Greece is ending mass migrant legalization programs and moving to a tougher detention-and-deportation model, according to Migration Minister Makis Voridis, who said the new rules are due to take effect this summer.
The most immediate change is a sharper criminal penalty for migrants whose asylum claims are rejected and who remain in the country while waiting to be removed. Under the plan, those people would face a minimum of two years in jail, with any sentence commuted if they are deported.
The government says the shift is part of a broader clampdown on illegal stay and a response to what Voridis described as a system that has not pushed enough people to leave once they receive a final negative decision. In the current framework, migrants denied residence permits typically receive six-month suspended sentences if they do not depart.
The announcement also closes a legalization pathway that had allowed some long-term undocumented migrants to regularize their status. That program, which had covered as many as 40,000 people who had lived illegally in Greece for at least three years, was ended in March and will not be renewed.
The timing matters because Greece remains one of the main entry points into Europe and is already under pressure from migration flows and asylum backlogs. Athens also wants the rest of the European Union to move faster on deportations and on common rules for legal residence.
Voridis said the issue is not simply about border control, but about creating clearer criteria for who can stay. He argued that economic necessity alone should not justify legal migration. The government’s language is likely to resonate with other EU capitals that are looking for more restrictive tools, but it also signals a political decision to make removal more punitive inside Greece.
The European Commission has said a large majority of deportation orders across the bloc are not carried out. Greece says its own rate is even worse, and that gap is part of the case for the tougher approach.
The move is also politically notable because it comes from a conservative government that has made migration policy a central issue. It is positioning the change as administrative rigor and deterrence, while critics are likely to frame it as an escalation that could deepen legal and humanitarian concerns around asylum enforcement.
For now, the policy shift gives Greece a harder line on both unauthorized stay and the incentives that can follow a rejected claim. Whether it improves removals will depend on whether the legal system, detention capacity and deportation channels can actually deliver the result the government is promising.
