Key facts
- The law lets the Belgian immigration office ask an investigating judge to authorize entry into residences possibly housing people without papers.
- Once a warrant is obtained, police can enter homes without consent between 5am and 9pm and detain people.
- Officials said measures target people denied asylum in Belgium who ignored orders to leave and are seen as a threat to public order or national security.
- Critics said the law is vague on what constitutes a public threat, citing cases involving undeclared work, running a red light or shoplifting.
- Amnesty International said judges would lack full investigative powers and the law provides no means to appeal decisions.
- Picum's Chiara Catelli said similar hardline measures already exist in the Netherlands and Germany and the EU's returns regulation includes similar provisions.
Belgium's parliament approved a law on November 6, 2026, that allows police to forcibly enter properties to remove undocumented people, according to a report by The Guardian. The law, set to take effect next spring, gives the Belgian immigration office the power to ask an investigating judge to authorize entry into residences that may be housing anyone without papers, including homes where migrants are hosted by friends or family.
Once a warrant is obtained, police can enter homes without consent between 5am and 9pm, potentially in the presence of children, and detain people and search for identity documents. Officials said the measures will target people denied asylum in Belgium who have ignored orders to leave and who are seen as a threat to public order or national security.
More than 60 protests were held across the country in the run-up to the vote, the report said, adding to criticism from NGOs, judges and lawyers' associations. Some drew parallels with the US, where arrests by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement have risen under Donald Trump's administration.
Carine Thibaut, director of Amnesty International's French-speaking Belgian section, said: "It's a law of fear." She cited the impact the raids could have on children and on people who had opened their homes to migrants. Amnesty International said judges would not have full investigative powers and the legislation fails to provide a means for people to appeal or challenge decisions.
Amnesty International is among 20 rights groups that warned the law perpetuates the conflation of lack of legal status with delinquency. "The home is inviolable. This constitutional principle should never depend on the administrative status of those who live there," they said.
Chiara Catelli, an advocacy officer at the Brussels-based Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, known as Picum, said: "This really has nothing to do with people who have committed crimes. It's really about wanting to return people, deporting people, which is an administrative procedure." She said similar measures were already in place in the Netherlands and Germany and that the EU's recently approved returns regulation includes similar provisions, meaning other member states could soon adopt comparable measures.