Almost two out of three returns and deportations carried out in 2025 concern nationals of Albania (2,094) and Georgia (1,544) alone. These nationalities are not reflected in the aforementioned statistics on arrivals via Evros and the Eastern and Central Mediterranean. Most returns were forced in the case of Albania, and most were voluntary returns implemented via IOM in the case of Georgia. Administrative appeal against the return or deportation order Greek law states that deportation or return decisions issued by the Hellenic Police may be challenged through an administrative appeal before the Hellenic Police within a short deadline of five days. Greece still offers no free legal assistance for the exercise of this remedy, in flagrant and consistent breach of EU law. 6 Even the people who were unlawfully subjected to a three-month ban on applying for asylum were not granted legal assistance to challenge the return decisions issued against them. 7 Official statistics yet again demonstrate that access to the administrative appeal against deportation and return orders remains extremely limited. Out of 26,527 decisions taken in 2025 by the Hellenic Police, only 402 were appealed (1.5%). The quality of review performed on appeal by the Hellenic Police is equally problematic. We continue to witness boilerplate decisions that do not assess or give due reasoning on the appellants’ submissions. This consistent practice was also applied during the three-month asylum ban, where refugees’ lawful and fundamental pleas to not be deported before having had the possibility to apply for asylum in Greece and to explain the reasons for seeking protection were dismissed by standardised Hellenic Police decisions. This led people to appeal before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for protection against deportation.8 The Hellenic Police dismissed 391 and granted no more than 11 of the 402 administrative appeals it processed last year. This means that only 2.7% of the extremely few administrative appeals lodged in 2025 were accepted. 6 7 8 European Commission, Report of the 2024 Revisit of Greece related to the serious deficiencies identified in 2021 in the field of return, C(2025) 4342, 3 Ιουλίου 2025, Annex, 6, 8; Plenary of Greek Bar Associations, ‘Μεταναστευτικό-Άσυλο: Η προσήλωση στη διεθνή και συνταγματική νομιμότητα αποτελεί μονόδρομο για κάθε ευνομούμενη δημοκρατική π��λιτεία’, 18 August 2025, available here. RSA, Suspension of Asylum in Greece: Detention, Uncertainty, and Rights Violations, 13 November 2025, available here. RSA, ‘ECtHR puts a stop sign to Greek deportation without prior assessment’, 22 September 2025, available here. RSA POLICY NOTE │ IMMIGRATION DETENTION | MAR 2026 4