On July 26, 2017, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in Khadija Jafari v. Bundesamt für Fremdenwesen und Asyl and A.S. v Republic of Slovenia that Croatia is responsible for examining international protection applications from individuals who crossed its border during the 2015-2016 migration crisis. The Court’s press release notes that the case concerns asylum applicants who entered Croatia without the proper visa and were transported by Croatian authorities to other EU member states in order to make their applications there. The states at issue, Slovenia and Austria, contended that because the asylum seekers had unlawfully entered Croatia, Croatia was responsible under the Dublin III Regulation for determining their applications, while the applicants argued their entrance into Croatia was not an “irregular crossing” because it had been tolerated by the Croatian authorities and thus Croatia was not responsible for their applications. The Court held that “the admission of a national from a non-EU country to the territory of a Member State is not tantamount to the issuing of a visa, even if the admission is explained by exceptional circumstances characterised by a mass influx of displaced people into the EU” and that entering a state in breach of that state’s rules “must necessarily be considered ‘irregular’ within the meaning of the Dublin III Regulation.” Consequently, the Court held that “a Member State which has decided on humanitarian grounds to authorise the entry on its territory of a non-EU national who does not have a visa and is not entitled to waiver of a visa cannot be absolved of” the responsibility to examine an application for international  protection made by a person in the member state whose territory is the first of the EU states that individual has entered.