Spain's Supreme Court bans migrant shelters from expelling asylum seekers on their own

Spain's Supreme Court has overturned the expulsion of three asylum seekers from a reception centre in Alcalá de Henares because the managing organisation cannot withdraw a place without a decision from the Ministry of Inclusion. The rulings require any removal to go through an individualised, reasoned procedure.

The Supreme Court has ruled in favour of three asylum seekers who were expelled from a Centre for Attention, Emergency and Referral (CAED) in **Alcalá de Henares**, run by **ACCEM**, without proper legal safeguards being respected. The three rulings by the Administrative Chamber, one per migrant, establish that the organisations running these centres cannot exclude an asylum seeker and leave them unprotected without a decision from the **Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration**, which is responsible for the state reception programme.

The events that ended up in court took place on **15 April 2024**. That day, the National Police detained the three migrants on suspicion of public disorder and threats offences. A few hours later they were served with a disciplinary warning document signed by the head of the centre. The document reminded them that accumulating warnings, cautions or sanctions can lead to removal from the humanitarian assistance programme.

## What the Supreme Court says about removals from reception centres

The high court criticises the exclusion of the three affected men and makes clear that there is no general, unconditional power for the managing organisation to expel a user from a CAED. The legality of a removal depends on its cause, on the person's administrative status, on whether alternative accommodation is available and, above all, on whether the measure is a mere reorganisation within the system or a genuine withdrawal of the material conditions of reception. These requirements are especially relevant when those expelled are asylum seekers.

The judges require the competent administrative authority, in this case the Ministry, to intervene, and that there be an adversarial, individualised, reasoned and proportionate procedure. This requirement stems from Spanish law and from Article 23 of a European directive applicable from **12 June 2026**, which requires decisions to reduce or withdraw protection to be objective, impartial, individualised, reasoned and proportionate. The directive also prevents material reception conditions from being reduced or withdrawn before the application for international protection is resolved.

The rulings overturn an earlier decision by the High Court of Justice of Madrid, which had dismissed the three asylum seekers' appeals against their expulsion from the state humanitarian assistance programme. The migrants filed a formal request with the Directorate General for Humanitarian Assistance and Social Inclusion arguing that their removal abusa their fundamental rights because the disciplinary procedure had been skipped. Months later they applied for a place in the Ministry's reception system for refugees, but were refused for not meeting the requirements.

## How expulsions work in practice

Removals of migrants or refugees from reception centres are not frequent, but they do sometimes occur due to problems arising from a highly strained population. Sources at **ACCEM** explain that each centre has a ministry official responsible for both admission and expulsion, so in theory there should always be a report from these delegates. According to their account, that was the case in the rulings concerning the Alcalá de Henares centre.

The organisation maintains that the expulsion was not carried out unilaterally, as it believes the ruling suggests, but in a coordinated manner supervised by the Ministry of Inclusion. They believe the Supreme Court is pointing the finger at them directly because the person who communicates and issues the expulsion document, as well as the one who prepares the file, is ACCEM, with the organisation's logo, but they insist everything was done under the ministry's guidelines and coordination.

Before an expulsion, the person who breaks the rules has been warned more than once and through various means, with education and mediation where possible. Removal only proceeds when the situation is untenable and always under the supervision of ministry staff, according to the same sources. There have at times been assaults on staff because people waiting for papers or recognition of asylum, processes that are not quick, become restless and lash out at workers from humanitarian organisations. Certain disciplinary offences are also recurrent.

## What changes for the centres and for asylum seekers

The ruling does not ban expulsions. What it bans is carrying them out without a formal file and without the administration deciding. From now on, a removal from a CAED requires a decision from the Ministry that sets out the cause, assesses the applicant's administrative status and checks whether they have somewhere to live. If the measure amounts to withdrawing material reception, the safeguards are strengthened.

The economic impact is direct for the organisations that manage publicly funded places. A centre that acts on its own risks having a judge overturn the removal and having to reinstate the user. The Supreme Court sets the standard for all CAEDs and for the rest of the reception system, doing so with a European directive that is not yet in force but already marks the benchmark for what counts as a lawful withdrawal of protection.

For asylum seekers, the message is that a place is not lost through a signature from the head of the centre. It is lost, if it is lost, through a decision by the Ministry and through a procedure in which the person affected can defend themselves. The ruling comes after the three migrants went through police detention, a disciplinary warning and the refusal of a new place. None of that replaces the procedure the Supreme Court considers mandatory.