Uzbekistan’s immigration laws and practices have received little international attention. However, new arrangements with both the European Union and the United States are raising questions about the country’s commitments to its human rights obligations.
In October, the EU and Uzbekistan signed an ‘Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement’ (EPCA) in Brussels. The EPCA provides a framework for cooperation on a wide variety of issues such as foreign policy, counter-terrorism, and security–as well as plans for collaborating on migration, asylum, and border management.
Article 14 of the agreement provides that particular focus will be paid to “addressing the root causes of illegal migration,” the development and implementation of national legislation and practices as regards international protection, and the “establishment of an effective and preventive policy against illegal migration, the smuggling of migrants and trafficking in human beings.” Article 15, meanwhile, states that Uzbekistan “shall readmit any of its nationals who do not, or who no longer, fulfil the conditions in force for entry to, presence in, or residence on the territory of the Member State,” and provides the option of negotiating a readmission agreement in the future.
The new agreement comes on the heels of the launching in Uzbekistan earlier this year of an EU-supported Migration Resource Centre (MRC), in collaboration with the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD). The MRC is part of a larger EU initiative entitled “PROTECT: Improving Migration Management and Migrant Protection in Selected Silk Routes and Central Asian Countries.” (For more about ICMPD’s role in migration policy development, including on immigration detention, see the GDP paper “Kidnapped, Trafficked, Detained? The Implications of Non-state Actor Involvement in Immigration Detention,” pp 598-600).
Uzbekistan is the largest migrant-sending country in Central Asia. The primary destination for Uzbek migrant workers is the Russian Federation, along with Kazakhstan, Turkiye, and the Republic of Korea. However, Russia’s war in Ukraine and the impact of Western sanctions have made EU countries increasingly attractive destinations for Uzbek migrants. By the end of 2024, 59,452 Uzbek nationals held valid residence permits in EU and EFTA countries–up from 53,525 in 2023–and the number of Uzbeks ordered to leave EU territory has also risen, reaching 920 in the second quarter of 2025. Given these trends, it is perhaps unsurprising that the EU has sought to collaborate with the country to regulate the flow of Uzbeks entering the EU.
Third Country Deportations from the United States
Uzbekistan is also engaging with the United States on cooperative migration enforcement schemes. In April, the US deported 131 people to Tashkent–with Kazakh and Kygyrz nationals included alongside Uzbek deportees (although the precise number of non-Uzbeks is unknown). This removal of third country nationals to a state with which they have no known connection–lauded by the U.S’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as a “landmark partnership”–is part of the Trump administration’s much wider efforts to expand third country deportation arrangements–as widely documented here on the Immigration Detention Monitor. According to the DHS, the Uzbek government paid for the deportation of their nationals.
At the time, it was reported that the third country nationals would “continue their journey to their home countries,” with observers confirming to the Global Detention Project that Kazakh and Kygyrz consuls met them upon arrival in Tashkent. Concerns remain, however, regarding their treatment upon return, particularly given that human rights organisations have documented a consistent pattern of harassment, restrictions and reprisals against activists and rights defenders in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, raising refoulement risks for those being returned. As a refugee-protection expert stated in an interview with the New Yorker, the specific fate of deportees often remains “a total black hole.”
Migration-Related Legislation
The principal legislation governing migration in Uzbekistan is the 2021 Law on the Legal Status of Foreign Citizens and Stateless Persons. While this law does not mention detention, it provides that individuals who violate the rules of stay “may be brought to administrative responsibility,” as well as being subjected to deportation and a re-entry ban. The Administrative Responsibility Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan similarly provides for the administrative expulsion of foreigners and stateless persons. Observers have reported to the Global Detention Project that Uzbekistan does not operate any dedicated immigration detention facilities, and that non-nationals are to instead be detained in criminal facilities.
In 2024, the President Mirziyoyev issued extremely controversial amendments to the 2021 Foreigners Law–specifically, the introduction of categories of foreign individuals whose “presence in Uzbekistan is deemed unacceptable.” According to the amendments, foreigners or stateless persons who make “public calls or actions contradicting the state sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and also provoke interstate, social, national, racial, and religious discord, discrediting the honor, dignity, and history of the people of Uzbekistan” will be banned from the country for five years. Amendments to Article 35 provide that if such a person does not voluntarily leave within the “specified period” (10 days), they will be subject to deportation (at their expense, in part or in full).
According to critics–of whom there are many–the wording of these amendments is overly broad and vague, leaving room for subjective interpretation and hence, leaving the law open to abuse. Critically, the amendments also do not provide any mechanisms for individuals to appeal their inclusion on the list.
The country’s Criminal Code also criminalises irregular entry and exit, providing for fines “from fifty to one hundred minimum monthly wages, or imprisonment from three to five years” (article 223). The same article further states that the same actions committed by “breakthrough,” by a group of people, or by an official who requires special permission for exit, shall be imprisoned for five to ten years. Until recently, the Code also criminalised irregular stay in the country (such as failure to depart after the expiration of a residence permit)–with hefty fines and prison sentences. However, this was repealed in 2019, and overstay is now punished under administrative law rather than criminal.
Asylum Seekers and Refugees
Uzbekistan is not party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol. The country has also failed to establish a comprehensive national asylum legislation. Narrow provisions for granting “political asylum” are set forth in a 2017 Presidential Decree and the 2021 Law on Foreigners (articles 8-10), while the Criminal Code provides that persons arriving “without due formalization of entry documents in order to exercise the right to political asylum” are protected against criminal sanctions for irregular entry.
However, as UNHCR has noted, there is no information on the actual conditions for granting “political asylum,” and Afghans who have attempted to apply have not been registered or accepted. Moreover, current legislation leaves asylum decisions in the hands of the President, denies any recourse to judicial review, and does not protect asylum seekers from administrative expulsion. Instead, in the absence of a national asylum system, the entry and stay of refugees and asylum seekers remains regulated by immigration laws, which, as the UN Human Rights Committee noted in 2020, leaves them “without adequate safeguards against arbitrary detention, deportation and refoulement.”
This is particularly relevant given Uzbekistan’s recent role in receiving significant numbers of Afghan refugees. Following the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 2021, hundreds, if not thousands, of Afghans sought refuge in Uzbekistan. At the time, media reports noted their vulnerability given their lack of official refugee status in the country, and rights groups warned of the risk of forcible returns. Reports also highlighted the case of several hundred Afghan pilots who, having flown their aircraft into Uzbekistan, were detained in a secured camp near Termez. This facility, which today is marked as a “Regional Children’s Infectious Diseases Hospital,” was described at the time as akin to a prison. One pilot was quoted as saying “there are 465 of us here. We have no freedom,” and reports noted a lack of medicine and food.
As of January 2025, UNHCR reported that the country hosted five mandate refugees and an estimated 8,500 people “in a refugee-like situation.”
