Migration lawsuit launched against EU's border agency

A group of human rights lawyers has launched legal action against the European Union’s border and coast guard agency at the bloc’s top court

BRUSSELS -- Human rights lawyers said Tuesday that they have launched legal action against the European Union’s border and coast guard agency at the bloc’s top court, accusing Frontex of violating the rights of people trying to seek asylum and other breaches of international law. The case was filed at the European Court of Justice by Front-Lex, a legal hub challenging EU migration policies. It concerns a woman from Burundi and a Congolese unaccompanied minor who tried to apply for international protection on the Greek island of Lesbos last year. The lawyers said it’s the first time that Frontex has been taken before the Luxembourg-based ECJ in its 17 years of operations, and that they plan to hold the agency to account and “reinstate the rule of law over EU borders." They claim that the two migrants “were violently rounded up, robbed, abducted, detained, forcibly transferred back to sea, collectively expelled, and ultimately abandoned on rafts with no means of navigation, food or water.”