On Thursday 23 April 2026, Luxembourg non-profit organisation Association de Soutien aux Travailleurs Imagers (ASTI – Association for the Support of Immigrant Workers) issued a press release in response to ongoing debates in Luxembourg’s Parliament regarding proposed amendments to the amended law of 29 August 2008 on the free movement of persons and immigration (Bill No. 8586) and asylum procedures (Bill No. 8684).
In its response, ASTI noted that behind technical adjustments and occasional improvements, a clear trend emerges: the tightening of policies regarding people in an irregular situation. It stated that strengthened controls, faster return procedures and increased pressure on those concerned result in the bills establishing a “security-focused response”.
The NGO called into question Luxembourg’s existing procedures and legislation behind regularisation - the process of immigrants applying to regularise their status as residents - and remarked that “lives [are] trapped in administrative dead ends” due to administrative reasons, disrupted life paths or lack of information.
It said: “At such a decisive moment of reform, failing to include a regularisation mechanism amounts to ignoring these realities, prolonging situations of injustice, increasing precarity and denying a dignified life to people who live and work in Luxembourg, excluding part of the population from the ‘living together’ that is so often promoted.”
The NGO stressed an important reality is being ignored and Luxembourg authorities are turning a blind eye to the current situation where thousands of people already live, work and contribute to Luxembourg society without rights, without protection and without prospects, and that the current ad hoc regularisation, which operates on a case-by-case basis, is discretionary, lacks transparency and is unpredictable.
ASTI remarked: “This lack of transparency is not acceptable in a rule-of-law state. It keeps people in permanent uncertainty and pushes them to give up their rights, out of fear of sanctions or arbitrary refusals.”
ASTI said that, faced with these forthcoming reforms imposed by legislative changes, Luxembourg has two options:
• continue managing irregularity through control and repression;
• or adopt a fair, transparent and humane migration policy, as the Government itself states.
The NGO said: “At a time when Parliament is debating bills No. 8586 and No. 8684, and Spain is preparing to launch a large-scale regularisation scheme, reforming without regularisation means entrenching injustice and denying a dignified life to those affected,” and called for “an essential and urgent measure: an exceptional regularisation of people in an irregular situation already present on the territory” in the face of reforms that it said will “profoundly reshape Luxembourg’s migration policy”.
It added: “Without regularisation, these reforms will remain incomplete and deeply unjust.”
