How Europe’s “Shadow Immigration System” Pays Libyan Militias to Jail Migrants in Brutal Conditions

An explosive new investigation details how the European Union has created a shadow immigration system that captures migrants arriving from Africa before they reach Europe and sends them to brutal militia-run detention centers in Libya. “This is a climate migration story,” says Ian Urbina, investigative journalist and director of The Outlaw Ocean Project, who authored the report for The New Yorker magazine. “The policy of the EU of outsourcing migration control to a failed state in Libya … is a really doomed strategy, and it’s only going to get more perilous as more waves of people start trying to reach safer places.” Urbina’s piece is titled “The Invisible Wall: Inside the Secretive Libyan Prisons That Keep Migrants Out of Europe.” #DemocracyNow Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on nearly 1,400 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream 8-9AM ET: Please consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now!