http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/Human-Rights-Watch-calls-for-coordinated-action-to-improve-migrants-rescue-20120816
Rescue operations in the Mediterranean are hampered by poor
coordination, disputes over responsibility, disincentives for commercial
vessels to conduct rescues, and an emphasis on border enforcement,
Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper published today.
"It is chilling to think how many of these deaths could have been prevented," said Judith Sunderland,
senior Western Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Saving lives,
not deflecting responsibility, needs to be the imperative at sea."
The most notorious example of failed rescue operations occurred in April 2011, known as the "left-to-die boat" case.
A disabled migrant boat with 72 people fleeing Libya was ignored and
drifted for two weeks in the Mediterranean at a time when the area was
heavily patrolled by NATO forces as well as criss-crossed by commercial
ships.
By the time the boat drifted back to Libyan shores, 61 people had died. Two more died after arrival. An in-depth inquiry by the Council of Europe's
Parliamentary Assembly identified a "catalogue of failures" that caused
the deaths. Serious questions remain about why the boat was not
assisted despite distress alerts and contact with military and
commercial vessels, Human Rights Watch said.
The European Union is developing a new European External Border
Surveillance System, EUROSUR. It includes rescue at sea as a main
objective, but does not include specific guidelines or procedures to
ensure this objective is reached.
"Preventing deaths at sea needs to be at the heart of a coordinated
European-wide approach to boat migration," Human Rights Watch said.
"During the Arab Spring, the office of the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees said that all overcrowded migrant boats in the Mediterranean
should be presumed to be in need of rescue. This idea should inform the
approach of the European Union toward the rescue of boat migrants."
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates
that 1,500 people died in the Mediterranean in 2011 alone, making it the
deadliest year on record.
Italy, Malta, Greece, Spain, and Libya all have what are called
"Search and Rescue" (SAR) Areas for which they are responsible. Each
country has a Rescue Co-ordination Centre (RCC) to receive, process, and
share information about vessels in distress.
Human Rights Watch however says the system is however far from
perfect, nor is it perfectly applied. "The law sets a high standard for
the concept of distress, allowing ships to ignore dangerously
overcrowded and ill-equipped migrant boats unless there are very clear
signals of need for assistance."
IN the 'left-to-die' incident, the Canadian frigate HMCS
Charlottetown, participating in NATO's Operation Unified Protector in
Libya, assisted a migrant boat back in March 2011 when the crew
ascertained that the engine functioned and had sufficient fuel. Though
the boat had a "rudimentary steering system" and was "crowded", the
Canadian crew determined that their obligations had been met by
providing food, water, and blankets.
The next day, the Italian military ship Etna assisted a ship in
distress that met the same description, arranging for helicopter
transportation for a newborn baby and mother, as well as a woman in
labour; while other passengers were subsequently transferred to an
Italian coast guard ship and taken to Lampedusa.
"Lack of clarity in the legal framework over where rescued persons
should be safely disembarked lead to conflicts, notably between Italy
and Malta, and unnecessary delays," Human Rights Watch said.
Malta, which has a large search and rescue region stretching to as
far as Crete, has so far not accepted the 2004 amendments to
international maritime law, which would oblige it to take in all
migrants rescued, irrespectively of whether they are closer to a safe
port of call. Malta has refused to participate in Frontex joint patrols
on these grounds.
Malta has long insisted that those rescued close to Lampedusa should
be disembarked there, while Italy contends that those rescued in Malta's
SAR are Malta's responsibility. In September 2011, Italy declared
Lampedusa an unsafe port after a fire partially destroyed the reception
and detention facility, creating further complications. At this writing,
the centre has yet to be reopened.
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Greek crackdown targets illegal immigrants
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/826a66f0-dfe9-11e1-a96a-00144feab49a.html#axzz22rXw92Mg
Some 6,000 immigrants were detained over the weekend in the biggest police operation in the capital for several years, though many were later released, the same official said.
At the same time about 1,800 police officers were posted to the 200km Greek-Turkish border marked by the river Evros to join Greek soldiers and the EU’s Frontex mission patrolling the river bank.
The unprecedented crackdown followed a sharp increase this year in the numbers of illegal arrivals from Turkey, with an estimated 120 migrants a day managing to avoid the military patrols. Most illegal entrants head for Athens to join large communities of African and Asian migrants and asylum seekers hoping to make their way to northern Europe.
Athens has faced criticism from EU partners over its handling of illegal immigration because of the failure to stem the flow of arrivals. It is also accused of foot-dragging over plans to set up reception centres for illegal immigrants with EU funding.
An official at the public order ministry said the latest measures were intended to address two issues: an expected surge in illegal immigration as refugees from the conflict in Syria sought shelter in the EU, and mounting problems with drugs and crime involving immigrants living in poor conditions in central Athens.
Nikos Dendias, the public order minister, said: ”The immigration issue is a ticking bomb in the foundations of our society and state . . . We will handle it with full respect for human rights and European regulations.”
“Illegal immigrants have been without human rights, living in unhealthy conditions and conned by smuggling rings into believing they would be able to find a job and travel within Europe.”
About 8,000 immigrants have applied to leave Greece under a voluntary repatriation programme arranged by the International Organisation for Migration, paid for out by EU funds.
Eliamep, an Athens think-tank, estimated last year that more than 450,000 illegal immigrants were living in Greece, amid rising social tension as unemployment soared among Greeks because of the economic crisis.
The far-right Golden Dawn party, accused of staging racist attacks in Athens, sometimes in collusion with the police, entered parliament for the first time this year on an anti-immigrant platform.
Some 6,000 immigrants were detained over the weekend in the biggest police operation in the capital for several years, though many were later released, the same official said.
At the same time about 1,800 police officers were posted to the 200km Greek-Turkish border marked by the river Evros to join Greek soldiers and the EU’s Frontex mission patrolling the river bank.
The unprecedented crackdown followed a sharp increase this year in the numbers of illegal arrivals from Turkey, with an estimated 120 migrants a day managing to avoid the military patrols. Most illegal entrants head for Athens to join large communities of African and Asian migrants and asylum seekers hoping to make their way to northern Europe.
Athens has faced criticism from EU partners over its handling of illegal immigration because of the failure to stem the flow of arrivals. It is also accused of foot-dragging over plans to set up reception centres for illegal immigrants with EU funding.
An official at the public order ministry said the latest measures were intended to address two issues: an expected surge in illegal immigration as refugees from the conflict in Syria sought shelter in the EU, and mounting problems with drugs and crime involving immigrants living in poor conditions in central Athens.
Nikos Dendias, the public order minister, said: ”The immigration issue is a ticking bomb in the foundations of our society and state . . . We will handle it with full respect for human rights and European regulations.”
“Illegal immigrants have been without human rights, living in unhealthy conditions and conned by smuggling rings into believing they would be able to find a job and travel within Europe.”
About 8,000 immigrants have applied to leave Greece under a voluntary repatriation programme arranged by the International Organisation for Migration, paid for out by EU funds.
Eliamep, an Athens think-tank, estimated last year that more than 450,000 illegal immigrants were living in Greece, amid rising social tension as unemployment soared among Greeks because of the economic crisis.
The far-right Golden Dawn party, accused of staging racist attacks in Athens, sometimes in collusion with the police, entered parliament for the first time this year on an anti-immigrant platform.
Human rights: Ombudsman seeks opinions on Frontex
http://www.europolitics.info/sectorial-policies/human-rights-ombudsman-seeks-opinions-on-frontex-art340548-16.html
The European Ombudsman, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, has decided to broaden the scope of the investigation by his office relating to respect for human rights by Frontex, the European agency that coordinates member states’ surveillance of the Union’s external borders. Frontex, based in Warsaw, Poland, was given a new mandate at the end of 2011. The ombudsman asked it to respond to a number of questions on its progress putting in place a fundamental rights strategy and adopting codes of conduct for its operations, in particular for expulsions (see Europolitics 4384).
The agency submitted its response in May, detailing its strategy and the code of conduct it is putting into place as well as other measures it plans to adopt.
Before taking the matter further, the ombudsman wishes to seek the opinions of NGOs and other organisations active in fundamental rights, including the European agency based in Vienna.
In its response, Frontex states that it still has to set up the main elements required by Regulation 1168/2011: a fundamental rights officer mechanism, a fundamental rights consultative forum mechanism to assist its Management Board, and the mechanism for suspension or termination of joint operations in cases of serious violation of fundamental rights.
The agency nevertheless points out that its role is limited to coordinating cooperation by Schengen area member states. As a result, activities that can affect an individual’s fundamental rights can only be carried out by the national authorities involved in joint operations. Frontex staff members have no direct competence in the control of EU external borders.
Participants in operations must nevertheless report any incident that may be a violation of fundamental rights to Frontex.
The fact remains that when he launched his investigation in March, Diamandouros pointed out that the European Charter of Fundamental Rights became legally binding on Frontex with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. Since then, several civil society organisations have expressed concerns about the agency’s compliance with the charter, “for example, in its deployment of EU border guards to Greece, where migrant detainees were kept in detention centres under conditions that have been criticised by the European Court of Human Rights,” reads a statement by the ombudsman. “This agency coordinates joint operations by member states and increasingly works with third countries to arrest individuals who try to enter the European Union illegally. These are often people fleeing persecution, but there is no evidence that Frontex operations identify such persons,” notes the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), which speaks for 70 specialised NGOs in 30 countries.
The European Ombudsman, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, has decided to broaden the scope of the investigation by his office relating to respect for human rights by Frontex, the European agency that coordinates member states’ surveillance of the Union’s external borders. Frontex, based in Warsaw, Poland, was given a new mandate at the end of 2011. The ombudsman asked it to respond to a number of questions on its progress putting in place a fundamental rights strategy and adopting codes of conduct for its operations, in particular for expulsions (see Europolitics 4384).
The agency submitted its response in May, detailing its strategy and the code of conduct it is putting into place as well as other measures it plans to adopt.
Before taking the matter further, the ombudsman wishes to seek the opinions of NGOs and other organisations active in fundamental rights, including the European agency based in Vienna.
FRONTEX RESPONSE
In its response, Frontex states that it still has to set up the main elements required by Regulation 1168/2011: a fundamental rights officer mechanism, a fundamental rights consultative forum mechanism to assist its Management Board, and the mechanism for suspension or termination of joint operations in cases of serious violation of fundamental rights.
The agency nevertheless points out that its role is limited to coordinating cooperation by Schengen area member states. As a result, activities that can affect an individual’s fundamental rights can only be carried out by the national authorities involved in joint operations. Frontex staff members have no direct competence in the control of EU external borders.
Participants in operations must nevertheless report any incident that may be a violation of fundamental rights to Frontex.
The fact remains that when he launched his investigation in March, Diamandouros pointed out that the European Charter of Fundamental Rights became legally binding on Frontex with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. Since then, several civil society organisations have expressed concerns about the agency’s compliance with the charter, “for example, in its deployment of EU border guards to Greece, where migrant detainees were kept in detention centres under conditions that have been criticised by the European Court of Human Rights,” reads a statement by the ombudsman. “This agency coordinates joint operations by member states and increasingly works with third countries to arrest individuals who try to enter the European Union illegally. These are often people fleeing persecution, but there is no evidence that Frontex operations identify such persons,” notes the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), which speaks for 70 specialised NGOs in 30 countries.
For Illegal Immigrants, Greek Border Offers a Back Door to Europe
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/world/for-illegal-immigrants-greek-border-offers-a-back-door-to-europe-644831/
At the train station here, an unshaven man with a weary look leaned against the brick wall of a building, taking in the morning sun.
He said that his name was Zulifoar Baht; that he was 38, from Pakistan; and that his train for Athens would not arrive until midafternoon. So there was nothing to do but wait, along with a dozen or so other illegal immigrants who had finally made it into Greece from Turkey, crossing one of the most porous borders in Europe.
The 126-mile border between Turkey, which is not in the European Union, and Greece, which is, has become the back door to the European Union, making member countries ever more resentful as a tide of immigrants from the Middle East, South Asia and Africa continues to grow. Frontex, the European Union's border policing agency, estimated that a vast majority of the crossings in 2011 occurred at the Greece-Turkey border. Last year, Frontex said, more than 55,000 people crossed the border, a 17 percent rise from the year before.
The flow has raised tensions throughout Europe, to the point where the top French official responsible for immigration seriously suggested that a wall be built along the entire border. In Greece, one person in 20 is estimated to be here illegally, at a time when the country is sinking in debt, the far right is making political gains and instances of knife-wielding vigilantes taking out their frustrations on immigrants are becoming increasingly common.
Zarif Bakhtyri, 28, a wiry, streetwise playwright and aspiring film director, said he fled Afghanistan in 2006 after rankling the authorities by writing and directing a play that criticized polygamy. Mr. Bakhtyri's story is a familiar one -- making it to Greece, where he was jailed and then released, then moving along a route that led him to Italy, Norway, Sweden, and back to Greece in 2010 because it was his point of entry.
He, like many others, has been trapped in Greece's backlogged refugee system, the result, in part, of a longtime European Union rule that stipulated an asylum petition must originate in the first country the immigrant entered. That changed in January 2011, when the European Court of Human Rights ruled that sending asylum seekers back to Greece could infringe on their fundamental rights because the Greek system had become so saturated and living conditions were so poor.
The increase in illegal immigrants in Greece has created support for the extreme-right Golden Dawn party, which has vowed to rid Greece of foreigners who enter the country illegally. Even the country's mainstream parties have taken a harder line, though the Greek government is widely derided as inept in its efforts to police the border.
Athens is building a $7.3 million fence on the Turkish border to close off the short land crossing between the two countries, but few expect it to stem the flow. In rejecting a request from Greece to help pay for the fence, the European Commission described it as "pointless."
The last hurdle to Greece is the Evros River Valley, beginning in the north at the Turkish city of Edirne, once the capital of the Ottoman Empire. To the south, on the Greek side, farms sometimes abut barbed-wire fencing, with signs warning of minefields along the dirt roads adjacent to cornfields. Villagers along the border talk of immigrants emerging from the river, wet and cold, as they begin their trek toward Athens.
But the last staging area for most immigrants is really Istanbul, the teeming Turkish city that is a magnet for those who have often walked for months through the wilds of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.
Turkey has come under criticism because of its liberal visa requirements, which make it easy for immigrants to legally enter the country and then move on. Citizens of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Syria and Iran, among many other nations, do not need a visa to enter the country.
Once in Turkey, they share crowded apartments and try to find work and save enough to pay smugglers for false papers and passage across the border.
In the cluttered cellar of a dingy Istanbul garment factory, Mustafa Mirzaie, 18, worked with his friend Hussein Rezaie to repair a sink. Both are from Afghanistan, a major source of refugees trying to make their way to Europe. Last winter, they walked for 24 hours over the frigid mountains of Iran into eastern Turkey. Now they do odd jobs to sustain themselves until moving on.
"It's a difficult way, but it's the only choice we have," Mr. Mirzaie said. "I'll work here and find a smuggler. We have no choice."
Immigrants in Istanbul often find themselves stuck on a financial treadmill, barely able to meet their basic living expenses. One 17-year-old Afghan named Shamsollah lives and works in a basement sweatshop. He says he will need about $5,000 for the next stage of the journey, though he makes only about $250 a month -- just enough to cover expenses.
"Istanbul is very big and very expensive," Shamsollah said. "I have $1,500 now. But that is not enough for me. I don't want to stay in Greece without money. There is no work in Greece."
Sitting at an outdoor cafe recently in one of Istanbul's poor neighborhoods, a smuggler named Mustafa talked about how he operated his business.
He takes 16 people at a time by van from Istanbul to the border, where his customers walk for an hour to the Evros River and then float across on rubber rafts. He charges $1,000 a person for the three-hour journey. He said he tells his clients not to fear being caught on the Greek side of the border.
"I say to my passengers don't worry because they don't want to deport them," he said. "They just want to register you and take money from the United Nations."
Sometimes, though, the journey is just too hard. There is a small but growing number of people who have made it to Greece, but returned to Turkey.
Earlier this year, on a windy day in Istanbul, Mustafa and Ali, two 17-year-old Afghan refugees, stood shivering in a park on the Marmara Sea. They had made it to Alexandroupolis but had run out of money. So they returned to Istanbul.
Their only possessions were the shoes, pants and T-shirts they wore. They had waited for hours for an Istanbul contact, but he had not shown up. Without papers, they were afraid even to leave the park and look for help.
And so they sat there, looking out on the sea, wondering what they would do next.
At the train station here, an unshaven man with a weary look leaned against the brick wall of a building, taking in the morning sun.
He said that his name was Zulifoar Baht; that he was 38, from Pakistan; and that his train for Athens would not arrive until midafternoon. So there was nothing to do but wait, along with a dozen or so other illegal immigrants who had finally made it into Greece from Turkey, crossing one of the most porous borders in Europe.
The 126-mile border between Turkey, which is not in the European Union, and Greece, which is, has become the back door to the European Union, making member countries ever more resentful as a tide of immigrants from the Middle East, South Asia and Africa continues to grow. Frontex, the European Union's border policing agency, estimated that a vast majority of the crossings in 2011 occurred at the Greece-Turkey border. Last year, Frontex said, more than 55,000 people crossed the border, a 17 percent rise from the year before.
The flow has raised tensions throughout Europe, to the point where the top French official responsible for immigration seriously suggested that a wall be built along the entire border. In Greece, one person in 20 is estimated to be here illegally, at a time when the country is sinking in debt, the far right is making political gains and instances of knife-wielding vigilantes taking out their frustrations on immigrants are becoming increasingly common.
Zarif Bakhtyri, 28, a wiry, streetwise playwright and aspiring film director, said he fled Afghanistan in 2006 after rankling the authorities by writing and directing a play that criticized polygamy. Mr. Bakhtyri's story is a familiar one -- making it to Greece, where he was jailed and then released, then moving along a route that led him to Italy, Norway, Sweden, and back to Greece in 2010 because it was his point of entry.
He, like many others, has been trapped in Greece's backlogged refugee system, the result, in part, of a longtime European Union rule that stipulated an asylum petition must originate in the first country the immigrant entered. That changed in January 2011, when the European Court of Human Rights ruled that sending asylum seekers back to Greece could infringe on their fundamental rights because the Greek system had become so saturated and living conditions were so poor.
The increase in illegal immigrants in Greece has created support for the extreme-right Golden Dawn party, which has vowed to rid Greece of foreigners who enter the country illegally. Even the country's mainstream parties have taken a harder line, though the Greek government is widely derided as inept in its efforts to police the border.
Athens is building a $7.3 million fence on the Turkish border to close off the short land crossing between the two countries, but few expect it to stem the flow. In rejecting a request from Greece to help pay for the fence, the European Commission described it as "pointless."
The last hurdle to Greece is the Evros River Valley, beginning in the north at the Turkish city of Edirne, once the capital of the Ottoman Empire. To the south, on the Greek side, farms sometimes abut barbed-wire fencing, with signs warning of minefields along the dirt roads adjacent to cornfields. Villagers along the border talk of immigrants emerging from the river, wet and cold, as they begin their trek toward Athens.
But the last staging area for most immigrants is really Istanbul, the teeming Turkish city that is a magnet for those who have often walked for months through the wilds of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.
Turkey has come under criticism because of its liberal visa requirements, which make it easy for immigrants to legally enter the country and then move on. Citizens of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Syria and Iran, among many other nations, do not need a visa to enter the country.
Once in Turkey, they share crowded apartments and try to find work and save enough to pay smugglers for false papers and passage across the border.
In the cluttered cellar of a dingy Istanbul garment factory, Mustafa Mirzaie, 18, worked with his friend Hussein Rezaie to repair a sink. Both are from Afghanistan, a major source of refugees trying to make their way to Europe. Last winter, they walked for 24 hours over the frigid mountains of Iran into eastern Turkey. Now they do odd jobs to sustain themselves until moving on.
"It's a difficult way, but it's the only choice we have," Mr. Mirzaie said. "I'll work here and find a smuggler. We have no choice."
Immigrants in Istanbul often find themselves stuck on a financial treadmill, barely able to meet their basic living expenses. One 17-year-old Afghan named Shamsollah lives and works in a basement sweatshop. He says he will need about $5,000 for the next stage of the journey, though he makes only about $250 a month -- just enough to cover expenses.
"Istanbul is very big and very expensive," Shamsollah said. "I have $1,500 now. But that is not enough for me. I don't want to stay in Greece without money. There is no work in Greece."
Sitting at an outdoor cafe recently in one of Istanbul's poor neighborhoods, a smuggler named Mustafa talked about how he operated his business.
He takes 16 people at a time by van from Istanbul to the border, where his customers walk for an hour to the Evros River and then float across on rubber rafts. He charges $1,000 a person for the three-hour journey. He said he tells his clients not to fear being caught on the Greek side of the border.
"I say to my passengers don't worry because they don't want to deport them," he said. "They just want to register you and take money from the United Nations."
Sometimes, though, the journey is just too hard. There is a small but growing number of people who have made it to Greece, but returned to Turkey.
Earlier this year, on a windy day in Istanbul, Mustafa and Ali, two 17-year-old Afghan refugees, stood shivering in a park on the Marmara Sea. They had made it to Alexandroupolis but had run out of money. So they returned to Istanbul.
Their only possessions were the shoes, pants and T-shirts they wore. They had waited for hours for an Istanbul contact, but he had not shown up. Without papers, they were afraid even to leave the park and look for help.
And so they sat there, looking out on the sea, wondering what they would do next.
Europe’s Dilemma: Immigration And The Arab Spring – Analysis
http://www.eurasiareview.com/26052012-europes-dilemma-immigration-and-the-arab-spring-analysis/
Much of the West voiced great support for the Arab Spring. However, the European Union in particular soon curbed its enthusiastic reaction when residents of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) began streaming into Europe after turmoil from the Arab Spring left many MENA civilians unable to remain in the region. Immigration from the Middle East and North Africa to the European Union surged over the past year, causing the leaders of many EU countries to speak out against the growing influx of Arab immigrants seeking refuge within their borders.
European institutions have proposed several solutions, such as using the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) or making a temporary change to the Schengen policy. Neither solution, however, has addressed the problems of discrimination and integration faced by many immigrants of Arab background who have chosen to make a new life for themselves in Europe.
Much of this discrimination falls under the category of Islamophobia, which is a hatred or fear of Muslims or of their beliefs or culture. In the European Union, where Muslims account for nearly 20 million of the union’s 500 million residents, Islamophobia has become more visible in recent years. According to John Feffer, author of Crusade 2.0, “[Islamophobia] in Europe has definitely gotten worse. You can measure it in the electoral success of far-right parties. You can see it in the legislation passed that restricts the dress or religious practices of Muslims.”
European Discrimination
France, for instance, has the largest Muslim population in Europe and has developed perhaps the most restrictive policy toward its Muslim residents. The French far-right party—known as the National Front (FN)—is widely known for its openly anti-Islamic and xenophobic policies. During an interview in December 2010, FN leader Marine Le Pen compared Muslims praying on streets to the Nazi occupation of France during World War II. Although Le Pen’s party appeals to only one-fifth of the country’s voting public, the party’s rhetoric has infected the mainstream, leading former French President Nicolas Sarkozy to issue derogatory statements aimed at Muslim North African immigrants to drum up political support from right-wing voters. According to the BBC, Sarkozy stated that he would “reduce the number of immigrants to France from 180,000 to 100,000 per year, and introduce tighter controls on access to welfare benefits.”
French policy toward Muslims has also been expressed in the form of the “burqa ban” that places restrictions on Muslim women who choose to “hide their face in the public space,” according to the law’s language. French supporters of the bill, which overwhelmingly passed parliament in 2010, claimed that the veil is incompatible with the country’s strictly secular society and would also liberate Muslim women from being forced to submit to the religious practice. However, as Amnesty International stated in an article from the BBC, “[a] total ban on covering the face would violate the right to freedom of expression.”
Additional hostility toward Muslims was aroused in March, when Mohammad Merah, an extremist, shot three French paratroopers and four Jews before being shot by French forces. Although Merah’s actions might have boosted Islamophobic support for both Le Pen and Sarkozy, it wasn’t enough to beat Socialist Party candidate Francois Hollande, who won the presidential run-off in early May. Many French residents of North African descent hope that Hollande will push for much-needed immigration reform, eventually making it easier for immigrants to receive their working papers. Hollande himself has remained relatively mum concerning the plight of Arab immigrants seeking shelter in the country from the tumult of the Arab Spring.
The problems of immigration are not limited to France. According to one chart compiled by Transatlantic Trends, a project of the German Marshall Fund, when citizens of several Western countries including France, Germany, Italy, the United States, Spain, and the United Kingdom were asked in 2011 whether they view immigration as more of a problem than an opportunity, 68 percent of the British citizens surveyed said that they consider immigration to be a growing problem, compared to 58 percent of Spaniards, 53 percent of Americans, 48 percent of Italians, 43 percent of Germans, and 46 percent of French survey participants. The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) has worked to collect statistics on hate crimes against Muslim residents of the EU. In 2009, FRA research suggested that 1 in 10 of all Muslims surveyed had been a victim of racially motivated assault, threat, or serious harassment at least once in the previous year. More distressing, many Muslims choose not to report crimes to the authorities, leaving these incidents underreported and severely underrepresented in the EU.
Islamophobia has also resulted in violence. In Germany, neo-Nazis murdered nine immigrants of Turkish and Greek heritage, and in Norway, Anders Breivik killed 77 adults and children in protest of the Norwegian Labor Party’s liberal immigration policies.
Migrant Flows
Islamophobia has intensified with the growing influx of Muslims into Europe as a result of the Arab Spring, causing nearly 2 million Arabs to leave their homes for refuge in the West. According to Eurostat, in 2011 there was a 92.5-percent increase of immigrants from Tunisia, 76 percent from Libya, and 50 percent from Syria. This enormous growth has led countries like France to threaten to end participation in the Schengen Zone, which enables citizens of the European Union to travel freely from one member-state to another without the hassle of passports and excessive border restrictions. Under the Dublin II treaty, however, if immigrants are found within the Eurozone without the necessary papers, they will be sent back to the country whose border they first crossed to enter the EU. This policy has caused enormous frustration for the countries of Italy and Greece, as these nations’ borders typically contain the primary entry points for many immigrants seeking a new life in Europe.
In 2011, the European Commission proposed temporary adjustments to the Schengen Zone policy, which would allow Schengen participants to close their borders in exceptional circumstances. This proposal was designed in part to deal with European concerns over the growth in illegal immigration from the Middle East and North Africa. Additionally, to address the massive number of immigrants that end up residing within their borders, Italy and Greece have each resorted to their own desperate measures. Faced with a large number of Tunisians coming across the Mediterranean, for instance, Italian immigration officials provided these immigrants with temporary residency permits and then allowed them to travel farther north even without the proper papers. Greece has taken a very different approach by setting up immigrant detention centers, where the conditions are so awful that the European Court of Human Rights recently ruled that they violated the ban on “torture or inhuman or degrading treatment.” Given the squalid conditions of the Greek immigrant centers, several nations chose not to send asylum-seekers back to Greece even before the court handed down its ruling.
Europe’s Response to Refugees
Not all migrants can be classified as refugees, according to the UNHCR definition. Migrants move in order to gain a better future for themselves and their families, while refugees are typically forced to move to stay alive. Often, refugees lack the protection of their native government or are otherwise targeted by that government. In these situations, refugees urgently need asylum in another nation.
In the case of the EU and its policy toward refugees, several human rights organizations have cited violations by Frontex, an independent organization that provides border security for the European Union. In 2011, Human Rights Watch called for a branch of Frontex, the Rapid Border Intervention Team—otherwise known as “Rabit”—to be held accountable for its decision to deport 65 asylum seekers to Greek detention centers. Altogether, Frontex has been responsible for rejecting over 6,000 refugees over 2011, forcing these asylum seekers to return to the source of their persecution.
According to an article by Khalid Koser at the Brookings Institution, Turkey has been one of the few nations within the MENA/EU area to practice a more open policy toward asylum seekers, making it the main source of refuge for many MENA residents. In contrast, the EU has become increasingly resistant to large-scale asylum flows as the conflict in the MENA continues, forcing many Syrian refugees to seek relocation in Turkey. Koser estimates that nearly 2 million people have left their homes since the beginning of the Arab Spring, and it is likely that this number will only increase due to the violent, ongoing conflict in Syria.
As the conflict in Syria continues to grow, EU member states should agree to a more cooperative, comprehensive, and mutually supportive program that will allow displaced Syrian civilians to seek refuge within Europe, rather than leaving the bulk of responsibility for the asylum seekers to Greece, Turkey, and Italy.
Stemming Migration from MENA
In 2004, the EU formulated the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) to avoid “the emergence of new dividing lines between the enlarged EU and our neighbours and instead strengthening the prosperity, stability and security of all.” The more a country complies with the EU’s Action Plan — which mandates adherence to ENP conditions related to the rule of law, mutual accountability, and a shared commitment to the universal values of human rights and democracy — the more willing the EU will be to engage in deeper economic integration with that country.
Thus far, the ENP has been extended to Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Syria, and Tunisia. However, Syria, Algeria, Belarus, and Libya have not fully accepted the most recent draft of the Action Plan. The policy of the ENP was intended from its creation—before the Arab Spring even occurred—to address the problems existing in many MENA countries. It has since been updated in the aftermath of the Arab Spring to encourage MENA nations to pursue democratic reform, thereby lending greater stability to their situation and ultimately enabling their citizens to remain in their homes.
The ENP has also come under criticism, for instance from the German foundation Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, which argued, “A fundamental problem for the EU [concerning the ENP] remains the partly weak and largely very inconsistent political support from governments, even if the political rhetoric often sounds much more positive.” Concerning additional solutions to address problems existing within the MENA pertaining to the management of irregular migration, Niurka Pineiro of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) stated in an interview, “There must be a holistic approach that includes labor migration, voluntary return and reintegration, development support from countries of destination to countries of origin so that more opportunities can be created and people are not forced to resort to dangerous journeys in search of employment, amongst others.”
Reform and Resolutions for Refugees
For recently arrived Muslims coming from the Middle East and North Africa, the EU should do much more to tackle the roots of anti-Islamic sentiment. “Multicultural education, affirmative action in hiring, ecumenical dialogue: these are all necessary,” Feffer argues. “Europe has to recognize that Islam and the history of Islam is part of Europe—not something external, not something negative. Ultimately, I think that Europe will need to integrate areas on the periphery that have large Muslim populations.”
However, as Robby Allen of the United Nations Information Center in Washington, D.C warned, “It is very hard to get a political solution,” to solve the dilemmas posed by immigration, especially in relation to the plight of immigrants from the Arab Spring. According to Emilio Alessandri, a Transatlantic Fellow for the German Marshall Fund, the problems of the Arab Spring and the resulting influx of immigrants and refugees into the EU occurred at a particularly vulnerable time for the European Union. Financial problems and economic hardships have resulted in a lack of sufficient funds for integration programs in a variety of European countries, and many politicians who were once more receptive to talks of a more open immigration policy are now more concerned with economic difficulties and the unemployment hardships plaguing their own constituents, making the notion of foreigners coming to the EU for jobs an unfavorable and unsavory idea for many Europeans.
Although the EU’s use of the ENP within the Middle East is an important step toward solving the issues at the root of the problem, other dilemmas remain. The ENP fails to aid or address immigrants already residing within Europe, for whom integration programs are badly needed to allow a smooth acclimation to European life and culture. True, many EU member-states have fewer resources as a result of the economic crisis, but Europe is also facing a need for unskilled labor and an expanded tax base to support its large, aging population. For this reason, expanding the number of worker visas—especially in the areas of unskilled labor—for asylum seekers and other immigrants would be greatly in Europe’s interest. It is time Europe stopped viewing immigrants as a threat to society and instead opened its eyes to the benefits and possibilities available through immigration reform, which could potentially result in advantageous gains for both Europeans and asylum seekers from the Middle East and North Africa.
Much of the West voiced great support for the Arab Spring. However, the European Union in particular soon curbed its enthusiastic reaction when residents of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) began streaming into Europe after turmoil from the Arab Spring left many MENA civilians unable to remain in the region. Immigration from the Middle East and North Africa to the European Union surged over the past year, causing the leaders of many EU countries to speak out against the growing influx of Arab immigrants seeking refuge within their borders.
European institutions have proposed several solutions, such as using the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) or making a temporary change to the Schengen policy. Neither solution, however, has addressed the problems of discrimination and integration faced by many immigrants of Arab background who have chosen to make a new life for themselves in Europe.
Much of this discrimination falls under the category of Islamophobia, which is a hatred or fear of Muslims or of their beliefs or culture. In the European Union, where Muslims account for nearly 20 million of the union’s 500 million residents, Islamophobia has become more visible in recent years. According to John Feffer, author of Crusade 2.0, “[Islamophobia] in Europe has definitely gotten worse. You can measure it in the electoral success of far-right parties. You can see it in the legislation passed that restricts the dress or religious practices of Muslims.”
European Discrimination
France, for instance, has the largest Muslim population in Europe and has developed perhaps the most restrictive policy toward its Muslim residents. The French far-right party—known as the National Front (FN)—is widely known for its openly anti-Islamic and xenophobic policies. During an interview in December 2010, FN leader Marine Le Pen compared Muslims praying on streets to the Nazi occupation of France during World War II. Although Le Pen’s party appeals to only one-fifth of the country’s voting public, the party’s rhetoric has infected the mainstream, leading former French President Nicolas Sarkozy to issue derogatory statements aimed at Muslim North African immigrants to drum up political support from right-wing voters. According to the BBC, Sarkozy stated that he would “reduce the number of immigrants to France from 180,000 to 100,000 per year, and introduce tighter controls on access to welfare benefits.”
French policy toward Muslims has also been expressed in the form of the “burqa ban” that places restrictions on Muslim women who choose to “hide their face in the public space,” according to the law’s language. French supporters of the bill, which overwhelmingly passed parliament in 2010, claimed that the veil is incompatible with the country’s strictly secular society and would also liberate Muslim women from being forced to submit to the religious practice. However, as Amnesty International stated in an article from the BBC, “[a] total ban on covering the face would violate the right to freedom of expression.”
Additional hostility toward Muslims was aroused in March, when Mohammad Merah, an extremist, shot three French paratroopers and four Jews before being shot by French forces. Although Merah’s actions might have boosted Islamophobic support for both Le Pen and Sarkozy, it wasn’t enough to beat Socialist Party candidate Francois Hollande, who won the presidential run-off in early May. Many French residents of North African descent hope that Hollande will push for much-needed immigration reform, eventually making it easier for immigrants to receive their working papers. Hollande himself has remained relatively mum concerning the plight of Arab immigrants seeking shelter in the country from the tumult of the Arab Spring.
The problems of immigration are not limited to France. According to one chart compiled by Transatlantic Trends, a project of the German Marshall Fund, when citizens of several Western countries including France, Germany, Italy, the United States, Spain, and the United Kingdom were asked in 2011 whether they view immigration as more of a problem than an opportunity, 68 percent of the British citizens surveyed said that they consider immigration to be a growing problem, compared to 58 percent of Spaniards, 53 percent of Americans, 48 percent of Italians, 43 percent of Germans, and 46 percent of French survey participants. The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) has worked to collect statistics on hate crimes against Muslim residents of the EU. In 2009, FRA research suggested that 1 in 10 of all Muslims surveyed had been a victim of racially motivated assault, threat, or serious harassment at least once in the previous year. More distressing, many Muslims choose not to report crimes to the authorities, leaving these incidents underreported and severely underrepresented in the EU.
Islamophobia has also resulted in violence. In Germany, neo-Nazis murdered nine immigrants of Turkish and Greek heritage, and in Norway, Anders Breivik killed 77 adults and children in protest of the Norwegian Labor Party’s liberal immigration policies.
Migrant Flows
Islamophobia has intensified with the growing influx of Muslims into Europe as a result of the Arab Spring, causing nearly 2 million Arabs to leave their homes for refuge in the West. According to Eurostat, in 2011 there was a 92.5-percent increase of immigrants from Tunisia, 76 percent from Libya, and 50 percent from Syria. This enormous growth has led countries like France to threaten to end participation in the Schengen Zone, which enables citizens of the European Union to travel freely from one member-state to another without the hassle of passports and excessive border restrictions. Under the Dublin II treaty, however, if immigrants are found within the Eurozone without the necessary papers, they will be sent back to the country whose border they first crossed to enter the EU. This policy has caused enormous frustration for the countries of Italy and Greece, as these nations’ borders typically contain the primary entry points for many immigrants seeking a new life in Europe.
In 2011, the European Commission proposed temporary adjustments to the Schengen Zone policy, which would allow Schengen participants to close their borders in exceptional circumstances. This proposal was designed in part to deal with European concerns over the growth in illegal immigration from the Middle East and North Africa. Additionally, to address the massive number of immigrants that end up residing within their borders, Italy and Greece have each resorted to their own desperate measures. Faced with a large number of Tunisians coming across the Mediterranean, for instance, Italian immigration officials provided these immigrants with temporary residency permits and then allowed them to travel farther north even without the proper papers. Greece has taken a very different approach by setting up immigrant detention centers, where the conditions are so awful that the European Court of Human Rights recently ruled that they violated the ban on “torture or inhuman or degrading treatment.” Given the squalid conditions of the Greek immigrant centers, several nations chose not to send asylum-seekers back to Greece even before the court handed down its ruling.
Europe’s Response to Refugees
Not all migrants can be classified as refugees, according to the UNHCR definition. Migrants move in order to gain a better future for themselves and their families, while refugees are typically forced to move to stay alive. Often, refugees lack the protection of their native government or are otherwise targeted by that government. In these situations, refugees urgently need asylum in another nation.
In the case of the EU and its policy toward refugees, several human rights organizations have cited violations by Frontex, an independent organization that provides border security for the European Union. In 2011, Human Rights Watch called for a branch of Frontex, the Rapid Border Intervention Team—otherwise known as “Rabit”—to be held accountable for its decision to deport 65 asylum seekers to Greek detention centers. Altogether, Frontex has been responsible for rejecting over 6,000 refugees over 2011, forcing these asylum seekers to return to the source of their persecution.
According to an article by Khalid Koser at the Brookings Institution, Turkey has been one of the few nations within the MENA/EU area to practice a more open policy toward asylum seekers, making it the main source of refuge for many MENA residents. In contrast, the EU has become increasingly resistant to large-scale asylum flows as the conflict in the MENA continues, forcing many Syrian refugees to seek relocation in Turkey. Koser estimates that nearly 2 million people have left their homes since the beginning of the Arab Spring, and it is likely that this number will only increase due to the violent, ongoing conflict in Syria.
As the conflict in Syria continues to grow, EU member states should agree to a more cooperative, comprehensive, and mutually supportive program that will allow displaced Syrian civilians to seek refuge within Europe, rather than leaving the bulk of responsibility for the asylum seekers to Greece, Turkey, and Italy.
Stemming Migration from MENA
In 2004, the EU formulated the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) to avoid “the emergence of new dividing lines between the enlarged EU and our neighbours and instead strengthening the prosperity, stability and security of all.” The more a country complies with the EU’s Action Plan — which mandates adherence to ENP conditions related to the rule of law, mutual accountability, and a shared commitment to the universal values of human rights and democracy — the more willing the EU will be to engage in deeper economic integration with that country.
Thus far, the ENP has been extended to Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Syria, and Tunisia. However, Syria, Algeria, Belarus, and Libya have not fully accepted the most recent draft of the Action Plan. The policy of the ENP was intended from its creation—before the Arab Spring even occurred—to address the problems existing in many MENA countries. It has since been updated in the aftermath of the Arab Spring to encourage MENA nations to pursue democratic reform, thereby lending greater stability to their situation and ultimately enabling their citizens to remain in their homes.
The ENP has also come under criticism, for instance from the German foundation Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, which argued, “A fundamental problem for the EU [concerning the ENP] remains the partly weak and largely very inconsistent political support from governments, even if the political rhetoric often sounds much more positive.” Concerning additional solutions to address problems existing within the MENA pertaining to the management of irregular migration, Niurka Pineiro of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) stated in an interview, “There must be a holistic approach that includes labor migration, voluntary return and reintegration, development support from countries of destination to countries of origin so that more opportunities can be created and people are not forced to resort to dangerous journeys in search of employment, amongst others.”
Reform and Resolutions for Refugees
For recently arrived Muslims coming from the Middle East and North Africa, the EU should do much more to tackle the roots of anti-Islamic sentiment. “Multicultural education, affirmative action in hiring, ecumenical dialogue: these are all necessary,” Feffer argues. “Europe has to recognize that Islam and the history of Islam is part of Europe—not something external, not something negative. Ultimately, I think that Europe will need to integrate areas on the periphery that have large Muslim populations.”
However, as Robby Allen of the United Nations Information Center in Washington, D.C warned, “It is very hard to get a political solution,” to solve the dilemmas posed by immigration, especially in relation to the plight of immigrants from the Arab Spring. According to Emilio Alessandri, a Transatlantic Fellow for the German Marshall Fund, the problems of the Arab Spring and the resulting influx of immigrants and refugees into the EU occurred at a particularly vulnerable time for the European Union. Financial problems and economic hardships have resulted in a lack of sufficient funds for integration programs in a variety of European countries, and many politicians who were once more receptive to talks of a more open immigration policy are now more concerned with economic difficulties and the unemployment hardships plaguing their own constituents, making the notion of foreigners coming to the EU for jobs an unfavorable and unsavory idea for many Europeans.
Although the EU’s use of the ENP within the Middle East is an important step toward solving the issues at the root of the problem, other dilemmas remain. The ENP fails to aid or address immigrants already residing within Europe, for whom integration programs are badly needed to allow a smooth acclimation to European life and culture. True, many EU member-states have fewer resources as a result of the economic crisis, but Europe is also facing a need for unskilled labor and an expanded tax base to support its large, aging population. For this reason, expanding the number of worker visas—especially in the areas of unskilled labor—for asylum seekers and other immigrants would be greatly in Europe’s interest. It is time Europe stopped viewing immigrants as a threat to society and instead opened its eyes to the benefits and possibilities available through immigration reform, which could potentially result in advantageous gains for both Europeans and asylum seekers from the Middle East and North Africa.
Serious action is needed
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120531/opinion/Serious-action-is-needed.422089
With the summer season on our doorstep, the daily news is once again dominated by the arrival of illegal immigrants. At the outset of the season, the numbers that are being recorded already give rise to serious concern and it looks like we are in for a very busy summer.
This phenomenon is not new to the Maltese islands and the armed
forces have been put under a lot of strain because of the influx of
immigrants we are witnessing.
We have arrived at a point where talk of solidarity is not producing any effective outcome and where serious action needs to be taken if we truly want to help these people who seek a better life on the shores of Europe.
Since the start of this influx, which dates back to the early 1990s, when the former Yugoslavia and Iraq were plagued with war, there has been much talk about the need for European countries to share the burden. It is, however, very worrying to note that these good intentions have not yielded any tangible results.
While various exponents have complained about the conditions in which the immigrants are living and about the lack of facilities in Malta, they have not proposed any solutions to the problems at hand, apart from opening the doors of the detention centres. Unfortunately, this approach does not alleviate the problem of illegal immigration.
Concrete action therefore needs to be taken by those who are in a position to take it.
Throughout the years, the Maltese government has improved the facilities and taken measures to protect the dignity of immigrants on the island. Yet, the problems persist and it is evident that Malta cannot solve them single-handedly. In these challenging times, support from the European community is crucial.
The European Union is built upon the concept of solidarity and just like Malta has acted in solidarity with other member states in the past it should also be in a position to rely on support from the community with regard to matters like these.
The importance of ensuring the dignity of illegal immigrants has been highlighted repeatedly. However, reality proves that this is turning into a more and more challenging task, as the burden is becoming unmanageable for the Maltese islands.
Europe has to take a serious stand. The first step should be to support Mediterranean countries by sharing the burden that they are confronted with. The second is to make significant investments in African countries in order to ameliorate the living conditions on the continent. This would, hopefully, make it possible for people to lead a better life in their homeland, which, in turn, would reduce the numbers of those people who opt to embark on a perilous journey to the European continent, driven by the hope for more opportunities.
I have had several opportunities to visit both the detention and the open centers and while it is clear that the administrators and the authorities are doing their best to make these premises as accommodating as possible, it is also clear that our resources do not permit us to do much more. If we had to estimate the number of immigrants to expect this summer, based on the numbers we have recorded over the past two weeks, then we are in for a very serious situation.
Malta has made its voice heard in the European Parliament but the feedback was not as satisfactory as one would have expected. Unfortunately, the solutions that have been proposed thus far have not been sufficient.
Given that Frontex has not been as successful as many had hoped it would be, it is increasingly evident that a new approach is needed. The EU must act in solidarity and it must do so as soon as possible in order to prevent the situation from deteriorating.
The other European member states have to commit themselves to some serious burden sharing and that means providing concrete logistical, financial and political support.
Membership of the EU was and still is the best solution for Malta and the island vigorously adheres to the rules and directives of the EU. In return, it is vital for the EU to act in solidarity with Malta in these challenging times.
The immigrants that arrive on our shores are human beings who deserve to be treated with dignity and who should be assured of our support so that they can have a more promising future ahead. And it is up to the entire community to ensure that our joint solidarity also reaches out to those beyond our borders.
With the summer season on our doorstep, the daily news is once again dominated by the arrival of illegal immigrants. At the outset of the season, the numbers that are being recorded already give rise to serious concern and it looks like we are in for a very busy summer.
We have arrived at a point where talk of solidarity is not producing any effective outcome and where serious action needs to be taken if we truly want to help these people who seek a better life on the shores of Europe.
Since the start of this influx, which dates back to the early 1990s, when the former Yugoslavia and Iraq were plagued with war, there has been much talk about the need for European countries to share the burden. It is, however, very worrying to note that these good intentions have not yielded any tangible results.
While various exponents have complained about the conditions in which the immigrants are living and about the lack of facilities in Malta, they have not proposed any solutions to the problems at hand, apart from opening the doors of the detention centres. Unfortunately, this approach does not alleviate the problem of illegal immigration.
Concrete action therefore needs to be taken by those who are in a position to take it.
Throughout the years, the Maltese government has improved the facilities and taken measures to protect the dignity of immigrants on the island. Yet, the problems persist and it is evident that Malta cannot solve them single-handedly. In these challenging times, support from the European community is crucial.
The European Union is built upon the concept of solidarity and just like Malta has acted in solidarity with other member states in the past it should also be in a position to rely on support from the community with regard to matters like these.
The importance of ensuring the dignity of illegal immigrants has been highlighted repeatedly. However, reality proves that this is turning into a more and more challenging task, as the burden is becoming unmanageable for the Maltese islands.
Europe has to take a serious stand. The first step should be to support Mediterranean countries by sharing the burden that they are confronted with. The second is to make significant investments in African countries in order to ameliorate the living conditions on the continent. This would, hopefully, make it possible for people to lead a better life in their homeland, which, in turn, would reduce the numbers of those people who opt to embark on a perilous journey to the European continent, driven by the hope for more opportunities.
I have had several opportunities to visit both the detention and the open centers and while it is clear that the administrators and the authorities are doing their best to make these premises as accommodating as possible, it is also clear that our resources do not permit us to do much more. If we had to estimate the number of immigrants to expect this summer, based on the numbers we have recorded over the past two weeks, then we are in for a very serious situation.
Malta has made its voice heard in the European Parliament but the feedback was not as satisfactory as one would have expected. Unfortunately, the solutions that have been proposed thus far have not been sufficient.
Given that Frontex has not been as successful as many had hoped it would be, it is increasingly evident that a new approach is needed. The EU must act in solidarity and it must do so as soon as possible in order to prevent the situation from deteriorating.
The other European member states have to commit themselves to some serious burden sharing and that means providing concrete logistical, financial and political support.
Membership of the EU was and still is the best solution for Malta and the island vigorously adheres to the rules and directives of the EU. In return, it is vital for the EU to act in solidarity with Malta in these challenging times.
The immigrants that arrive on our shores are human beings who deserve to be treated with dignity and who should be assured of our support so that they can have a more promising future ahead. And it is up to the entire community to ensure that our joint solidarity also reaches out to those beyond our borders.
The final frontier
http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/imported/the-final-frontier/74483.aspx
How did you celebrate European Day for Border Guards?
You could be forgiven for not noticing, but last Thursday (24 May) was European Day for Border Guards.
The celebrations were particularly frenetic in
Warsaw, home of the European Union's border-management agency, Frontex.
Cecilia Malmström, the European commissioner for home affairs, went
along to attend festivities, which took the form of a conference with
the declared aim of bringing together “Europe's border-guard community”
to provide “an opportunity to share experiences and best practice”.
Those
people who think that the life of a border guard is a bit dull would
have had their prejudices confirmed or challenged by the conference
programme, which included ten feature and documentary films. Attendees
had the choice of 60 stands with exhibitors ranging from national police
or border-guard departments to private companies and international
organisations.
Attendees were also asked to submit photographs for a
contest. The first award went to Jaroslaw Wtorkiewicz for a rear view
of two female border guards, probably inspecting travel documents, but
one cannot be sure. Jürgen Binder's entry showed two plainclothes
officials with oversized sunglasses carrying two laughing black boys on
their shoulders. Seppo Partanen was ranked third for a picture
apparently showing migrants wading through a shallow river. (“Don't
arrest them just now, I have to take a picture first.”)
The draft budget in Frontex's work programme for 2012 put aside €400,000 for the event. Bordering on extravagant?
Politicking exclusion? Migration policy in Poland
http://anti-frontex.noborder.org.pl/en/node/67
On a December day in 2009, about 200 Chechens and Georgians attempted to flee Poland. Boarding a train bound for Dresden, their final destination was Strasbourg- seat of the European Council and European Parliament. There they intended to protest the treatment of refugees seeking asylum in the EU. The banners they hung in the train windows indicated they were fleeing “Oppression,” demanding “SOS” and the recognition that “We are people[i].” Needless to say, they were stopped at the Polish-German border and forced to remain.
What in this European age of Security, Justice and Freedom was the oppression that they were fleeing? Following the apprehension of these deviant migrants, public analysis of the event circulated around the understaffing and overall poor conditions in asylum centers. What could have been a much-needed discussion on migration was effectively veered to the sadly safe domain of lacking funds- a fact of life in Poland with which refugees must simply agree. So with the conclusion that a lacking state budget was the agent of oppression, this organized act of dissent was effectively placated and depoliticized.
But this action is nothing but political. It is a loud message exposing not trite physical conditions that are already well known (and to be expected) but the exclusionary and dehumanizing practices that characterize current migration procedures in Poland, and more generally in the European Union.
A critical examination of actual migration processes and the fundamental assumptions on which they are based is in order.
A comprehensive European migration policy in Poland
The Polish state currently operates no holistic migration policy of its own. However, insofar as such policy denotes bureaucratization, administrative procedures, border controls and a justifying discourse, such measures have been implemented and adopted in Poland according to European Union prescriptions for managing migration. In conceiving the EU territory as a regime of Freedom, Security and Justice, the European Council considers as a prerequisite the creation of a comprehensive European migration policy. This common policy is based on the EU member states’ shared national concerns over immigration, as well as on more supranational concerns stemming from the lack of internal borders- and hence uncontrolled movement- within the EU. At the core of this policy is at once the fortifying and policing of external borders, as well as a politic of categorization according to which migrants are rendered “desirable” or “undesirable”. As a means of legitimization, the common migration policy is accompanied by a fitting discourse centered on “the fight against illegal immigration,” purported as a threat to security and economic welfare. Furthermore, this discourse bears heavily on concerns over abuses of the asylum system by mere pretenders to refugee status, false refugees, or “economic migrants.”
Europe as a strainer[ii], or the politics of categorization
In its stipulations for the comprehensive European migration policy, the European Council suggests three distinctions for migrant categories: legal migrants, illegal migrants and asylum-seekers. These classifications contain further subcategories and it is through a regular redefining of their scope to fit national needs that the politics of migration are played.
Migration is generally desired by member states so as to fill labor shortages, and to address demographic concerns such as those currently facing many European populations. But not all migrants are of the wanted sort. Deciding who is “desirable,” and thus who has the right to enter legally requires the smooth politicking of categories. The inverse of this practice, or deciding who in result is “undesirable” often reflects and exacerbates already existing societal issues. In countries of western Europe, this debate is usually closely related to the colonial past and the special relations that old colonial powers have with their former colonies. In view of this past, immigration in such countries is beleaguered by ideas about national identity, that are also further aggravated by Islamophobia and xenophobic aims related to maintaining a certain ethnic integrity. As migrants confront national orders, politicking migration becomes an exclusionary practice based upon morally arbitrary suppositions.
Being desirable
Migrants who respond to national economic needs are the de facto desirable sort of migrants. In western European countries desirable migrants from outside the EU who are allowed legal entry are usually high-skilled workers. This reflects the already numerous low-wage workers who are citizens of EU countries like Poland, who emigrate to western states and satisfy gaps in the labor market. High-skilled migrants from outside the EU are normally able to come as the corporations, organizations or institutions for which they work guarantee handling of immigration procedures, or otherwise because their skills are particularly desired by the host state. It is with these sorts of desirable migrants in mind that the European Council aims to construct a Common Agenda for Integration.
But being desirable does not necessarily mean being legal, or being allowed legal entry. Integration is expensive and not all migrants are deemed a sound investment, especially in countries like Poland where public funds seem endlessly scarce. Effectively, in Poland this situation translates to opposing objectives- at once the need for low-wage labor (further exacerbated by the substantial emigration of Poles to western countries) and the unwillingness to allocate resources towards migrant integration. This is particularly exemplified by the case of Vietnamese migrants to Poland. Although Vietnamese workers satisfy a significant economic niche, they are categorized out of the legal entry scheme. Vietnamese migrants are allowed neither provision for legal access, nor for legal employment in Poland and the EU. It would appear thus that the majority of the alleged 30 to 50 thousand Vietnamese living in Poland with no legal status are deliberately maintained in a state of illegality, all the while their labor being highly desirable[iii].
In Poland, migrants whose work is highly desirable and who are allowed legal entry come most often from neighboring Ukraine. Yet even for these persons desirability and legal status are no sweet deal. There is no integration policy in Poland for anyone, and thus the matter of integrating into Polish society is usually left for migrants to figure out on their own. In the case of Ukrainians, after entry into the Schengen zone, the Polish state maintained special provisions that reflect many years of porous borders, trade and beneficial Ukrainian migrant labor. In effect Ukrainians are allowed to enter Poland legally and at the manageable cost of 30-35 Euro for a visa. Travel for Ukrainians to other countries in Europe is far more complicated and requires the purchase of a more expensive Schengen visa. The Polish state has thus responded to its economic needs by allowing these migrants to enter legally, nonetheless having only emplaced stipulations for temporary work permits, it has successfully avoided spending resources on integration. In effect, there is no state-run comprehensive framework that helps Ukrainians navigate immigration to Poland, or establish their lives once here. This response on the part of the Polish state is a highly passive one that has grave recourse on human lives. The lack of state support has given rise to informal immigration and integration systems run by private companies, profiteers, peddlers and mafias (frequently in cahoots with border officials). These often-shady actors extort money from migrants in exchange for services such as securing work invitations from Polish employers (necessary to receive a work permit). Migrants forced to cooperate with such likely informal networks frequently find themselves working in conditions of indentured servitude or downright slavery upon arrival to Poland.
Sveta[iv], currently a house cleaner in her early 30s, told me how she and her husband paid a private company for a complete immigration package, which included a work invitation, a work permit, a job once in Poland and transport from the Ukraine. Once arriving on the spot, she found herself working 10 hours per day in a meat factory. She was allowed one monitored, 15-minute break per day and received pay for only 8 of the 10 hours of work. She worked a full month to receive her pay, after which she escaped the factory at night with other Ukrainians.
Nadia, also a 30-something house cleaner, accounted how upon arriving to Warsaw she could only find a job by working for a middle-person. This middle-person ran a private cleaning service, which hired Nadia illegally and required her to hand over 60% of her wages. Thus making 20zł per hour, Nadia would only be allowed to keep 8zł.
Once in Poland, Ukrainian migrants are provided no access to social protections. Yet Ukrainian workers fulfill very important social and economic functions in Poland. Caring for the young, the sick, the elderly, the busy, as well as their households, Ukrainian women have taken up many of the responsibilities that socialist state and society abandoned to make neoliberalization in Poland possible. Ukrainian men, on the other hand, often do the physical work that Poles no longer want to do (or leave to do in other countries). These migrant workers help maintain the groundwork that allows Poles to engage in a newly developing capitalist Poland. Yet their contributions are barely reciprocated or recognized.
It is important here to acknowledge the resourcefulness of many migrants- both from neighboring countries and those from far away, such as the Vietnamese- who do figure out how to navigate migration procedures and integration in Poland, and who are able to gain permits and even citizenship. Their achievements in establishing vibrant communities that have today became integral to metropolitan cultural landscapes- especially in Warsaw- are entirely their own. Their stories testify at once to their willpower and to the lack of concern habitual to migration administrations in Poland.
Policing the border and “the fight against illegal migration”
As guardian of the EU’s easternmost frontier since 2004, Poland has borne the responsibility of securing the outer border through the use of high-tech technologies such as heat sensors and cameras as well as rigorous entry procedures. While controlling the border also necessitates managing migrant populations, Poland has put its efforts into training guards and officials competent in operating the politics of categorization. The efficacy of these measures is a matter of high stakes, especially due to pressures from western European countries interested in making sure that migrations from the east do not travel westward.
To traverse the border, most migrants are required to obtain a visa or permit and to present sufficient funds in cash or in a bank account (for a stay longer than 3 days, migrants are required to have 100zł for each day of their stay)[v]. But only certain people, such as those possessing desirable human capital, pertinent expertise or a fitting profile are allowed access to visas and permits. In turn, those without the wanted qualities are devalued and excluded. At the Polish border, migrants such as Afghanis, Georgians, Ugandans or Vietnamese are deemed undesirable and are precluded from legal entry. Their visa applications are most often turned down, they are burdened with overwhelming costs or otherwise said to lack the necessary per diem funds for their stay[vi]. Legal immigration is therefore a restricted opportunity. For most of the thousands of migrants forced to leave their countries due to economic, political, or natural hardships and who attempt to find a better life in the EU, there is virtually no way of legal entry to EU territory. The only choice left is to file an asylum claim, or otherwise to attempt crossing the border illegally.
It is perhaps no accident that the European Agency for the management of operational cooperation at the external borders of the Member States of the EU (FRONTEX) has its headquarters at the Rondo ONZ in central Warsaw. Frontex is an independent agency whose operations are subsidized collectively by EU member states. In 2007, Frontex had a budget of about 35 million Euro, which it used to carry out its mandate in border surveillance and training of border guards in the aims of fighting illegal migration.[vii] Over the past two years, this budget has risen and Frontex now operates close to 70 million Euro. Thanks to these operational capacities of Frontex and other systems brought to life by the comprehensive European migration policy, countries like Poland have the resources to effectively- at least in theory- police entry to EU territory.
Yet governing the outer limits of Europe proves a contested matter. Despite its alleged impermeability, migrants report shady dealings involving guards and mafias. Furthermore, human trafficking and smuggling are certainly a reality in Poland. One can only stipulate the unofficial dealings that allow this to occur, given that the border is so well patrolled[viii].
Asylum
I met with Hamzat, a 28 year old Chechen with a master’s degree in business, on a platform at Warsaw’s Central Station in July 2007. He had come in on the local short-distance train from Dębak, Poland’s main refugee reception center located in the forest of Podkowa Leśna about an hour away from the city. When migrants arrive at the Polish border (or at the land, sea or airport border of any country signatory to the 1951 Geneva Convention) they have the right to request protection, or asylum, which must then be considered by the petitioned state. In Poland, after filing for asylum at the border, newly deemed “asylum-seekers” are transported to Dębak, from where they are accordingly hosted for the duration of their asylum procedure in one of the 20 refugee centers throughout the country.
Sipping on coffee in a café nearby, Hamzat told me his story. He had first arrived to Poland from Chechnya in November 2004. When Hamzat’s uncle, a fighter in the Chechen resistance was wounded in a raid near the city of Gudermes, word of his weakened state got out to the opposing forces. Believing the injured warrior-uncle would rely on the help of his family to regain strength, men in masks began to menace Hamzat’s family. Finally, Hamzat was kidnapped and tortured for information. Barely escaping his capturers, he fled for Europe.
Crossing the border with Belarus, Hamzat filed an asylum application at the border in Poland. In it, he wrote: “I want to become a refugee, because there is no peaceful life in Chechnya or in Russia. I want to live peacefully, without fear for my life or that of those close to me.”[ix]
The emergence of the modern figure of “the refugee” can be traced to the displacement and denaturalization of populations in Europe following World War II. While refuge and exile have been notions considered since antiquity and elaborated upon by thinkers like Kant (Perpetual Peace 1795) it was not until the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights that asylum was acknowledged as a fundamental human right. Kant had argued that by virtue of the right of association and of our common ownership of the earth, states are morally obliged not to treat newcomers to their territories with hostility. More specifically, such individuals cannot be refused entry if turning them away may cause them harm. This moral principle provides the basis for the quality of refugee as defined in the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and furthermore, for the principle of “non-refoulement”, whereby refugees cannot be returned to countries where their lives may be threatened. Accordingly, “refugee”:
Having filed his asylum claim, Hamzat waited a year in a refugee camp in Warsaw during which his application was being processed. In filing an asylum claim, asylum-seekers must provide detailed narratives that present tangible evidence of persecution aimed directly at their person and for one of the reasons mentioned in the 1951 Convention. These narratives are then subject to intense scrutiny with the goal of confirming their veracity. In Poland, asylum claims are processed by the Department of Refugee Proceedings of the Ministry of Immigrant Affairs. Here, a team of officials with access to international databases confirms or disproves purported dates and places of persecution. This is a grueling process at the end of which most are disqualified. In 2009, of the 10,590 asylum claims filed in Poland, 131 received refugee status[x].
In October 2005 Hamzat received a negative decision. He appealed and was again denied in January 2006. According to Polish authorities, his case fit neither the prescriptions for refugee status, nor those for the less desirable temporary protection. Following the 1951 Convention prescriptions, war and other human rights abuses of a mass scale do not directly qualify one to contend for refugee status. Kidnappings, tortures, cleansings and land mines are all normalized features of war, or at least standard features in the context of Chechnya, and are therefore not considered to necessarily represent persecution directed specifically at one’s person. To account for such cases as war, EU member states have conjured temporary statuses in following the principle of non-refoulement. In Poland, this is called “supplementary protection” which allows full access to citizenly rights for a period of 2 years without the possibility of renewal. Of the same 10,590 asylum applicants in 2009, 2,317 were conferred this status. The remaining persons either received negative decisions or their cases were left unresolved.
From November 2004 until January 2006, Hamzat’s life was defined by waiting in a refugee camp. He found himself in a state of legal limbo, having no legal status to work or certainty to begin his life anew. Along with his final refusal notice, he received an order to leave the territory of Poland. So he did. Taking the most logical decision in his situation, instead of returning east to Chechnya, Hamzat went west to France.
Upon arriving to Paris by means of a trafficker, Hamzat again filed for asylum. Quickly enough however, and with the help of competent systems like EURODAC[xi] and SIS[xii], French officials got wind of his previous try at asylum in Poland. Citing the Dublin II Regulation, at 2am approximately five weeks after Hamzat’s arrival in France, police officers came to retrieve him for deportation. Escorting him to Roissy International Airport, they placed Hamzat on a plane bound for Poland. But once he landed in Warsaw, another police troupe was already waiting. Hamzat was accompanied by Polish border guards to the detention center in Lesznowola, about 15km southwest of Warsaw, where he was to sit out a punishment for having illegally crossed the Polish border on his way out to France.
As part of the comprehensive European migration policy, the European Council has made special provisions for a Common European Asylum System. This common policy has for its goals the synchronization of national asylum systems and the shared management of refugees and asylum-seekers on EU territory. The most important agreement herein is the Dublin II Regulation of 2003, according to which refugees can only file for asylum in the first EU state that they enter. Intended to prevent the filing of multiple claims, or “asylum shopping”, Dublin II aims to distribute responsibility amongst member states. With greater communication and efficient data exchange across the EU, member states have been greatly facilitated in undertaking measures such as deportations, bilateral return agreements, limited judicial reviews and detention as in Hamzat’s case.
At Lesznowola, Hamzat was imprisoned with no justification of the terms, or length of his punishment. The Detention Center for Immigrants in Lesznowola is one of 13 such detention centers in Poland, created to house migrants awaiting expulsion. In September 2006, Hamzat received notice that he would be accompanied by police officers to the Belorussian border and forcibly removed from Poland. He was given no timeframe. Having taken an interest in Hamzat’s case, an NGO in France decided to hire a lawyer and to launch an investigation into his unjust treatment. During the next months, Hamzat’s situation continued to be filled with uncertainty and the possibility of deportation at any moment. Finally, in January 2007, French authorities decided to reexamine Hamzat’s claim and he was to be transported back to France. Two months later, in March, Hamzat was finally released from Lesznowola and given a place at the Dębak refugee center.
When we met in July 2007, Hamzat had still not received his invitation to come to France. With increased cooperation between EU states and the Common Asylum System, it was seemingly much easier to arrange a deportation than a free return. “I’m waiting,” Hamzat told me. “I just wait. I don’t really have much else to do. I’m allowed to leave the camp for three days at a time, but I can’t work. I can only wait.”
Lacking citizenly recognition, refugees seeking asylum are relegated to the margins of social and legal existence. Their lives in the EU resemble what Kafka described in The Trial; marked by waiting in a state of legal limbo, their fates to be ruled upon by an ambiguous authority while having no certainty for the future. With no formal legal status, refugees seeking asylum can be moved, detained, deported or expulsed without the ability to act in protest. In the frameworks of the European asylum system, it is thus also what Hannah Arendt had termed as the “right to have rights” that has been made contingent on procedural recognition. In effect it comes as no surprise that 200 Chechens and Georgians attempted to contest this systemic oppression this past December.
The dialectic of legitimacy
In the setting of contemporary Europe, the asylum system reflects discrepancies between human rights ideals and actual practices. Although uniformly recognized as a human right by the member states, the asylum system has become a tactical means to delimiting migration. Decrying the right of asylum as a moral exemption that “allows too many through” and at “too great a cost”, the member states have found justification in seriously restricting and policing its scope. Towards this end, they have enlisted sophisticated sorting practices based on a narrower definition of who is “refugee”. Inscribed within the asylum process, the sorting of applicants is aimed at discerning legitimate contenders to refugee status from the false, who are proved to be mere economic migrants in disguise. At the root of this practice is the weeding out of voluntary- and not forced- migrants whose only motivations for immigration are simply to find a better life[xiii]. As the EU migration system provides no access to legal existence within its territories for such persons, they become the objects of state repression. All while supposedly maintaining commitments to human rights ideals by gracing a small number of verified legitimate refugees with compassion.
Besides the procedural measures designed to restrict access to asylum, EU member states are greatly facilitated in their efforts to restrict migration by the inherent limitations of the 1951 Convention definition for determining who is refugee. Forged within the post-WWII context, the prescriptions asserted by the 1951 Convention are generally inadequate to address the realities of forced migration today. The 1951 Convention was not updated to reflect the new global situation and narrative following the post-colonial period. It has likewise not been updated to reflect other prevalent modes of persecution such as gender-based. Particularly significant is that economic persecution is not recognized. With no consideration of capitalism as a hegemonic world system that serves as an agent of persecution and exclusion around the world, the 1951 Convention largely ignores the reality of contemporary fluxes of forced migrations. Due to this limited scope, the 1951 Convention definition leaves room for manipulation and the effective demonization of those deemed undesirable “economic migrants”.
Conglomerating the types, reasons, motives and circumstances of migrations, the migration system in the EU totalizes migrants in a binary “legitimate” versus “illegitimate” dialectic. Legal vs. illegal, desirable vs. undesirable, genuine refugees vs. economic migrants. Those found on the unwanted end of policies are usually either expulsed, or if they manage to evade the authorities, disappear past the margins into the precarious realms of illegal existence.
No Border Warsaw
(Text originally published in Le Monde Diplomatique Nr. 2 2010)
On a December day in 2009, about 200 Chechens and Georgians attempted to flee Poland. Boarding a train bound for Dresden, their final destination was Strasbourg- seat of the European Council and European Parliament. There they intended to protest the treatment of refugees seeking asylum in the EU. The banners they hung in the train windows indicated they were fleeing “Oppression,” demanding “SOS” and the recognition that “We are people[i].” Needless to say, they were stopped at the Polish-German border and forced to remain.
What in this European age of Security, Justice and Freedom was the oppression that they were fleeing? Following the apprehension of these deviant migrants, public analysis of the event circulated around the understaffing and overall poor conditions in asylum centers. What could have been a much-needed discussion on migration was effectively veered to the sadly safe domain of lacking funds- a fact of life in Poland with which refugees must simply agree. So with the conclusion that a lacking state budget was the agent of oppression, this organized act of dissent was effectively placated and depoliticized.
But this action is nothing but political. It is a loud message exposing not trite physical conditions that are already well known (and to be expected) but the exclusionary and dehumanizing practices that characterize current migration procedures in Poland, and more generally in the European Union.
A critical examination of actual migration processes and the fundamental assumptions on which they are based is in order.
A comprehensive European migration policy in Poland
The Polish state currently operates no holistic migration policy of its own. However, insofar as such policy denotes bureaucratization, administrative procedures, border controls and a justifying discourse, such measures have been implemented and adopted in Poland according to European Union prescriptions for managing migration. In conceiving the EU territory as a regime of Freedom, Security and Justice, the European Council considers as a prerequisite the creation of a comprehensive European migration policy. This common policy is based on the EU member states’ shared national concerns over immigration, as well as on more supranational concerns stemming from the lack of internal borders- and hence uncontrolled movement- within the EU. At the core of this policy is at once the fortifying and policing of external borders, as well as a politic of categorization according to which migrants are rendered “desirable” or “undesirable”. As a means of legitimization, the common migration policy is accompanied by a fitting discourse centered on “the fight against illegal immigration,” purported as a threat to security and economic welfare. Furthermore, this discourse bears heavily on concerns over abuses of the asylum system by mere pretenders to refugee status, false refugees, or “economic migrants.”
Europe as a strainer[ii], or the politics of categorization
In its stipulations for the comprehensive European migration policy, the European Council suggests three distinctions for migrant categories: legal migrants, illegal migrants and asylum-seekers. These classifications contain further subcategories and it is through a regular redefining of their scope to fit national needs that the politics of migration are played.
Migration is generally desired by member states so as to fill labor shortages, and to address demographic concerns such as those currently facing many European populations. But not all migrants are of the wanted sort. Deciding who is “desirable,” and thus who has the right to enter legally requires the smooth politicking of categories. The inverse of this practice, or deciding who in result is “undesirable” often reflects and exacerbates already existing societal issues. In countries of western Europe, this debate is usually closely related to the colonial past and the special relations that old colonial powers have with their former colonies. In view of this past, immigration in such countries is beleaguered by ideas about national identity, that are also further aggravated by Islamophobia and xenophobic aims related to maintaining a certain ethnic integrity. As migrants confront national orders, politicking migration becomes an exclusionary practice based upon morally arbitrary suppositions.
Being desirable
Migrants who respond to national economic needs are the de facto desirable sort of migrants. In western European countries desirable migrants from outside the EU who are allowed legal entry are usually high-skilled workers. This reflects the already numerous low-wage workers who are citizens of EU countries like Poland, who emigrate to western states and satisfy gaps in the labor market. High-skilled migrants from outside the EU are normally able to come as the corporations, organizations or institutions for which they work guarantee handling of immigration procedures, or otherwise because their skills are particularly desired by the host state. It is with these sorts of desirable migrants in mind that the European Council aims to construct a Common Agenda for Integration.
But being desirable does not necessarily mean being legal, or being allowed legal entry. Integration is expensive and not all migrants are deemed a sound investment, especially in countries like Poland where public funds seem endlessly scarce. Effectively, in Poland this situation translates to opposing objectives- at once the need for low-wage labor (further exacerbated by the substantial emigration of Poles to western countries) and the unwillingness to allocate resources towards migrant integration. This is particularly exemplified by the case of Vietnamese migrants to Poland. Although Vietnamese workers satisfy a significant economic niche, they are categorized out of the legal entry scheme. Vietnamese migrants are allowed neither provision for legal access, nor for legal employment in Poland and the EU. It would appear thus that the majority of the alleged 30 to 50 thousand Vietnamese living in Poland with no legal status are deliberately maintained in a state of illegality, all the while their labor being highly desirable[iii].
In Poland, migrants whose work is highly desirable and who are allowed legal entry come most often from neighboring Ukraine. Yet even for these persons desirability and legal status are no sweet deal. There is no integration policy in Poland for anyone, and thus the matter of integrating into Polish society is usually left for migrants to figure out on their own. In the case of Ukrainians, after entry into the Schengen zone, the Polish state maintained special provisions that reflect many years of porous borders, trade and beneficial Ukrainian migrant labor. In effect Ukrainians are allowed to enter Poland legally and at the manageable cost of 30-35 Euro for a visa. Travel for Ukrainians to other countries in Europe is far more complicated and requires the purchase of a more expensive Schengen visa. The Polish state has thus responded to its economic needs by allowing these migrants to enter legally, nonetheless having only emplaced stipulations for temporary work permits, it has successfully avoided spending resources on integration. In effect, there is no state-run comprehensive framework that helps Ukrainians navigate immigration to Poland, or establish their lives once here. This response on the part of the Polish state is a highly passive one that has grave recourse on human lives. The lack of state support has given rise to informal immigration and integration systems run by private companies, profiteers, peddlers and mafias (frequently in cahoots with border officials). These often-shady actors extort money from migrants in exchange for services such as securing work invitations from Polish employers (necessary to receive a work permit). Migrants forced to cooperate with such likely informal networks frequently find themselves working in conditions of indentured servitude or downright slavery upon arrival to Poland.
Sveta[iv], currently a house cleaner in her early 30s, told me how she and her husband paid a private company for a complete immigration package, which included a work invitation, a work permit, a job once in Poland and transport from the Ukraine. Once arriving on the spot, she found herself working 10 hours per day in a meat factory. She was allowed one monitored, 15-minute break per day and received pay for only 8 of the 10 hours of work. She worked a full month to receive her pay, after which she escaped the factory at night with other Ukrainians.
Nadia, also a 30-something house cleaner, accounted how upon arriving to Warsaw she could only find a job by working for a middle-person. This middle-person ran a private cleaning service, which hired Nadia illegally and required her to hand over 60% of her wages. Thus making 20zł per hour, Nadia would only be allowed to keep 8zł.
Once in Poland, Ukrainian migrants are provided no access to social protections. Yet Ukrainian workers fulfill very important social and economic functions in Poland. Caring for the young, the sick, the elderly, the busy, as well as their households, Ukrainian women have taken up many of the responsibilities that socialist state and society abandoned to make neoliberalization in Poland possible. Ukrainian men, on the other hand, often do the physical work that Poles no longer want to do (or leave to do in other countries). These migrant workers help maintain the groundwork that allows Poles to engage in a newly developing capitalist Poland. Yet their contributions are barely reciprocated or recognized.
It is important here to acknowledge the resourcefulness of many migrants- both from neighboring countries and those from far away, such as the Vietnamese- who do figure out how to navigate migration procedures and integration in Poland, and who are able to gain permits and even citizenship. Their achievements in establishing vibrant communities that have today became integral to metropolitan cultural landscapes- especially in Warsaw- are entirely their own. Their stories testify at once to their willpower and to the lack of concern habitual to migration administrations in Poland.
Policing the border and “the fight against illegal migration”
As guardian of the EU’s easternmost frontier since 2004, Poland has borne the responsibility of securing the outer border through the use of high-tech technologies such as heat sensors and cameras as well as rigorous entry procedures. While controlling the border also necessitates managing migrant populations, Poland has put its efforts into training guards and officials competent in operating the politics of categorization. The efficacy of these measures is a matter of high stakes, especially due to pressures from western European countries interested in making sure that migrations from the east do not travel westward.
To traverse the border, most migrants are required to obtain a visa or permit and to present sufficient funds in cash or in a bank account (for a stay longer than 3 days, migrants are required to have 100zł for each day of their stay)[v]. But only certain people, such as those possessing desirable human capital, pertinent expertise or a fitting profile are allowed access to visas and permits. In turn, those without the wanted qualities are devalued and excluded. At the Polish border, migrants such as Afghanis, Georgians, Ugandans or Vietnamese are deemed undesirable and are precluded from legal entry. Their visa applications are most often turned down, they are burdened with overwhelming costs or otherwise said to lack the necessary per diem funds for their stay[vi]. Legal immigration is therefore a restricted opportunity. For most of the thousands of migrants forced to leave their countries due to economic, political, or natural hardships and who attempt to find a better life in the EU, there is virtually no way of legal entry to EU territory. The only choice left is to file an asylum claim, or otherwise to attempt crossing the border illegally.
It is perhaps no accident that the European Agency for the management of operational cooperation at the external borders of the Member States of the EU (FRONTEX) has its headquarters at the Rondo ONZ in central Warsaw. Frontex is an independent agency whose operations are subsidized collectively by EU member states. In 2007, Frontex had a budget of about 35 million Euro, which it used to carry out its mandate in border surveillance and training of border guards in the aims of fighting illegal migration.[vii] Over the past two years, this budget has risen and Frontex now operates close to 70 million Euro. Thanks to these operational capacities of Frontex and other systems brought to life by the comprehensive European migration policy, countries like Poland have the resources to effectively- at least in theory- police entry to EU territory.
Yet governing the outer limits of Europe proves a contested matter. Despite its alleged impermeability, migrants report shady dealings involving guards and mafias. Furthermore, human trafficking and smuggling are certainly a reality in Poland. One can only stipulate the unofficial dealings that allow this to occur, given that the border is so well patrolled[viii].
Asylum
I met with Hamzat, a 28 year old Chechen with a master’s degree in business, on a platform at Warsaw’s Central Station in July 2007. He had come in on the local short-distance train from Dębak, Poland’s main refugee reception center located in the forest of Podkowa Leśna about an hour away from the city. When migrants arrive at the Polish border (or at the land, sea or airport border of any country signatory to the 1951 Geneva Convention) they have the right to request protection, or asylum, which must then be considered by the petitioned state. In Poland, after filing for asylum at the border, newly deemed “asylum-seekers” are transported to Dębak, from where they are accordingly hosted for the duration of their asylum procedure in one of the 20 refugee centers throughout the country.
Sipping on coffee in a café nearby, Hamzat told me his story. He had first arrived to Poland from Chechnya in November 2004. When Hamzat’s uncle, a fighter in the Chechen resistance was wounded in a raid near the city of Gudermes, word of his weakened state got out to the opposing forces. Believing the injured warrior-uncle would rely on the help of his family to regain strength, men in masks began to menace Hamzat’s family. Finally, Hamzat was kidnapped and tortured for information. Barely escaping his capturers, he fled for Europe.
Crossing the border with Belarus, Hamzat filed an asylum application at the border in Poland. In it, he wrote: “I want to become a refugee, because there is no peaceful life in Chechnya or in Russia. I want to live peacefully, without fear for my life or that of those close to me.”[ix]
The emergence of the modern figure of “the refugee” can be traced to the displacement and denaturalization of populations in Europe following World War II. While refuge and exile have been notions considered since antiquity and elaborated upon by thinkers like Kant (Perpetual Peace 1795) it was not until the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights that asylum was acknowledged as a fundamental human right. Kant had argued that by virtue of the right of association and of our common ownership of the earth, states are morally obliged not to treat newcomers to their territories with hostility. More specifically, such individuals cannot be refused entry if turning them away may cause them harm. This moral principle provides the basis for the quality of refugee as defined in the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and furthermore, for the principle of “non-refoulement”, whereby refugees cannot be returned to countries where their lives may be threatened. Accordingly, “refugee”:
Is any person who owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for
reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular
social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his
nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail
himself of the protection of that country. [Article 1 (2)]
Having filed his asylum claim, Hamzat waited a year in a refugee camp in Warsaw during which his application was being processed. In filing an asylum claim, asylum-seekers must provide detailed narratives that present tangible evidence of persecution aimed directly at their person and for one of the reasons mentioned in the 1951 Convention. These narratives are then subject to intense scrutiny with the goal of confirming their veracity. In Poland, asylum claims are processed by the Department of Refugee Proceedings of the Ministry of Immigrant Affairs. Here, a team of officials with access to international databases confirms or disproves purported dates and places of persecution. This is a grueling process at the end of which most are disqualified. In 2009, of the 10,590 asylum claims filed in Poland, 131 received refugee status[x].
In October 2005 Hamzat received a negative decision. He appealed and was again denied in January 2006. According to Polish authorities, his case fit neither the prescriptions for refugee status, nor those for the less desirable temporary protection. Following the 1951 Convention prescriptions, war and other human rights abuses of a mass scale do not directly qualify one to contend for refugee status. Kidnappings, tortures, cleansings and land mines are all normalized features of war, or at least standard features in the context of Chechnya, and are therefore not considered to necessarily represent persecution directed specifically at one’s person. To account for such cases as war, EU member states have conjured temporary statuses in following the principle of non-refoulement. In Poland, this is called “supplementary protection” which allows full access to citizenly rights for a period of 2 years without the possibility of renewal. Of the same 10,590 asylum applicants in 2009, 2,317 were conferred this status. The remaining persons either received negative decisions or their cases were left unresolved.
From November 2004 until January 2006, Hamzat’s life was defined by waiting in a refugee camp. He found himself in a state of legal limbo, having no legal status to work or certainty to begin his life anew. Along with his final refusal notice, he received an order to leave the territory of Poland. So he did. Taking the most logical decision in his situation, instead of returning east to Chechnya, Hamzat went west to France.
Upon arriving to Paris by means of a trafficker, Hamzat again filed for asylum. Quickly enough however, and with the help of competent systems like EURODAC[xi] and SIS[xii], French officials got wind of his previous try at asylum in Poland. Citing the Dublin II Regulation, at 2am approximately five weeks after Hamzat’s arrival in France, police officers came to retrieve him for deportation. Escorting him to Roissy International Airport, they placed Hamzat on a plane bound for Poland. But once he landed in Warsaw, another police troupe was already waiting. Hamzat was accompanied by Polish border guards to the detention center in Lesznowola, about 15km southwest of Warsaw, where he was to sit out a punishment for having illegally crossed the Polish border on his way out to France.
As part of the comprehensive European migration policy, the European Council has made special provisions for a Common European Asylum System. This common policy has for its goals the synchronization of national asylum systems and the shared management of refugees and asylum-seekers on EU territory. The most important agreement herein is the Dublin II Regulation of 2003, according to which refugees can only file for asylum in the first EU state that they enter. Intended to prevent the filing of multiple claims, or “asylum shopping”, Dublin II aims to distribute responsibility amongst member states. With greater communication and efficient data exchange across the EU, member states have been greatly facilitated in undertaking measures such as deportations, bilateral return agreements, limited judicial reviews and detention as in Hamzat’s case.
At Lesznowola, Hamzat was imprisoned with no justification of the terms, or length of his punishment. The Detention Center for Immigrants in Lesznowola is one of 13 such detention centers in Poland, created to house migrants awaiting expulsion. In September 2006, Hamzat received notice that he would be accompanied by police officers to the Belorussian border and forcibly removed from Poland. He was given no timeframe. Having taken an interest in Hamzat’s case, an NGO in France decided to hire a lawyer and to launch an investigation into his unjust treatment. During the next months, Hamzat’s situation continued to be filled with uncertainty and the possibility of deportation at any moment. Finally, in January 2007, French authorities decided to reexamine Hamzat’s claim and he was to be transported back to France. Two months later, in March, Hamzat was finally released from Lesznowola and given a place at the Dębak refugee center.
When we met in July 2007, Hamzat had still not received his invitation to come to France. With increased cooperation between EU states and the Common Asylum System, it was seemingly much easier to arrange a deportation than a free return. “I’m waiting,” Hamzat told me. “I just wait. I don’t really have much else to do. I’m allowed to leave the camp for three days at a time, but I can’t work. I can only wait.”
Lacking citizenly recognition, refugees seeking asylum are relegated to the margins of social and legal existence. Their lives in the EU resemble what Kafka described in The Trial; marked by waiting in a state of legal limbo, their fates to be ruled upon by an ambiguous authority while having no certainty for the future. With no formal legal status, refugees seeking asylum can be moved, detained, deported or expulsed without the ability to act in protest. In the frameworks of the European asylum system, it is thus also what Hannah Arendt had termed as the “right to have rights” that has been made contingent on procedural recognition. In effect it comes as no surprise that 200 Chechens and Georgians attempted to contest this systemic oppression this past December.
The dialectic of legitimacy
In the setting of contemporary Europe, the asylum system reflects discrepancies between human rights ideals and actual practices. Although uniformly recognized as a human right by the member states, the asylum system has become a tactical means to delimiting migration. Decrying the right of asylum as a moral exemption that “allows too many through” and at “too great a cost”, the member states have found justification in seriously restricting and policing its scope. Towards this end, they have enlisted sophisticated sorting practices based on a narrower definition of who is “refugee”. Inscribed within the asylum process, the sorting of applicants is aimed at discerning legitimate contenders to refugee status from the false, who are proved to be mere economic migrants in disguise. At the root of this practice is the weeding out of voluntary- and not forced- migrants whose only motivations for immigration are simply to find a better life[xiii]. As the EU migration system provides no access to legal existence within its territories for such persons, they become the objects of state repression. All while supposedly maintaining commitments to human rights ideals by gracing a small number of verified legitimate refugees with compassion.
Besides the procedural measures designed to restrict access to asylum, EU member states are greatly facilitated in their efforts to restrict migration by the inherent limitations of the 1951 Convention definition for determining who is refugee. Forged within the post-WWII context, the prescriptions asserted by the 1951 Convention are generally inadequate to address the realities of forced migration today. The 1951 Convention was not updated to reflect the new global situation and narrative following the post-colonial period. It has likewise not been updated to reflect other prevalent modes of persecution such as gender-based. Particularly significant is that economic persecution is not recognized. With no consideration of capitalism as a hegemonic world system that serves as an agent of persecution and exclusion around the world, the 1951 Convention largely ignores the reality of contemporary fluxes of forced migrations. Due to this limited scope, the 1951 Convention definition leaves room for manipulation and the effective demonization of those deemed undesirable “economic migrants”.
Conglomerating the types, reasons, motives and circumstances of migrations, the migration system in the EU totalizes migrants in a binary “legitimate” versus “illegitimate” dialectic. Legal vs. illegal, desirable vs. undesirable, genuine refugees vs. economic migrants. Those found on the unwanted end of policies are usually either expulsed, or if they manage to evade the authorities, disappear past the margins into the precarious realms of illegal existence.
No Border Warsaw
(Text originally published in Le Monde Diplomatique Nr. 2 2010)
2012 Frontex Annual Risk Analysis
http://migrantsatsea.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/2012-frontex-annual-risk-analysis/
Frontex posted its 2012 Annual Risk Analysis (“ARA”) on its website on 20 April. (The 2012 ARA is also available on this link: Frontex_Annual_Risk_Analysis_2012.) The stated purpose of the ARA is “to plan the coordination of operational activities at the external borders of the EU in 2013. The ARA combines an assessment of threats and vulnerabilities at the EU external borders with an assessment of their impacts and consequences to enable the Agency to effectively balance and prioritise the allocation of resources against identified risks….”
Highlights include:
“Executive Summary
[***] Looking ahead, the border between Greece and Turkey is very likely to remain one of the areas with the highest number of detections of illegal border-crossing along the external border. More and more migrants are expected to take advantage of Turkish visa policies and the expansion of Turkish Airlines, carrying more passengers to more destinations, to transit through Turkish air borders and subsequently attempt to enter the EU illegally. [Turkey reported an increase in 2011 of 26% in air passenger flow. See p. 12 of ARA.]
At the southern maritime borders large flows are most likely to develop on the Central Mediterranean route due to its proximity to Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, where political instability and the high unemployment rates are pushing people abroad and where there is evidence of facilitation networks also offering facilitation services to transiting migrants. [***]
There is an increasing risk of political and humanitarian crises arising in third countries which may result in the displacement of large numbers of people in search of international protection towards the land and sea borders of the EU. [***]
Various austerity measures introduced throughout Member States may result in increasing disparities between Member States in their capacity to perform border controls and hence enable facilitators to select those border types and sections that are perceived as weaker in detecting specific modi operandi. Budget cuts could also exacerbate the problem of corruption, thus increasing the vulnerability to illegal activities across the external borders. [***]
3. Situation at the external borders
[***] 3.2 Irregular migration
[***] Consistent with recent trends, the majority of detections [in 2011] were made in two hotspots of irregular migration, namely the Central Mediterranean area and the Eastern Mediterranean area accounting for 46% and 40% of the EU total, respectively, with additional effects detectable across Member States. [***]
Central Mediterranean route
[***] Initially, detections in the Central Mediterranean massively increased in early 2011, due to civil unrest erupting in the region, particularly in Tunisia, Libya and, to a lesser extent, Egypt. As a result, between January and March some 20 000 Tunisian migrants arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa. In the second quarter of 2011 the flow of Tunisian migrants was reduced by 75% following an accelerated repatriation agreement that was signed between Italy and Tunisia. … Since October 2011, the situation has eased somewhat due to democratic elections in Tunisia and the National Transitional Council successfully gaining control of Libya. However, the situation remains of concern, with sporadic arrivals from Tunisia now adding to arrivals from Egypt. There are also some concerns that the flow from Libya may resume. [***]
Eastern Mediterranean route
[***]Undeniably, the land border between Greece and Turkey is now an established illegal-entry point for irregular migrants and facilitation networks. [***]
Western Mediterranean route (sea, Ceuta and Melilla)
Irregular migration across the Western Mediterranean towards southern Spain was at a low level through most of 2010. However, pressure has been steadily increasing throughout 2011 to reach almost 8 500 detections, or 6% of the EU total. A wide range of migrants from North African and sub-Saharan countries were increasingly detected in this region. It is difficult to analyse the exact composition of the flow, as the number of migrants of unknown nationality on this route doubled compared to the previous quarter. This may indicate an increasing proportion of nationalities that are of very similar ethnicity and/or geographic origin.
The most common and increasingly detected were migrants of unknown nationality, followed by migrants local to the region, coming from Algeria and Morocco. There were also significant increases in migrants departing from further afield, namely countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Nigeria and Congo.
In 2011, two boats were intercepted in the waters of the Balearic Islands with Algerians on board, having departed from the village of Dellys (Algeria) near Algiers. However, most migrants prefer to target the southern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.
Western African route
The cooperation between Spain and key western African countries (Mauritania, Senegal and Mali), including bilateral agreements, is developing. They are one of the main reasons for the decrease in arrivals on the Western African route over the last years, as is the presence of patrolling assets near the African coast. Despite a slight increase at the end of 2010, detections on this route remained low in 2011, almost exclusively involving Moroccan migrants.[***]
3.3.4 Trafficking in human beings
[***] According to information received from Member States, the top nationalities detected as victims of human trafficking in the EU still include Brazilians, Chinese, Nigerians, Ukrainians and Vietnamese. In addition, victims from other third countries like Albania, Ghana, Morocco, Moldova, Egypt, Indian, the Philippines and the Dominican Republic have also been reported, illustrating the broad geographical distribution of the places of origin of victims. Most THB cases are related to illegal work and sexual exploitation in Europe.
In some cases, the distinction between the smuggling of migrants and THB is not easily established because some of the migrants are initially using the services of smugglers, but it is only later, once in the EU, that they may fall victim to THB. According to intelligence from JO Hermes, this is particularly the case for women embarking for illegal border-crossing from North Africa to the EU. Once in Europe, some of them are intimated by their smugglers and forced into prostitution.
A worrying trend reported during JO Indalo is the increasing number of detections of illegal border-crossing by minors and pregnant women (see Fig. 15), as criminal groups are taking advantage of an immigration law preventing their return. Although it is not clear whether these cases are related to THB, women and children are among the most vulnerable. Most of these women claimed to be from Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon and were between the fifth and ninth month of pregnancy. Minors were identified as being from Nigeria, Algeria and Congo.
Another modus operandi is for the criminal groups to convince their victim to apply for international protection. Such modus operandi was illustrated by the verdict of a Dutch court case in July 2011, when one suspect was convicted for trafficking of Nigerian female minors. The asylum procedure in the Netherlands was misused by the criminal organisation to get an accommodation for the victims. The victims were forced to sexual exploitation in several Member States. [***]
5. Conclusions
[***] 1. Risk of large and sustained numbers of illegal border-crossing at the external land and sea border with Turkey
The border between Greece and Turkey is very likely to remain in 2013 among the main areas of detections of illegal border crossing along the external border, at levels similar to those reported between 2008 and 2011, i.e. between 40 000 and 57 000 detections per annum. [***]
Depending on the political situation, migrants from the Middle East may increasingly join the flow. In addition, migrants from northern and western Africa, willing to illegally cross the EU external borders, are expected to increasingly take advantage of the Turkish visa policies, granting visas to a different set of nationalities than the EU, and the expansion of Turkish Airlines, to transit through the Turkish air borders to subsequently attempt to enter the EU illegally, either by air or through the neighbouring land or sea borders. As a result, border-control authorities will increasingly be confronted with a wider variety of nationalities, and probably also a greater diversity of facilitation networks, further complicating the tasks of law-enforcement authorities.
This risk is interlinked with the risk of criminal groups facilitating secondary movements and the risk of border-control authorities faced with large flows of people in search of international protection. [***]
3. Risk of renewed large numbers of illegal border-crossing at the southern maritime border
The likelihood of large numbers of illegal border-crossing in the southern maritime border remains very high, either in the form of sporadic episodes similar to those reported in 2011 or in sustained flows on specific routes originating from Africa.
Irregular-migration flows at the southern maritime borders are expected to be concentrated within one of the three known routes, i.e. the Central Mediterranean route, the Western Mediterranean route or the Western African route. Larger flows are more likely to develop on the Central Mediterranean route than on the other two routes, because of its proximity to Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, where political instability and high unemployment rate among young people is pushing people away from their countries and where there is evidence for well-organised facilitation networks.
On the Western Mediterranean route, the situation remains of concern because of the increasing trend of illegal border-crossing reported throughout 2011. According to reported detections, the situation on the Western African route has been mostly under control since 2008 but remains critically dependant of the implementation of effective return agreements between Spain and western African countries. Should these agreements be jeopardised, irregular migration pushed by high unemployment and poverty is likely to resume quickly despite increased surveillance.
The composition of the flow is dependent on the route and the countries of departure, but includes a large majority of western and North Africans. Mostly economically driven, irregular migration on these routes is also increasingly dependent on the humanitarian crisis in western and northern African countries. Facilitators are increasingly recruiting their candidates for illegal border-crossing from the group that are most vulnerable to THB, i.e. women and children, causing increasing challenges for border control authorities.
4. Risk of border-control authorities faced with large numbers of people in search of international protection
Given the currently volatile and unstable security situation in the vicinity of the EU, there is an increasing risk of political and humanitarian crises in third countries resulting in large numbers of people in search of international protection being displaced to the land and sea borders of the EU. The most likely pressures are linked to the situation in North Africa and the Middle East. In addition, the situation in western African countries like Nigeria may also trigger flows of people in search of international protection at the external borders. [***]
6. Risk of less effective border control due to changing operational environment
At the horizon of 2013, the operational environments of border control are likely to be affected, on the one hand, by austerity measures reducing resources, and on the other hand, by increased passenger flows triggering more reliance on technological equipment.
Austerity measures have been introduced throughout Member States in various forms since 2009. The most obvious examples are found in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and the Baltic countries. These measures could result in increasing disparities between Member States in their capacity to perform border controls and hence enabling facilitators to select border types and sections that are perceived as weaker in detecting specific modi operandi.
Budget cuts could also exacerbate the problem of corruption, increasing the vulnerability to illegal activities across the external borders.
Austerity measures will inevitably impact on the efficacy of border-control authorities in detecting and preventing a wide array of illegal activities at the borders, ranging from illegal border-crossing through smuggling of excise goods to THB. [***]
8. Risk of border-control authorities increasingly confronted with cross-border crimes and travellers with the intent to commit crime or terrorism within the EU
[***]There is an intelligence gap on terrorist groups that are active in the EU and their connections with irregular-migration networks. The absence of strategic knowledge on this issue at the EU level may constitute a vulnerability for internal security. Knowledge gained at the external borders can be shared with other law enforcement authorities to contribute narrowing this gap.”
Click here or on this link: Frontex_Annual_Risk_Analysis_2012, for 2012 Frontex ARA.
Click here for Frontex press statement on the 2012 ARA.
Frontex posted its 2012 Annual Risk Analysis (“ARA”) on its website on 20 April. (The 2012 ARA is also available on this link: Frontex_Annual_Risk_Analysis_2012.) The stated purpose of the ARA is “to plan the coordination of operational activities at the external borders of the EU in 2013. The ARA combines an assessment of threats and vulnerabilities at the EU external borders with an assessment of their impacts and consequences to enable the Agency to effectively balance and prioritise the allocation of resources against identified risks….”
Highlights include:
- 86% of the detections of irregular migrants in 2011 on the EU’s external borders occurred in two areas, the Central Mediterranean (46%) and the Eastern Mediterranean, primarily on the land border between Greece and Turkey (40%);
- The 64 000 detections in 2011 in the Central Mediterranean were obviously linked directly to the events in North Africa. The flow of Tunisians was reduced by 75% in the second quarter of 2011 as a result of an accelerated repatriation agreement that was signed between Italy and Tunisia;
- There is a very high likelihood of a renewed flow of irregular migrants at the southern maritime border. Larger flows, if they develop, are more likely to develop on the Central Mediterranean route because of proximity to Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt;
- Irregular migration in the Western Mediterranean towards Spain remains low, but has been steadily increasing and accounted for 6% of the EU’s detections in 2011;
- Cooperation between Spain and Mauritania, Senegal, and Mali, including bilateral agreements and the presence of patrolling assets near the African coast, are the main reasons for the decrease in arrivals on the Western African route in recent years. The situation remains critically dependent of the implementation of effective return agreements between Spain and western African countries. Should these agreements be jeopardised, irregular migration is likely to resume quickly;
- The land border between Greece and Turkey is now an established illegal-entry point for irregular migrants and facilitation networks;
- According to intelligence from JO Hermes, women embarking from North Africa to the EU are in particular danger of being intimidated by their smugglers and forced into prostitution;
- Austerity measures being implemented by Member States are likely to adversely affect operational environments of border control by reducing resources and by exacerbating corruption;
- There is an intelligence gap on terrorist groups active in the EU and their connections with irregular-migration networks. The absence of strategic knowledge may constitute a vulnerability for internal security.
“Executive Summary
[***] Looking ahead, the border between Greece and Turkey is very likely to remain one of the areas with the highest number of detections of illegal border-crossing along the external border. More and more migrants are expected to take advantage of Turkish visa policies and the expansion of Turkish Airlines, carrying more passengers to more destinations, to transit through Turkish air borders and subsequently attempt to enter the EU illegally. [Turkey reported an increase in 2011 of 26% in air passenger flow. See p. 12 of ARA.]
At the southern maritime borders large flows are most likely to develop on the Central Mediterranean route due to its proximity to Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, where political instability and the high unemployment rates are pushing people abroad and where there is evidence of facilitation networks also offering facilitation services to transiting migrants. [***]
There is an increasing risk of political and humanitarian crises arising in third countries which may result in the displacement of large numbers of people in search of international protection towards the land and sea borders of the EU. [***]
Various austerity measures introduced throughout Member States may result in increasing disparities between Member States in their capacity to perform border controls and hence enable facilitators to select those border types and sections that are perceived as weaker in detecting specific modi operandi. Budget cuts could also exacerbate the problem of corruption, thus increasing the vulnerability to illegal activities across the external borders. [***]
3. Situation at the external borders
[***] 3.2 Irregular migration
[***] Consistent with recent trends, the majority of detections [in 2011] were made in two hotspots of irregular migration, namely the Central Mediterranean area and the Eastern Mediterranean area accounting for 46% and 40% of the EU total, respectively, with additional effects detectable across Member States. [***]
Central Mediterranean route
[***] Initially, detections in the Central Mediterranean massively increased in early 2011, due to civil unrest erupting in the region, particularly in Tunisia, Libya and, to a lesser extent, Egypt. As a result, between January and March some 20 000 Tunisian migrants arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa. In the second quarter of 2011 the flow of Tunisian migrants was reduced by 75% following an accelerated repatriation agreement that was signed between Italy and Tunisia. … Since October 2011, the situation has eased somewhat due to democratic elections in Tunisia and the National Transitional Council successfully gaining control of Libya. However, the situation remains of concern, with sporadic arrivals from Tunisia now adding to arrivals from Egypt. There are also some concerns that the flow from Libya may resume. [***]
Eastern Mediterranean route
[***]Undeniably, the land border between Greece and Turkey is now an established illegal-entry point for irregular migrants and facilitation networks. [***]
Western Mediterranean route (sea, Ceuta and Melilla)
Irregular migration across the Western Mediterranean towards southern Spain was at a low level through most of 2010. However, pressure has been steadily increasing throughout 2011 to reach almost 8 500 detections, or 6% of the EU total. A wide range of migrants from North African and sub-Saharan countries were increasingly detected in this region. It is difficult to analyse the exact composition of the flow, as the number of migrants of unknown nationality on this route doubled compared to the previous quarter. This may indicate an increasing proportion of nationalities that are of very similar ethnicity and/or geographic origin.
The most common and increasingly detected were migrants of unknown nationality, followed by migrants local to the region, coming from Algeria and Morocco. There were also significant increases in migrants departing from further afield, namely countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Nigeria and Congo.
In 2011, two boats were intercepted in the waters of the Balearic Islands with Algerians on board, having departed from the village of Dellys (Algeria) near Algiers. However, most migrants prefer to target the southern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.
Western African route
The cooperation between Spain and key western African countries (Mauritania, Senegal and Mali), including bilateral agreements, is developing. They are one of the main reasons for the decrease in arrivals on the Western African route over the last years, as is the presence of patrolling assets near the African coast. Despite a slight increase at the end of 2010, detections on this route remained low in 2011, almost exclusively involving Moroccan migrants.[***]
3.3.4 Trafficking in human beings
[***] According to information received from Member States, the top nationalities detected as victims of human trafficking in the EU still include Brazilians, Chinese, Nigerians, Ukrainians and Vietnamese. In addition, victims from other third countries like Albania, Ghana, Morocco, Moldova, Egypt, Indian, the Philippines and the Dominican Republic have also been reported, illustrating the broad geographical distribution of the places of origin of victims. Most THB cases are related to illegal work and sexual exploitation in Europe.
In some cases, the distinction between the smuggling of migrants and THB is not easily established because some of the migrants are initially using the services of smugglers, but it is only later, once in the EU, that they may fall victim to THB. According to intelligence from JO Hermes, this is particularly the case for women embarking for illegal border-crossing from North Africa to the EU. Once in Europe, some of them are intimated by their smugglers and forced into prostitution.
A worrying trend reported during JO Indalo is the increasing number of detections of illegal border-crossing by minors and pregnant women (see Fig. 15), as criminal groups are taking advantage of an immigration law preventing their return. Although it is not clear whether these cases are related to THB, women and children are among the most vulnerable. Most of these women claimed to be from Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon and were between the fifth and ninth month of pregnancy. Minors were identified as being from Nigeria, Algeria and Congo.
Another modus operandi is for the criminal groups to convince their victim to apply for international protection. Such modus operandi was illustrated by the verdict of a Dutch court case in July 2011, when one suspect was convicted for trafficking of Nigerian female minors. The asylum procedure in the Netherlands was misused by the criminal organisation to get an accommodation for the victims. The victims were forced to sexual exploitation in several Member States. [***]
5. Conclusions
[***] 1. Risk of large and sustained numbers of illegal border-crossing at the external land and sea border with Turkey
The border between Greece and Turkey is very likely to remain in 2013 among the main areas of detections of illegal border crossing along the external border, at levels similar to those reported between 2008 and 2011, i.e. between 40 000 and 57 000 detections per annum. [***]
Depending on the political situation, migrants from the Middle East may increasingly join the flow. In addition, migrants from northern and western Africa, willing to illegally cross the EU external borders, are expected to increasingly take advantage of the Turkish visa policies, granting visas to a different set of nationalities than the EU, and the expansion of Turkish Airlines, to transit through the Turkish air borders to subsequently attempt to enter the EU illegally, either by air or through the neighbouring land or sea borders. As a result, border-control authorities will increasingly be confronted with a wider variety of nationalities, and probably also a greater diversity of facilitation networks, further complicating the tasks of law-enforcement authorities.
This risk is interlinked with the risk of criminal groups facilitating secondary movements and the risk of border-control authorities faced with large flows of people in search of international protection. [***]
3. Risk of renewed large numbers of illegal border-crossing at the southern maritime border
The likelihood of large numbers of illegal border-crossing in the southern maritime border remains very high, either in the form of sporadic episodes similar to those reported in 2011 or in sustained flows on specific routes originating from Africa.
Irregular-migration flows at the southern maritime borders are expected to be concentrated within one of the three known routes, i.e. the Central Mediterranean route, the Western Mediterranean route or the Western African route. Larger flows are more likely to develop on the Central Mediterranean route than on the other two routes, because of its proximity to Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, where political instability and high unemployment rate among young people is pushing people away from their countries and where there is evidence for well-organised facilitation networks.
On the Western Mediterranean route, the situation remains of concern because of the increasing trend of illegal border-crossing reported throughout 2011. According to reported detections, the situation on the Western African route has been mostly under control since 2008 but remains critically dependant of the implementation of effective return agreements between Spain and western African countries. Should these agreements be jeopardised, irregular migration pushed by high unemployment and poverty is likely to resume quickly despite increased surveillance.
The composition of the flow is dependent on the route and the countries of departure, but includes a large majority of western and North Africans. Mostly economically driven, irregular migration on these routes is also increasingly dependent on the humanitarian crisis in western and northern African countries. Facilitators are increasingly recruiting their candidates for illegal border-crossing from the group that are most vulnerable to THB, i.e. women and children, causing increasing challenges for border control authorities.
4. Risk of border-control authorities faced with large numbers of people in search of international protection
Given the currently volatile and unstable security situation in the vicinity of the EU, there is an increasing risk of political and humanitarian crises in third countries resulting in large numbers of people in search of international protection being displaced to the land and sea borders of the EU. The most likely pressures are linked to the situation in North Africa and the Middle East. In addition, the situation in western African countries like Nigeria may also trigger flows of people in search of international protection at the external borders. [***]
6. Risk of less effective border control due to changing operational environment
At the horizon of 2013, the operational environments of border control are likely to be affected, on the one hand, by austerity measures reducing resources, and on the other hand, by increased passenger flows triggering more reliance on technological equipment.
Austerity measures have been introduced throughout Member States in various forms since 2009. The most obvious examples are found in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and the Baltic countries. These measures could result in increasing disparities between Member States in their capacity to perform border controls and hence enabling facilitators to select border types and sections that are perceived as weaker in detecting specific modi operandi.
Budget cuts could also exacerbate the problem of corruption, increasing the vulnerability to illegal activities across the external borders.
Austerity measures will inevitably impact on the efficacy of border-control authorities in detecting and preventing a wide array of illegal activities at the borders, ranging from illegal border-crossing through smuggling of excise goods to THB. [***]
8. Risk of border-control authorities increasingly confronted with cross-border crimes and travellers with the intent to commit crime or terrorism within the EU
[***]There is an intelligence gap on terrorist groups that are active in the EU and their connections with irregular-migration networks. The absence of strategic knowledge on this issue at the EU level may constitute a vulnerability for internal security. Knowledge gained at the external borders can be shared with other law enforcement authorities to contribute narrowing this gap.”
Click here or on this link: Frontex_Annual_Risk_Analysis_2012, for 2012 Frontex ARA.
Click here for Frontex press statement on the 2012 ARA.
Tribunal 12: migrants’ rights abuses in Europe
http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/jenny-allsopp/tribunal-12-migrants%E2%80%99-rights-abuses-in-europe
On Saturday, Henning Mankell, Nawal El-Saadawi, Nuruddin Farah, Saskia Sassen and other renowned cultural figures from across the world joined migration experts in Stockholm and thousands gathered at public screenings from Belgrade to Paris, as Europe stood accused of “the continual violation of human rights and the systematic mistreatment of refugees, migrants and asylum seekers”. This mobilisation was inspired by Tribunal 12 ↑ , a public hearing organised by Shahrazad ↑ in collaboration with Kulturhuset ↑ and the Swedish Forum for Human Rights ↑ . Proceedings followed the model of the International War Crimes Tribunal ↑ set up by Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre in 1967. As the rain poured down on observers watching proceedings on a big screen outside, inside the mock court the jury set out to locate the moral, legal and political responsibilities for failures to Europe’s immigration policies, awaken Europe’s conscience and call for a change
It was clear from the offset that locating and assigning responsibility for such failures is a herculean task that requires both consideration of individual cases and questions of democratic governance and accountability. Who can be held responsible for the 16,136 migrant deaths ↑ that have been recorded in Europe since 1993? And just how many different actors does it take to break a man like Alain Hatungimana, the Burundian man refused asylum in the Netherlands who committed suicide ↑ in April this year leaving two children, aged 14 and 12, behind? These questions have no easy answers and reveal a complex interplay of power relations between global power structures, individual states, international bodies, private contractors and individuals.
In sessions on ‘Border Control’ and ‘The Asylum System’, experts explained how assigning responsibility for these deaths and other human rights abuses at a state level is increasingly difficult as power comes to operate through what Leanne Weber called a “series of displacements”. One type of displacement occurs through regional agreements such as the maritime “push-back” agreement ↑ between Italy and Libya, and the recently exposed ‘gentlemen’s agreement ↑ ’ between France and the United Kingdom governing the return of unaccompanied minors. This displacement logic also operates at the heart of Europe through the Dublin Regulation which allows EU member states to send asylum seekers entering their country back to their point of entry into Europe, often to face inhuman and degrading treatment. One 16 year old witness at the Tribunal spoke of receiving electric shocks as punishment for refusing to give his fingerprints in Greece, whilst Bahram from Afghanistan spoke of the brutal beatings at the hands of Bulgarian police: “I didn’t want to live anymore”.
In two recent landmark cases at the European Court of Human Rights, M.S.S. v. Belgium and Greece and Hirsi v. Italy, ground was certainly made in terms of holding states accountable for failures such as these. In M.S.S it was ruled that all states party to the Dublin Regulation have a duty to find out about the treatment to which the applicants would be exposed on return – electric shocks and beatings are not simply the responsibility of the receiving state. This chain of accountability to prevent cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment was echoed in judgement on Hirsi ↑ in the context of Italian “push back” operations to Libya.
At the institutional level, the gargantuan swelling of the operations of European’s border force, Frontex ↑ , raises new questions of accountability. As Liz Fekete pointed out, the lack of transparency of this organisation into which millions are pumped each year leaves us in a situation where we effectively have an illegitimate “European army” on our border, and evidence that Frontex is failing to live up to its promise to respect migrant rights have been well-documented. Some hope was raised in the Tribunal at the prospect of the European Ombudsman ↑ investigating how Frontex implements its fundamental rights obligations, but, as Gregor Noll pointed out, European institutions deal with an “elite”; states and their citizens must also act to tackle human rights abuses befalling Europe.
At the level of individual countries, it appears that little is being done to challenge the “displacement” of power from the hands of the state to a small group of private contractors who operate within an increasingly punitive framework ↑ . As explored in the recent ‘Borders of Punishment’ ↑ conference and elaborated during the ‘Detention and Deportation’ part of the Tribunal, with the privatisation of the detention-deportation regime as well as areas like housing for asylum seekers, the replacement of welfare with policing as the governing principle becomes heuristic. Saskia Sassen described such privatisation as a “cancer when it enters the kinds of domains that have to do with the governing of people”, something which infects us all and slowly kills off all manner of accountability. Liz Fekete reported how criticisms of suffering inflicted during deportation have simply led to more perverse mechanisms ↑ being devised to control deportees, including the substitution of diapers with urine absorbent seats and deportation helmets to reduce movement of the head and neck. In the United Kingdom, G4S, the company widely held responsible for the death of refused Angolan asylum seeker Jimmy Mubenga ↑ who died from suffocation due to excessive restraint, has recently been awarded the contract ↑ to run housing for some of the most vulnerable in Britain.
But why is such solidarity so powerful, and why
is it so subversive in its manner of holding to account the powers that be?
Solidarity on the part of citizens ultimately threatens what Bridgette Anderson
referred to as the “deportability” of undocumented migrants through injecting
humanity into a system that relies on Kafkaesque bureaucracy. Perhaps most
importantly, as Jane Freeman has suggested ↑ , such expressions of
solidarity challenge the state’s position as the sole regulator of access into
and out of the political community.
The imperative for embarking on this challenge is huge. At its heart is a crucial question, not just about protecting the integrity of our democratic system and the upholding of human rights, but, to cite Nuruddin Farah, how we experience our “common humanity”. In their final judgement ↑ the jury stressed the need to recognise the equal value of human life, and advocated that whilst we point the finger we need to reach out our own hand too. The alternative is dehumanising for all of us, a state of apartheid sketched by Bridgette Anderson where Italian divers are mandated to dive down to “rescue” the teddy bear ↑ of a girl on the Costa Concordia while two migrant babies are left to die at sea ↑ .
On Saturday, Henning Mankell, Nawal El-Saadawi, Nuruddin Farah, Saskia Sassen and other renowned cultural figures from across the world joined migration experts in Stockholm and thousands gathered at public screenings from Belgrade to Paris, as Europe stood accused of “the continual violation of human rights and the systematic mistreatment of refugees, migrants and asylum seekers”. This mobilisation was inspired by Tribunal 12 ↑ , a public hearing organised by Shahrazad ↑ in collaboration with Kulturhuset ↑ and the Swedish Forum for Human Rights ↑ . Proceedings followed the model of the International War Crimes Tribunal ↑ set up by Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre in 1967. As the rain poured down on observers watching proceedings on a big screen outside, inside the mock court the jury set out to locate the moral, legal and political responsibilities for failures to Europe’s immigration policies, awaken Europe’s conscience and call for a change
It was clear from the offset that locating and assigning responsibility for such failures is a herculean task that requires both consideration of individual cases and questions of democratic governance and accountability. Who can be held responsible for the 16,136 migrant deaths ↑ that have been recorded in Europe since 1993? And just how many different actors does it take to break a man like Alain Hatungimana, the Burundian man refused asylum in the Netherlands who committed suicide ↑ in April this year leaving two children, aged 14 and 12, behind? These questions have no easy answers and reveal a complex interplay of power relations between global power structures, individual states, international bodies, private contractors and individuals.
In sessions on ‘Border Control’ and ‘The Asylum System’, experts explained how assigning responsibility for these deaths and other human rights abuses at a state level is increasingly difficult as power comes to operate through what Leanne Weber called a “series of displacements”. One type of displacement occurs through regional agreements such as the maritime “push-back” agreement ↑ between Italy and Libya, and the recently exposed ‘gentlemen’s agreement ↑ ’ between France and the United Kingdom governing the return of unaccompanied minors. This displacement logic also operates at the heart of Europe through the Dublin Regulation which allows EU member states to send asylum seekers entering their country back to their point of entry into Europe, often to face inhuman and degrading treatment. One 16 year old witness at the Tribunal spoke of receiving electric shocks as punishment for refusing to give his fingerprints in Greece, whilst Bahram from Afghanistan spoke of the brutal beatings at the hands of Bulgarian police: “I didn’t want to live anymore”.
In two recent landmark cases at the European Court of Human Rights, M.S.S. v. Belgium and Greece and Hirsi v. Italy, ground was certainly made in terms of holding states accountable for failures such as these. In M.S.S it was ruled that all states party to the Dublin Regulation have a duty to find out about the treatment to which the applicants would be exposed on return – electric shocks and beatings are not simply the responsibility of the receiving state. This chain of accountability to prevent cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment was echoed in judgement on Hirsi ↑ in the context of Italian “push back” operations to Libya.
At the institutional level, the gargantuan swelling of the operations of European’s border force, Frontex ↑ , raises new questions of accountability. As Liz Fekete pointed out, the lack of transparency of this organisation into which millions are pumped each year leaves us in a situation where we effectively have an illegitimate “European army” on our border, and evidence that Frontex is failing to live up to its promise to respect migrant rights have been well-documented. Some hope was raised in the Tribunal at the prospect of the European Ombudsman ↑ investigating how Frontex implements its fundamental rights obligations, but, as Gregor Noll pointed out, European institutions deal with an “elite”; states and their citizens must also act to tackle human rights abuses befalling Europe.
At the level of individual countries, it appears that little is being done to challenge the “displacement” of power from the hands of the state to a small group of private contractors who operate within an increasingly punitive framework ↑ . As explored in the recent ‘Borders of Punishment’ ↑ conference and elaborated during the ‘Detention and Deportation’ part of the Tribunal, with the privatisation of the detention-deportation regime as well as areas like housing for asylum seekers, the replacement of welfare with policing as the governing principle becomes heuristic. Saskia Sassen described such privatisation as a “cancer when it enters the kinds of domains that have to do with the governing of people”, something which infects us all and slowly kills off all manner of accountability. Liz Fekete reported how criticisms of suffering inflicted during deportation have simply led to more perverse mechanisms ↑ being devised to control deportees, including the substitution of diapers with urine absorbent seats and deportation helmets to reduce movement of the head and neck. In the United Kingdom, G4S, the company widely held responsible for the death of refused Angolan asylum seeker Jimmy Mubenga ↑ who died from suffocation due to excessive restraint, has recently been awarded the contract ↑ to run housing for some of the most vulnerable in Britain.
The case of Jimmy Mubenga also raises
another question about accountability that comes back to the role of
individuals. As Nicholas De Genova pointed out at the Tribunal, “we can sit
with a clean conscious and accuse the powers that be, or we can act with the
migrants and participate in the creation of a new Europe”. In other words,
unlike passengers on the plane with Mubenga, we can choose to intervene, we can
choose to act. That citizens learn from the force of migrants’ own
movements is a crucial part of this struggle. The jury’s
verdict ↑
is in working progress, but at its core appears the need to both push for the
eradication of “weak components” in existing practice through engaging with a
wide range of alternatives and also holding those in power to account by
leading through example: “these issues are too important to leave it to
governments and specialists” they declared, “we need to activate that vibrant
active European civil society around the kind of issues presented today”. Arne
Ruth made a specific reference to the ‘secret’ Rosengrenska clinic ↑ that provides free
healthcare to undocumented migrants in his native Sweden in spite of the law in
his recognition that this may have to be “based on civil disobedience like the
doctors are doing, by simply not accepting the conditions given here.”
Ruth’s final
statement is an important one for it highlights the potential for migrants’
rights defence to become an act of civil disobedience in the context of an
unjust and increasingly securitised immigration and asylum regime. There is evidence ↑ that efforts to provide even vital
services like healthcare are being increasingly prohibited or even
criminalised, and the Europe-wide trend of restricting access to detention
centres by NGOs and visitors can certainly be read in this light.
The imperative for embarking on this challenge is huge. At its heart is a crucial question, not just about protecting the integrity of our democratic system and the upholding of human rights, but, to cite Nuruddin Farah, how we experience our “common humanity”. In their final judgement ↑ the jury stressed the need to recognise the equal value of human life, and advocated that whilst we point the finger we need to reach out our own hand too. The alternative is dehumanising for all of us, a state of apartheid sketched by Bridgette Anderson where Italian divers are mandated to dive down to “rescue” the teddy bear ↑ of a girl on the Costa Concordia while two migrant babies are left to die at sea ↑ .
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)