BRUSSELS -- As Europe reels from a rush of migrants, leaders are searching for new ways to reverse the flow by stepping up deportations.
The effort led to a deal with Afghanistan that envisions a new terminal at the Kabul airport to take deportees. It sent German Chancellor Angela Merkel last week on a tour of African capitals, where she promised an influx of money in exchange for willingness to take back migrants. And it resulted in an agreement with Turkey that critics say means European leaders are biting their tongues about Ankara's human-rights abuses to halt migrants from flowing into Greece.
The effort comes amid a global backlash to the flow of migrants, which has increased because of war and poverty. In the United States, Donald Trump has built his candidacy on an anti-migrant message. In Britain, the government floated a plan to force businesses to declare how many noncitizens they employ. And across Europe, populist anti-migrant parties are surging in the polls.
With the increased cross-border traffic, countries are struggling to deal with those they have rejected for asylum. Until now, many people in Europe illegally have been able to remain in a limbo that can stretch for years. But that model is giving way to mounting anti-migrant pressure.
"We had to find ways to stop illegal migration," Merkel said last week during a trip to Ethiopia, where she balanced criticism of an Ethiopian government crackdown on the opposition with bargaining over how to reduce the flow of migrants to Europe. "That is why we said we must speak to Turkey, because many of these people came from there. We also have to speak with African countries to bring about legality."
European countries are increasingly making clear that their aid comes with strings attached.
Among policymakers, "the idea is if we are spending all this money, why should we not have them also cooperate on deportations?" said Elizabeth Collett, the director of Migration Policy Institute Europe, a Brussels-based think tank. "Over the last six to 12 months, the idea has gained a lot of ground."
In Africa, European Union diplomats have been working to strike bargains with Mali, Senegal, Niger and Nigeria, which along with Ethiopia are major sources of migrants to Europe.
In Turkey, a spring deal that all but halted migrant flows to Greece is imperiled after the government's harsh response to a July coup attempt. EU leaders pledged $6.7 billion in aid, plus visa liberalization for Turks, in exchange for Turkey's willingness to take back migrants who landed in Greece.
But Afghanistan is the most unstable of the nations with which Europe has pursued migration-related deals, even as leaders have tried to paint a bright picture of the situation.
"It's a sense of partnership that provides us space for working together," EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini said last week of the EU deal with Afghanistan that committed the war-torn country to accepting an unlimited number of deportees from Europe. The terms of the deal were announced the same day that the EU pledged Afghanistan $1.5 billion of development aid a year through 2020.
Mogherini said there was no connection, but Afghan officials said they had been pressured to make the deportation deal in exchange for financial support, and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said his nation's pledge of $470 million a year was indeed connected to migration issues.
"Both sides will explore the possibility to build a dedicated terminal for return in Kabul airport," according to the text of the agreement, which lays out tough terms for the Afghan government while offering few obvious benefits in return. Last year, 3,290 Afghans were deported from Europe, according to EU figures. Internal EU documents leaked in March suggest leaders would like to clear out as many as 80,000 more Afghans.
Defenders of the deals say Europe's asylum system should be equipped to deal with these challenges. Under internationally practiced asylum law, people who would face danger at home should not be sent back. They would be able to make that case in court. But there are obvious gaps in the system: in 2015, for example, 60 percent of Afghan asylum applicants in the EU were granted protection, according to the U.N. refugee agency. This year, that number has dropped to 35 percent even though the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated, suggesting political pressure on the courts.
On a more basic level, the Afghanistan deal has the potential to cast more Afghans back into a nation that faces a worsening conflict.
"It's not unlawful, but it makes no sense to do so if the EU wants to stabilize Afghanistan," said Gerry Simpson, a senior researcher on refugees at Human Rights Watch. "By doing this, they are fueling the flames for the situation on the ground and for more Afghan refugees to come."
A Section on 10/18/2016