A secret security file, on its own, can no longer end a parent’s right to stay in Europe. The Court of Justice ruled on 16 July 2026 that a return decision built on classified information must be open to a real legal challenge, above all when the person removed is raising a child who holds EU citizenship.

The case concerned a non-EU national, identified as PQ, who had lived lawfully in Hungary since 2005 and acted as the primary carer for two Hungarian children. Authorities rejected his settlement and ordered him out with a ten-year entry ban, resting the decision entirely on an unexplained opinion from a national security agency.

Neither PQ nor even the immigration authority handling his file could see the classified material behind that opinion. The Court found that arrangement incompatible with EU law, holding that a person must learn at least the essence of the case against them so they can mount an effective defence.

The judges went further on family life. Where officials know that a non-EU national has EU-citizen children or a partner, Article 20 of the EU treaties and the Return Directive require them to weigh the consequences for those children before issuing any order. Removing a sole carer can, in effect, force a young EU citizen to leave the Union altogether.

That reasoning matters well beyond one Hungarian family. National-security exceptions have become a favoured route for governments seeking to bypass ordinary migration safeguards, and the ruling signals that secrecy cannot switch off judicial review. The Court’s reasoning runs through its press service.

The Court did not strip states of the power to protect security. It accepted that some material may stay confidential, yet insisted that a judge must be able to check the substance of the claim and that the individual cannot be left guessing. Balance, not blanket deference, sets the standard.

For immigration authorities across the bloc, the practical message is concrete. A one-line security opinion will not survive a court challenge, and family assessments can no longer be an afterthought bolted on once a removal is already decided.

Rights groups called the judgment a corrective to a drift toward opaque expulsions, while some governments will read it as another constraint on national discretion. Either way, the ruling folds migration enforcement back inside the fundamental-rights framework that member states signed up to, and leaves little room for decisions no one is allowed to see. Lawyers expect it to reshape pending removal cases where secret files have done the deciding, and to force national courts to demand more than a stamped opinion before signing off.