standards” (ICMPD 2021). They can only observe the execution of removal operations without intervening, “making themselves visible,” and noting any human rights issues of concern, with their observations informing monitoring reports addressed to return-enforcing institutions (Lepşa-Rogoz et al. 2024, 51). With their presence prior to and during return flights, monitors fulfil a preventive role, exposing situations and behaviors that put returnees’ rights at risk, given that forced return entails a loss of liberty, the use of bodily force, or the imposition of restraints. They do not question that such measures may be used, they only ensure that while implemented, these measures are “lawful[ly] provided [and] that they respect the principles of strict necessity, proportionality and respect for the dignity of the returnee, as well as the right to physical integrity and the prohibition on inhuman or degrading treatment or torture” (Lepşa-Rogoz et al. 2024, 15). However, monitoring does not fully encompass the diverse mechanisms in which violent deportations take place (Hosrti and Pirkkalainen 2023), with monitors often denied access to key locations and restricted to limited procedures and in-flight operations (Lepşa-Rogoz et al. 2024), underscoring that the protection of human dignity in deportation cannot be treated as a merely momentary or stage-specific endeavor.

Considering that deportations heighten human rights risks and costs, the EU increasingly invests in assisted “voluntary” return programs (AVR) on the grounds that they “should help the migrant plan a safe and dignified return” (European Commission 2021, 12). Such programmes are thus promoted as “more humane” and less costly than deportations, and as humanitarian rather than only as immigration control (Strand et al. 2008; Paasche 2021). These policy framings establish differentiated thresholds of dignity — “voluntary return” is presented as a more dignified type of return than deportation, primarily on the basis of the presumed absence of force and violence and presence of migrants’ agency.

However, significant concerns arise as to what dignity in fact entails and how it is recognized in practice when “voluntariness” is treated as a proxy for dignified treatment. In particular, the absence of any obligation to monitor “voluntary” returns further undermines this assumption. For instance, a recent journalistic inquiry from Bulgaria showed that state authorities have circumvented monitoring obligations for deportations by returning Syrians under the guise of “voluntary return,” thereby de facto preventing any verification of the conditions under which such returns take place (Baker and Ambri 2025). Similar practices have been extensively documented in relation to the uptake of AVR schemes from detention in Greece (Papatzani et al. 2024), as well as returns enforced to contexts that exacerbate precarity and vulnerability (Bisong 2022).

All in all, these practices demonstrate that the higher standards of dignity commonly associated with the so-called voluntary return should not be taken for granted, particularly where such schemes operate in practice as forms of “soft deportation” (Leerkes, van Os, and Boersema 2017). Importantly, Crane and Lawson (2020), in their research on AVR programs in Europe, have shown how declared humanitarian care objectives of AVR assistance are deeply entangled with migration control and border securitization agendas. By drawing on interviews with practitioners and counselors in Germany, the UK, and Belgium, the authors reveal how these non-state actors limit the implementation of humanitarian principles to “minor acts of care.” These are

practices that are meaningful in the context of daily lives, but that do not rise to the level of a disruptive politics of care in the context of EU border securitization. These minor acts of care allow migrants to understand the rules, constraints and options ahead for them — and to choose whether to proceed with returning via AVR or remain in the country (Crane and Lawson 2020, 7).

On this understanding, a continuum of coercion and restrictive practices embed all types of return with several criticism raised over the alleged “voluntary” aspect of AVR returns (Leerkes, van Os, and Boersema 2017), including the dangerous or precarious situations to which individuals are returned. The mere lack of bare force is not a sufficient element for framing AVR as being “voluntary” (Leerkes, van Os, and Boersema 2017), as compelled conditions exist for individuals to consent to their return as a last resort option (Koch 2013; Lietaert 2022), exposing vivid coercion behind those decisions. As such, “voluntary” returns serve as an initial step within the deportation coercion machinery, and the refusal to participate in them is always connected to the threat of forced return of the person when authorities exercise all the power they possess (Kalir and Wissink 2016).

In this , the continuum of coercion between the so-called “voluntary” and forced returns is conceptualized as a single category of “enforced return.” This reading shifts attention to how states induce individuals to return, directly or indirectly (Battistella 2018), therefore contesting at the core the idea that “voluntary” return is simply a matter of choice. The state can compel individuals to leave its territory (Webber 2011) or can create unfavorable conditions for them to leave with no other alternatives possible (Gauci 2023). Both ways, it is the state that induces such returns (Marino et al. 2023), enforcing and conditioning return policies (Torres Chedraui et al. 2024, 38). On this basis, a “spectrum of (in)voluntariness” is understood to link deportations and “voluntary” returns (Sinnige, Cleton, and Leerkes 2025), giving rise, within this continuum of enforced returns, we argue, to varying interpretations and practices of human dignity along the spectrum.

Across the deportation continuum, dignity is thus recognized and practiced along a spectrum shaped by what is considered enforceable within the objectives of return policies. This reflects the understanding that, while respect for human dignity in migration and return remains absolute as a right-form in legal and policy texts (as widely addressed earlier as inherent status), it is nevertheless constrained by the implementation logics and specific aims of policies affecting non-EU citizens. Further, it depends on the way, it is interpreted and practiced in various return procedures (as the fieldwork findings below will show), which can condition the effective enjoyment of returnees’ rights. On this reading, return enforcement can mobilize rights associated with human dignity in order to render procedures more humane, attentive to the individual and compliant with the rule of law, while standing in tension with the ontological reality, for instance, of deportation as an inherently coercive — and thus intrinsically undignified — practice (Bathia 2024). It is within this tension that our fieldwork findings are situated.

Engaging Human Dignity in Return: Methodology and Fieldwork Limitations

The paper is based on extensive fieldwork on human rights compliance and monitoring practices in the EU + countries for “voluntary” and forced return procedures. All in all, 72 semi-structured interviews with experts in the field coming from 13 countries were conducted between January and June 2024 as a part of the Finding Agreement in Return (FAiR) project. Among all those materials for further analysis, we selected 27 interviews from 10 countries (Belgium, Finland, Bulgaria, Italy, Romania, Sweden, Poland, Czechia, Germany, and Spain), in which our respondents directly or indirectly referred to the dignity of returns. Data were analyzed to identify the relevant dimensions of dignity, what they consist of, and underpinned ideas. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and anonymized.

Our interviewees worked as national fundamental rights monitors [FRM_x], AVR staffers of international or non-governmental organizations contracted by the state to perform returns and representatives of state-led AVR programs [AVR_x]. Additionally, we interviewed legal and human rights experts in return [HRE_x], some of whom worked at EU Agencies [EUA_x]. Practitioners are the ones who translate general legal principles into concrete practices. In other words, they define the content of rights and give them practical meaning through their implementation, observation of practices (such as by fundamental rights monitors) and giving them legitimacy. The role of the latter is important because it matters what they name as undignified, thus the infringements of human rights. As a forced return monitor remarked:

EU soft law indicates right to dignity is the root of all other fundamental rights. Once the right to dignity is violated, this automatically suggests infringement on other fundamental rights, and the whole [return] operation will not be deemed fundamental rights compliant. [FRM_4].

In this work, we contend that providing additional insights on contested concepts, such as human dignity, can help us to reflect more consciously about its uses and functions in migration and returns. However, as Valentini (2017, 7) has eloquently noticed, “the fact that human rights practitioners understand human rights in a certain way is evidence of how they conceptualize this notion, not of how human rights should be understood.” Similarly, the subjective views of practitioners and experts on human dignity and return are addressed in this section to gather understanding on the matter, but these do not aim to be normative in scope.

Our data presents three main limitations. Firstly, it does not account for the subjective experience of how recognition of dignity claims, which involves having the power to respect, is conceived from the perspective of people subjected to return processes. Readings of dignity as recognition and performing respect for others, in the specific context of human rights practices, will be addressed in this article by factoring in only the perspective of duty-bearers who are in a position of power compared to right-holders (Gilabert 2015, 26). As such, we refrain from speaking for migrants (Krause 2017). At the same time, we acknowledge that we do speak about them so that the views of return practitioners can differ significantly from those of migrants (Erdal and Oeppen 2017).

Secondly, the paper collects interview insights to provide a broad overview of return-and-dignity practices across European countries, rather than focusing on country-specific aspects. As such, we acknowledge that national geographical differences and specific cultural contexts can significantly shape how respondents understand, articulate and practice dignity. Relatedly, it is also important to consider how dignity may carry different meanings across such contexts through the respective languages, particularly given that the interviews were conducted in several languages, including Italian, Spanish, and Polish, rather than exclusively in English, as in most interviews.

Thirdly, we want to underline again that the theme of human dignity in return was not addressed in exhaustive depth by our interviewees due to the differing scope of the larger project from which they draw, and this article can be regarded as a starting point only. Overall, it is worth noticing that some of our respondents found it very interesting to reflect on human dignity in return processes, both forced (4.1) and those deemed as “voluntary” (4.2), considering otherwise the more general use of the notion and appeals that they themselves make as part of their return-related activities.

“Practicing Dignity” Across the Deportation Continuum

Conclusions and Discussion

This paper discusses how human dignity is recognized and practiced during the implementation of EU return policies. This research approach is informed by the underlying assumption that human dignity is not confined to legal discourse (Kretzmer and Klein 2002), but is invoked as an interpretative leitmotif (Botha 2009) in migration and in the policy and conduct of enforced returns to protect, as well as to legitimize, guide and set limits to punitive immigration enforcement practices (Wong 2015). Such an interpretation and implementation is in the hands of practitioners implementing those policies on the ground, which in the case of return practices includes various actors such as border police, civil society, international organization representatives and human rights monitors. The dignity of recognition, central to this paper and grounded in “relational claims” (McCrudden 2008, 28), emphasizes how human dignity is protected under circumstances where non-citizens are treated unequally (Grant 2007).

References to the notion of dignity legitimize its function for human rights, and these references “can be translated into political or legal reasoning if a set of regulative principles, governing the relationship between dignity and rights, is applied” (Dicke 2002, 113; Bagaric and Allan 2006, 263). This article adopts the view that, in the absence of such regulative principles, the debate on human dignity needs to include different sets of understandings that clarify how dignity is recognized in practice, both as a behavior and as a more abstract idea and norm of rights. While not all guiding actions derived from the law have a dignitarian value, and human rights are defended on the basis of the inherent dignity of individuals (Coleman 2003), these have been the most explored insights to date.

It is, therefore, important to consider more concretely what human dignity entails and how it is approached in practice. In this article, we focused mostly on practices of human dignity in the broader context of enforcing return of non-EU citizens, and showed the readings of return stakeholders in regards to returnees’ dignity differing according to the type of return (forced or “voluntary”), the positions of fundamental rights monitors and AVR staffer in recognizing and supporting the dignity of returning migrants, together with their calls to improve dignitary rights in practice. The practices of dignity and the rhetoric of it, which we observed in the research and which were underlined by practitioners, did not contest the return system as such, which is undignified at its core, especially in reference to forced removals.

In more detail, fieldwork findings show that, on the one hand, actors involved in deportations referred mostly to dignity in relation to the use of force in pre- and during forced removal stages, the preservation of the body integrity of deportees and what can be referred to as “minor acts of care” (Crane and Lawson 2020). As addressed earlier, Crane and Lawson (2020) analyzed these “minor acts” in the context of managing assistance for individuals enrolled in AVR programs. While they were present in our study as well, the novelty of the findings lies in expanding this term to include forced return. The interviews we conducted indicate that the “provision of immediate needs” operates as a central imperative grounding practitioners’ dignitarian acts within all phases and forms of deportation processes. In contexts where coercion and physical force remain ever-present possibilities as in forced removals, dignity often manifests at a minimal threshold — through the provision of water, the careful handling of deportees’ belongings, allowing to smoke a cigarette, using less maiming tools (like material hand restraints) or the avoidance of public handcuffing which, we can argue, can be just an attempt to harm individuals just-less-than. In this setting, what practitioners identify as breaches of dignity rights — particularly within the framework of fundamental rights monitoring — occurs under significant constraints, as their capacity to observe and report is shaped by the operational priorities and effectiveness imperatives of deportation procedures. Such acts, we argue, can also be used to downplay the consequences of coercion which is a cornerstone of deportation. At the same time, dignity can be addressed to justify restrictive practices, such as the scope of “unannounced deportations,” thereby showing that law enforcement authorities can mobilize it otherwise.

By contrast, and across the deportation continuum, AVR practitioners articulated a more expansive understanding of practicing dignity. Their accounts moved beyond immediate needs and bodily integrity to encompass the provision of comprehensive assistance, the facilitation of “voluntary” decision-making aimed at fostering a sense of autonomy and ownership over individuals’ return, and attention to post-return life prospects and broader safety conditions. While practices connected with “voluntary” returns aim to leave individuals with some traces of dignity and agency under more expansive recognition and safeguards, they remain embedded within and responsive to broader immigration control priorities as well.

Overall, these findings show that the recognition and enactment of dignity in relation to non-EU citizens subject to return procedures vary along a spectrum of actions and practices, shaped by the type of enforced return and by the roles, responsibilities and discretion afforded to return practitioners. In other words, this differentiation of forced versus AVR returns — reflective in our data and presentation of findings — does not imply that one procedure is inherently more dignified than the other; rather, it illustrates how dignity is operationalized differently across the continuum of enforced returns, in ways that are shaped by both institutional mandates and the practical spaces available to practitioners.

Dignity may be affirmed and protected as a legal (absolute) right; however, the scope and substance of that commitment — and the ways in which the dignity of “others” is recognized and enacted in practice by practitioners — remain contingent on the objectives of enforced returns, differing markedly between what deportations and the so-called “voluntary” returns operationally enable them to do to recognize, safeguard, and give effect to dignity in practice. In this way, practitioners do not challenge enforced returns as a policy which generally contradicts the dignity as both value and right. What they do instead is to make sure that they perform within this undignified legal and practical framework in a way that protects the remaining dignity of returnees via prioritizing “voluntary” returns and performing “minor acts of care.” Protecting dignity is less about realizing it and more about mitigating potential and concrete harm.

Overall, as Vicky Squire (2020) eloquently reminded us, appeals to human dignity are based on the racialized construction between worthy and unworthy lives. Ergo, recognizing the dignity of migrants is often a political decision that, in many cases, is limited to preserving or protecting lives, while at the same time allowing the introduction of other forms of violence that harm people on the move (Davies, Isakjee, and Obradovic-Wochnik 2026). We do not believe that strictly defining dignity would improve the protection of returnees (Bradley 2009, 381), but we share the view that policy-makers, practitioners, and scholars should address such dilemmas by reflecting thoroughly on the uses, scope, and functions of dignity in their work and practices. Future research could examine returnees’ views on their dignity rights and the dignitary treatment they experienced throughout their return processes. This would deepen our understanding and conscious mobilizations of dignity as more than a buzzword in migration governance, often mobilized by the state to legitimize returns and to deem procedures (forced versus “voluntary”) as more dignity-compliant and less harmful, without clearly identifying the conditions of “dignified return” for returnees themselves.