AYS Daily Digest 23/9/21: Securitisation in all pores of the border and reception system
Detructive cleanups in the north of France continue / Closed up on Samos / Greece and Denmark draw the common line on migration with emphasis on the need to protect borders and strengthen deportation as well as return procedures / A rise in the number of people crossing the English Channel / recommended reads & more
FEATURED
Today we want to give visibility to the ongoing practices by the officials in France, as the activist group Human Rights Observers, denouncing the violence and mistreatment of people on the move in the north of France, have reported yet another violent expulsion and removal of all things used by the people in the area.
The ignoring of the underlying issues, and the intentional destruction of people’s belongings is done with the intention to deprive the people of all options, to dehumanize and illegalize their existence in the area, to discourage them from moving on and seeking a new life for themselves in the only way that is still at their disposition, given the securitisation policies, fallible asylum systems and poor access to services granted to those seeking international protection.
This morning at Grande-Synthe: mass expulsion from the living quarters of nearly 800 exiled people, under the watchful eye of the sub-prefect of Dunkirk. All the shelters were destroyed. We denounce the violence of this operation and the wandering of these people.
Carried out under the guise of a sheltering operation, the entire land was subject to the destruction of shelters by backhoe loaders and the seizure of the personal property of exiled people, leaving behind shoes, toothbrushes, kids toys in mud.
We want to denounce the violence perpetrated by the cleaning agents of Groupe Ramery: some equipped with big knives slashed tarpaulins and tents, those at the controls of the backhoe loaders put the lives of people in danger because of their inappropriate behavior.
A large cordon of CRS prevented access to people wanting to collect their belongings. For nearly 800 people, only 4 shelter buses were present. 70 people went up, without knowing their destinations. The 700 others only made more precarious.
AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN
It seems that the Pakistani authorities and the UNHCR are now updating the identity cards of more than 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees. All these people seem to have been completely forgotten by the Agency given that the last time such a process took place was 10 years ago, as InfoMigrants reported. This time, the people will be issued new smartcards that can hold biometric data. It’s supposed to “better enable refugees to access critical services, such as health and education”, but, needless to say, we are not the only ones with a lot of questions on that.
SEARCH AND RESCUE AT SEA
9 bodies have been washed up on the shores of the Canaries after the shipwreck of small boats, a local source from Almeria reported. The last victim has washed up on a beach in Carboneras.
It is reported that 39 people arrived at La Restinga, El Pinar (El Hierro), in a boat and Salvamento Marítimo rescued another 71 people some 10 km off the Herrera coast.
A group of 125 people was reportedly pushed back from the Spanish enclave of Peñón di Vélez de la Gomera to Morocco, according to various Spanish NGOs.
In the meantime, Open Arms’ Astral is going back to Barcelona.
GREECE
Closing up the already closed camps turned detention centres
Journalist Franziska Grillmeier reports that on Lesvos even translators of NGOs and patients, as well as people with lawyer appointments have daily difficulties getting out, despite authorization. So, while tourists can fly in easily to islands, the people stuck in camps depend on the (good)will of police.
Reportedly, if you don’t have a permit to be outside the camp, you can get fined up to 300€, even though you may have been let out by the RIC military staff earlier.
There are officially now only 4 groups in camp allowed outside a day, for ~ 3h a day, 1x a week.
Samos
MSF reports on the situation people in the Samos camp are facing:
To date, 270 people have been transferred to the new center Zervos of Samos. Our teams have started communicating with patients by phone, since at the moment the exit from the center is not allowed. Some report feeling trapped and scared.
We remain extremely concerned about the impact of this environment / prison on people’s mental health and especially on our patients with mental health disorders. We are creating a new clinic to ensure that we are close to our patients.
In the last 5 years, we have seen how the restraint system endangers people’s health and mental health. New centers, such as the one inaugurated in Samos are even more restrictive than KYT Moria and Vathy. This has to stop!
Additional discrimination stemming from the racist and anti-migrant policies of the state
4997 women in the mainland RICs, of which many are from Afghanistan, have no access to formal education, informal education, or any other social rights, trapped behind concrete walls waiting for asylum.
Also, alerting to the fact that legal permanent residents and law-abiding tax paying citizens are also being pushed out by the racist, xenophobic and antimigrant policies of the Greek government.
Although having worked for up to 20 years in school cleaning, migrant workers have been excluded from Greek resident privileges, due to an ND provision from 2020, which is based on Greek citizenship, and requires those who do not have the relevant documents to present a certificate of Greek proficiency.
Last year, the issue was resolved with an amendment in December, but the problem returned this year, with migrant cleaners protesting again and again outside the Interior Ministry, the media report.
ITALY
As many people of foreign background who are legally residing in Italy were excluded from accessing important social benefits, now 18 organisations sent out a letter determined to change this reality.
In view of the imminent elaboration of the implementing decrees on the implementation of the single universal allowance and of the ongoing reform on Citizenship Income, but also with respect to the elaboration of the National Plan for the family, eighteen associations reported to the Department of the Family of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and to the Ministries of Equal Opportunities and of Labor the critical points that create unequal treatment between Italian and foreign people in access to the measure of Citizenship Income and to the future Single Universal Check.
POLAND
Calls for Poland to let the Afghan refugees stranded at the border with Belarus continue, as the country reinforces their border regime stemming from the overall EU policies put in practice by the Frontex Agency. The international agencies of the UN said they are “shocked” by the recent deaths. That is, however, in no way concrete or helpful news coming from the international organisations that are likely the only stakeholders who could advocate strongly at the highest level for things to change in the way people are being treated at the border.
No condolences will help those possibly facing the same tragedies as we speak, so we hope that there will be some clear (joint, if needed) demands and action from the UN agencies side, so that the mistakes they let exacerbate in other areas like Bosnia and Herzegovina don’t repeat here.
DENMARK
Guard the border and strengthen deportation and return procedures
This is the intention behind a common stance that both Greece and Denmark hold at the moment, as it was confirmed during the visit of the Greek Minister of Immigration and Asylum Notis Mitarakis, in Copenhagen, and his meeting with his Danish counterpart, Mattias Tesfaye. They insist on “external dimension of Immigration, the need for strict guarding of European borders and the issue of deportation and return of those who are not entitled to international protection.”
At the same time, they fully agreed on the provision of EU support to countries of origin and transit, the need to strengthen returns through the establishment of a central European mechanism and at the same time the need to strengthen the role of Frontex.
The official release says that after his visit at the Danish National Identity Center, the Pre-Departure Returns Center in Sjælsmark and the Returns Service, Mitarakis “noted as a positive fact that all responsibilities related to returns and integration are under the jurisdiction of the Danish Ministry, and announced that during the next period a team from the Directorate of Returns and Revocations of the Asylum Service of the Greek Ministry for Migration and Asylum, will travel to Denmark so as to exchange best (sic!) practices.”
Having only the idea of borders and their closing off in mind, the Danish Minister of Immigration and Integration supported Greece’s decision to declare Turkey a safe third country (which comes as a no surprise given that Denmark said Syria is safe to return), calling on the Mediterranean countries to follow the same policy as neighboring third countries, which hopefully nobody will listen to, staying true to the recent poor communication between the Member states.
UK
A surge in arrivals, while the UK intends to break international law
The British media are reporting that more people have crossed the Channel in small boats so far in September than in any other previous month. According the those working to prevent crossings, there have been nearly 300 arrests and 65 convictions related to small boat crossings.
The infamous “anti-refugee Bill”, apart from having those who facilitate crossings will face a maximum of life imprisonment, also intends to make it a criminal offence to knowingly arrive in the UK without permission, in spite of the fact the UN refugee agency already confirmed that decision put into practice would mean breaking international law.
The Home Office is now conceding three out of every ten immigration appeals before the hearing, a senior immigration judge has said. That basically means that the appellant gets their relief at a far earlier stage.
However, the actual hearings have been conducted over video link due to the pandemic. As result of this, and an abortive switch to deciding many cases without a hearing at all, the First-tier Tribunal disposed of over 20,000 appeals in the pandemic-scarred financial year 2020/21. That is down from 50,000 the year before, but not bad going in the circumstances, it is reported.
Read more in our “worth reading” section.
Events & general information
An important thing to keep in mind, and follow up
Migreurop webinar
Topic: Racism(s) & migration policies
- The Entanglement through History and Geography
- Struggle practices at the intersection of anti-racism and migrant rights”
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ECRE Press Review is out:
WORTH READING
- A piece explaining how the big tech relies on the victims of economic collapse
- The circumstances around which the newest version of the EU Migration and Asylum Pact was formed and how it not only hasn’t fulfilled any of its promises, but has actively inflamed and worsened the situation, and why it will continue to do exactly the opposite of what it was touted to do by the MPs who contributed to it:
- On what constitutes as a “serious crime” enough for humanitarian protection, no matter when it was granted, to be revoked:
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