BRUSSELS — Reaffirming their commitment to a rules-based international order, European Union officials announced a new migration pact Wednesday that will preserve the bloc's stated human rights values by paying private contractors to build detention centers in Egypt and Tunisia.

"We cannot compromise on our core European values, which is exactly why we are paying non-member states to do the things we are legally prohibited from doing," said a spokesperson, noting the agreement arrives just in time for incumbent parties to campaign on strong borders ahead of upcoming elections. "By externalizing the processing, expedited deportation, and detention of migrants to nations with entirely different human rights records, we keep our own conscience clean."

The strategy builds upon the 2016 EU-Turkey deal, in which Turkey received billions in aid to absorb refugee flows. Officials noted that while the 2016 arrangement faced widespread criticism for human rights violations and allowed Turkey to use migrants as political leverage, those violations occurred comfortably outside the Schengen Area.

When asked about the lack of human rights oversight mechanisms at the new external processing centers, officials explained that enforcing accountability would undermine the entire purpose of the arrangement, speaking while gesturing broadly toward a stack of internal election polling data.