#sans-papiers

En Italie, #Matteo_Salvini, nouveau Ministre de l’intérieur, annonce une hausse des expulsions de clandestins

▻https://www.rts.ch/play/tv/19h30/video/en-italie-matteo-salvini-nouveau-ministre-de-linterieur-annonce-une-hausse-des-e

Come funzionano i rimpatri e cos’è emerso in due anni di controlli

Nel 2015 i rimpatri di cittadini stranieri espulsi perché secondo la legge erano in Italia irregolarmente sono stati 5.505. Nel 2018 – fino al 31 ottobre – sono stati 5.306, circa 530 persone al mese.

Nonostante un investimento cospicuo del governo italiano in questo tipo di procedure e l’intenzione più volte annunciata d’incrementarle, il numero delle persone rimpatriate rimane piuttosto basso e in diminuzione rispetto agli anni precedenti.

I motivi sono diversi e riguardano i costi delle operazioni e la mancanza di accordi bilaterali di riammissione con i paesi di origine, se si fa eccezione di alcuni come la Tunisia, il Marocco, la Nigeria.

L’integrità della persona

Dai primi mesi del 2016, l’ufficio del Garante nazionale dei diritti delle persone detenute o private della libertà personale monitora i voli di rimpatrio perché siano rispettati i diritti di chi è coinvolto in queste operazioni. “L’integrità della persona e la sua dignità sono il perno intorno al quale gira il nostro sistema”, dice il Garante nazionale Mauro Palma, presentando al senato il rapporto su due anni di attività.

“Nella nostra attività abbiamo cercato di avere uno sguardo critico su operazioni spesso problematiche, che mettono in gioco la sofferenza esistenziale delle persone”, continua Palma. “Quello che a noi preme è che siano rispettati i diritti fondamentali anche in una situazione in cui la persona è allontanata dal territorio nazionale”, aggiunge. Per spiegare il sistema di garanzie giuridiche che sono fondamentali in ogni democrazia, Palma evoca il caso della nave Diciotti della guardia costiera italiana che in agosto non è stata autorizzata a entrare nel porto di Catania dal ministero dell’interno per diversi giorni. Il garante all’epoca aveva definito “inaccettabile” la situazione.

“Ci sono state molte polemiche negli ultimi tempi, ma per noi la ragione giuridica ha il primato sulla ragione politica”, conclude Palma, che con il suo ufficio ha monitorato nei due anni passati 22 voli di rimpatrio forzato organizzati tramite charter, di cui 15 per la Tunisia e sette per la Nigeria. Non sono ancora cominciati, invece, i monitoraggi sui voli di linea.

L’Italia era stata richiamata dall’Unione europea nel 2014 per non essersi adeguata alla direttiva rimpatri 115 del 2008 e per non avere adottato un sistema di controllo e monitoraggio dei voli di rimpatrio. Nel 2016 il sistema è stato istituito ed è stato affidato al Garante nazionale, che si avvale della collaborazione dei garanti regionali, in particolare per monitorare le fasi precedenti alla partenza nei Centri di permanenza per il rimpatrio (Cpr) o le procedure durante gli scali aeroportuali.

Come funzionano i rimpatri
Appena il Garante nazionale ha notizia di un volo di rimpatrio decide senza preavviso se operare dei controlli, come è successo il 10 gennaio 2018 quando ha deciso di monitorare un charter organizzato da Frontex che sarebbe partito qualche giorno dopo da Roma diretto a Lagos, in Nigeria, con circa 50 cittadini nigeriani a bordo, tra cui cinque cittadini nigeriani espulsi dal Belgio e un altro espulso dalla Svizzera.

Il garante regionale della Puglia, Pietro Rossi, con due collaboratori è andato al Cpr di Bari il 17 gennaio alle 17 per esaminare tutti i fascicoli delle 25 persone in lista per il rimpatrio. Poiché era emerso che due persone in procinto di essere espulse non avevano ancora una situazione definitiva, il responsabile del Cpr ha deciso di sospendere il loro rimpatrio. Alle 21 è stata annunciata la partenza per 24 persone, ma senza specificare la destinazione finale del loro viaggio.

Dopo alcuni controlli di sicurezza, gli effetti personali che erano stati sequestrati al momento dell’ingresso nel Cpr sono stati messi all’interno di sacchetti di plastica di solito usati per l’immondizia, e su ogni sacchetto è stato affissa un’etichetta di carta con una scritta identificativa. I migranti non erano stati informati che i loro averi sarebbero stati consegnati ai poliziotti, per questo durante la fase preparatoria c’è stata molta tensione.

Alle persone che erano in procinto di partire erano stati consegnati anche dei panini per il viaggio, ma senza informarli che sarebbe stato l’unico pasto distribuito per le successive sette ore: molti di loro l’hanno consumato subito, rimanendo a digiuno per le ore successive. I 24 cittadini nigeriani sono stati fatti salire su un pullman che li ha portati al Cpr di Ponte Galeria, a Roma, dove sono arrivati alle 9 del giorno successivo. A Ponte Galeria intanto tre donne sono state informate della loro imminente partenza: una di loro era una richiedente asilo in fase di ricorso. Quando la donna ha detto al Garante di aver fatto ricorso e ha mostrato la certificazione, il funzionario ha segnalato la situazione ai responsabili del Cpr e ha insistito perché si sospendesse il rimpatrio per non incorrere in una violazione dei diritti fondamentali.

La donna era infatti molto giovane e proveniva dallo stato di Edo, da dove provengono molte delle donne nigeriane vittime di tratta. Anche per questo motivo il Garante ha raccomandato ai funzionari di considerare una sospensione. All’aeroporto di Fiumicino intanto era arrivato il charter affittato da Frontex con a bordo alcuni nigeriani trasferiti dal Cpr di Torino e gli altri arrivati dal Belgio e dalla Svizzera.

Il volo è decollato da Roma Fiumicino intorno alle 13, con momenti di tensione. Sul volo sono state imbarcate 38 persone, cittadini nigeriani espulsi dall’Italia, di cui 36 uomini. Dieci provenivano dal Cpr di Torino, 24 da Bari, due da Brindisi e due donne dal Cpr di Roma, mentre altri cinque – tre uomini e due donne – erano stati espulsi dal Belgio, e uno dalla Svizzera. Sull’aereo erano presenti 115 poliziotti di scorta, due medici e due infermieri. Tutto il personale impiegato nell’operazione a bordo dell’aereo non era armato, né in divisa. E non erano presenti né interpreti né mediatori culturali.

Tre forme di espulsione
Quando un cittadino straniero soggiorna in maniera irregolare sul territorio italiano può essere espulso in tre modi diversi: attraverso il ritorno volontario, attraverso il rimpatrio con mezzi propri o infine attraverso l’accompagnamento coatto nel paese di origine. Secondo la direttiva europea 115/2008 sui rimpatri, dovrebbero essere favoriti i ritorni volontari, ma in realtà quasi tutti gli irregolari sono espulsi con un foglio di via che gli ordina di lasciare il paese con mezzi propri nell’arco di pochi giorni.

Gli accompagnamenti coatti nel paese di origine sono pochi perché arrivano a costare anche ottomila euro per persona e perché per ogni rimpatriato devono essere impiegati almeno due agenti di sicurezza. I rimpatri forzati avvengono di solito usando dei voli commerciali o con dei voli charter ad hoc, in alcuni casi organizzati da Frontex. I voli charter partono da Roma, da Palermo o da Torino, si tratta di aerei noleggiati dal ministero dell’interno che sono impiegati per questo tipo di operazioni. Con i voli charter monitorati dal garante sono state rimpatriate collettivamente un minimo di undici persone e un massimo di 43 sullo stesso volo.

I voli per la Nigeria partono da Roma e arrivano a Lagos, mentre i voli per la Tunisia partono da Roma e fanno un primo scalo a Palermo o a Lampedusa, poi sempre uno scalo a Palermo per un colloquio con il console prima di arrivare ad Hammamet. Il prefetto Massimo Bontempi, direttore della direzione centrale immigrazione e polizia di frontiera, ha detto che sul territorio nazionale, a partire dal 1 gennaio 2018 fino al 4 novembre 2018, la polizia ha individuato 28.659 immigrati irregolari: 6.820 sono stati respinti alla frontiera, mentre 5.323 sono stati rimpatriati in maniera forzata (669 casi sono stati monitorati dal garante). In tutto nel 2018 ci sono state 1.100 operazioni di rimpatrio, di cui 63 con voli charter, in cui sono stati impiegati 7.261 operatori. Dati in linea con le operazioni condotte nello stesso periodo dell’anno precedente (2017).

Le critiche e le raccomandazioni del garante
Il Garante ha da poco inviato alla polizia un rapporto che raccoglie le osservazioni e le raccomandazioni formulate in seguito alle operazioni di rimpatrio monitorate tra il dicembre del 2017 e il giugno del 2018. In particolare ha riscontrato una mancanza di comunicazione con le persone che subiranno il rimpatrio, e l’assenza sui voli di mediatori e traduttori in grado di informarle durante le diverse fasi del viaggio.

Inoltre non sempre la partenza è comunicata in anticipo, come invece dovrebbe avvenire, in modo che il migrante possa avvertire i familiari e gli avvocati o comunque persone di fiducia. Queste comunicazioni dovrebbero riguardare tutte le diverse fasi del viaggio, anche gli eventuali scali. Le persone soggette a rimpatrio dovrebbero essere informate delle “diverse fasi del viaggio, dei tempi di permanenza negli scali, del luogo e l’orario di arrivo, della possibilità di utilizzo di misure coercitive in caso di necessità”.

Secondo il Garante, il ricorso a misure coercitive nel corso delle operazioni di rimpatrio forzato dovrebbe essere solo una “misura di ultima istanza” e “solo in casi di stretta necessità per coloro che rifiutano o si oppongono all’allontanamento, o ancora in caso di serio pericolo di fuga o di danno all’integrità fisica della persona o di terze persone”. Dovrebbe quindi essere evitato l’uso sistematico della coercizione.

Il Garante raccomanda di eseguire visite mediche su chi sarà rimpatriato, soprattutto se il viaggio deve svolgersi in ore notturne e prevede diversi spostamenti. Deve essere accertata la sua età, soprattutto quando esiste il dubbio che possa trattarsi di un minorenne, poiché questo caso si rischia di “violare i diritti fondamentali dei minori garantiti dalle convenzioni internazionali”.
In particolare si dovrebbe applicare la legge Zampa sui minori stranieri non accompagnati e andrebbero messe in atto tutte le garanzie a questo riguardo.

Il Garante chiede di incoraggiare il rimpatrio volontario e di fare ricorso ai rimpatri forzati solo in via eccezionale, molto costosi sul piano materiale e umano e ad alto rischio di violazione dei diritti fondamentali.

Il Garante ha chiesto di monitorare le persone rimpatriate anche dopo l’arrivo nel paese di origine e a questo scopo ha sottolineato la necessità di creare una rete internazionale di organizzazioni che possano compiere questi controlli anche una volta “che il rimpatriato è sceso dalla scaletta dell’aereo”.

▻https://www.internazionale.it/bloc-notes/annalisa-camilli/2018/11/13/rimpatri-forzati-garante-monitoraggio
#statistiques #chiffres #2015 #2016 #2017 #2018

►https://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/europe/migrants/c-est-de-l-intimidation-a-75-ans-leopold-jacquens-va-connaitre-son-sixi

Faut-il être un héros pour être traité avec #dignité ?

Mamoudou Gassama, jeune malien sans papiers ayant escaladé un immeuble pour sauver un enfant, a été reçu par Emmanuel Macron ce matin. Le Président de la République a annoncé sa future #naturalisation. Raphaël Glucksmann estime que cet acte doit nous permettre d’éclairer les problèmes du traitement des migrants et ne doit pas les masquer derrière un #écran_de_fumée.

https://www.nouveau-magazine-litteraire.com/hubfs/000_15E9LZ%20%281%29.jpg?t=1527515298802#.jpg

Naturalisation de M. Gassama – Emmanuel Macron mis en examen pour #délit_de_solidarité

Coupable d’avoir régularisé le sans-papiers Mamoudou Gassama, le président de la République a été mis en examen pour délit de solidarité.

▻http://www.legorafi.fr/2018/05/29/naturalisation-de-m-gassama-emmanuel-macron-mis-en-examen-pour-delit-de-sol

Le dessin est très bien senti. Merci @cdb_77
#opportunisme #compassion_a_geometrie_variable #hypocrisie #guerre_aux_pauvres

Vu du Burkina Faso. Mamoudou Gassama : pour un héros, combien de méprisés ?

L’acte héroïque de ce jeune Malien lui vaut la reconnaissance de la France et une naturalisation. Ce journal burkinabé souligne la nécessité de ne pas oublier les autres migrants qui sont encore confrontés à la violence des politiques migratoires.

https://www.courrierinternational.com/sites/ci_master/files/styles/image_original_1280/public/assets/images/gassama.png?itok=kUq0Cdiu#.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/6UgeFMh.jpg

▻https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156835623106162&set=a.10151022298871162.451456.509186161&

Autres commentaires ici :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/697497

Pour un héros, combien d’humiliés ?

Violaine Carrère estime que le geste d’Emmanuel Macron envers Mamoudou Gassama dit la chose suivante : on n’est bienvenu en France qu’à condition de le mériter. Et qu’en décorer un permet de souligner que les autres sont indésirables.

▻https://www.nouveau-magazine-litteraire.com/idees/heros-humilies-mamoudou-gassama

cc @monolecte pour l’escalade.

Ce que fait ce type est juste incroyable à la fois de courage d’abnégation et d’intelligence.

Ce que font désormais femmes et hommes politiques avec lui est à gerber.

Oui, en tant que grimpeuse, j’ai été soufflée par l’intelligence de ce gars !
Il faudrait proposer à Petzl de l’embaucher.

Bon, j’ai proposé à Petzl de l’embaucher !

Mes souvenirs d’escalade sont un peu lointains, mais il me semble tout de même qu’il est un peu fou de sauter (faire un jeté ) pour atteindre sa prise, (la rembarde de chaque balcon à chaque étage), surtout sans être assuré. C’est un peu au delà du téméraire.

Ce qui est curieux sur les deux ou trois vidéos que j’ai vues de cet exploit c’est comment le voisin ne parvient pas à atteindre le môme et que la solution vienne d’en bas (à mon avis tout un symbole, mais sans relation précise des faits je ne m’y risquerais pas)

Puisqu’on ne peut pas mettre des enfants à tous les balcons pour tester si les #sans-papiers méritent d’être régularisés, et puisque le passage de la Méditerranée en canot ou celui des Alpes à pied ne semble pas être une épreuve suffisante, je pense qu’il faut rétablir les jeux du cirque en France, avec lions et tout et tout...

#Mamoudou_Gassama #migrants #titres_de_séjour #immigration #préfecture #régularisation #sans_papiers #hypocrisie

Aux migrants extraordinaires la patrie reconnaissante... Et aux autres ?
Par Balla Fofana
▻http://www.liberation.fr/france/2018/05/28/aux-migrants-extraordinaires-la-patrie-reconnaissante-et-aux-autres_16548

Mamoudou Gassama est un héros. C’est le Spiderman de Paris. Il a sauvé un enfant de 4 ans. Aux migrants extraordinaires, la patrie est reconnaissante. Derrière la dictature de l’émotion choisie, derrière la belle histoire déculpabilisante, derrière la leçon d’humanisme, que reste-t-il ? Que dalle. Cachez cette lèpre sans visage que la France ne saurait voir.

Si vous êtes un exilé et que vous avez bravé la faim, la soif, si vous avez brûlé les frontières sans que votre carcasse ne s’échoue en Tunisie ou en Libye, si vous n’êtes pas allé remplir la panse insatiable de la Méditerranée, si vous venez d’atteindre l’Europe, encore un effort. Vous n’êtes qu’en demi-finale ! Vous n’êtes qu’à un acte de bravoure. Vous n’êtes qu’à une marche de l’exploit. Qu’à un coup d’éclat de rejoindre les modèles républicains que sont Lassana Bathily et Mamoudou Gassama. Vous n’êtes qu’à une prouesse d’être le Omar Sy des « migrants économiques » – qui ne peuvent pas prétendre au statut de réfugié.

Attention. Seuls les plus forts obtiennent le sésame. Pour les autres, vous serez confinés sur un bout de trottoir, rongés par le désespoir, l’ennui et la tristesse. Consumés par l’impossibilité d’un retour bredouille au pays. La mort plutôt que l’anathème. Vous autres les riens. Vautrés dans le bitume, psalmodiant une prière incertaine à un néon blafard qui fait office de lune. Vous les statistiques, les sans-nom, les numéros. Sur le boulevard des rêves brisés, l’Histoire vous toise, la chronique griffonne des traces indistinctes de votre traversée du monde. Vous les silenciés, les minorés, l’obscurité et les abysses vous siéent à merveille. Formez une armée de réserve, faites la queue pour l’African Dream. Attendez votre Koh-Lanta. Fantasmez de votre épreuve du poteau. Vous serez super-héros ou rien.

@mad_meg Ben oui, les nouvelles épreuves à braver pour l’obtention de la citoyenneté française viennent de sortir et elles sont très difficiles

C’est l’épreuve pratique après les formulaires « d’identité nationale » de Foutriquet 1er et Hortefion.

@intempestive Oui, c’est aussi l’idée que je me fais de cette situation. Les deux personnes voisines sont apparemment dans l’incapacité de faire quoi que ce soit, ce qui, soit dit en passant, doit être une situation épouvantable à vivre.

un texte qui a pas mal de défauts mais donne quelques perspectives sur le sujet
►http://www.slate.fr/story/162342/france-societe-mamoudou-gassama-heros-emmanuel-macron-naturalisation-citoyenne
Par exemple l’affirmation selon laquelle « Emmanuel Macron, qui n’est pas maurrassien » me semble très discutable.

@philippe_de_jonckheere le voisin a tout de meme tenu la main de gamin sans pouvoir le hissé ca l’a empeicher de (re)tombé, le temps qu’il soit sauvé par Monsieur Gassama. C’est pas rien quant même.

Et, comme il y a de l’émotion populaire, on met le père en garde à vue et, donc, on place l’enfant…
#sauvé_mais_placé …

À la suite de ces faits, le père de l’enfant a été placé en garde à vue dans le cadre d’une enquête ouverte du chef de « soustraction à une obligation parentale », qui a été confiée à la brigade de protection des mineurs, a-t-on précisé de source judiciaire.

Selon 20minutes l’enfant va retourner chez son père. Celui ci serait parti faire des courses en laissant son fils de 4 ans sans aucune surveillance et aurais prolongé la promenade pour jouer à Pokemone Go.
Il a quand meme bien merdé ce père et ca me semble pas délirant qu’il y ai dans ce contexte une gav du père, une enquète, un placement d’urgence et un suivie de cette famille.

en laissant son fils de 4 ans sans aucune surveillance et aurais prolongé la promenade pour jouer à Pokemone Go

Par bonheur un jeune Malien sans papier à la belle intelligence et à la très remarquable condition physique passait par là. On doit pouvoir synchroniser l’heure exacte du sauvetage avec les points que le père marquait au même moment sur son application de téléphone intelligent.

Et un jour peut-être, l’application devra juridiquement afficher un disclaimer en pop-up « vous lancez une nouvelle session de jeu, êtes-vous sûr que vos enfants sont sous bonne surveillance pendant la totalité de la partie que vous commencez, cliquer sur OK »

#it_has_begun

Naturalisation de M. Gassama – Emmanuel Macron mis en examen pour délit de solidarité
Le Gorafi, le 29 mai 2018
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/697951

Good migrant, bad migrant ?
Tjeerd Royaards, Twitter, le 29 mai 2018
►https://seenthis.net/messages/698000

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DeW5uX5WAAARUYK.jpg:large

Autres commentaires ici :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/697949

Mamoudou Gassama, premier de cordée sans papiers. Et sans cordée
Daniel Schneidermann, Arrêt Sur Images, le 28 mai 2018
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/697863

#Kader_Salmi :

Kader Salmi, cet autre héros pas reconnu
Nadir Dendoune, Le Courrier de l’Atlas, le 29 mai 2018
►https://seenthis.net/messages/699733

#Mohssen_Oukassi :

Comme Mamoudou Gassama, Mohssen Oukassi, "héros" de l’incendie d’Aubervilliers, avait été régularisé après avoir sauvé des vies. Nous l’avons retrouvé
Yann Thompson, France Info, le 30 mai 2018
►https://seenthis.net/messages/698280

#Aymen :

Après l’histoire de Mamoudou Gassama, un sans-papiers de 25 ans menacé d’expulsion questionne « la hiérarchie des actes de bravoure »
Le Monde, le 3 juin 2018
►https://seenthis.net/messages/699454

Entendu au bistrot hier : « cette histoire, c’est une magouille des droits-de-l-hommistes ». #it_has_begun

Mamoudou Gassama naturalisé : des ONG dénoncent le «cynisme» de Macron
L’Obs, le 28 mai 2018
▻https://www.nouvelobs.com/societe/20180528.OBS7333/mamoudou-gassama-naturalise-des-ong-denoncent-le-cynisme-de-macron.html

Association qui fait aussi un travail de réintégration des réfugiés renvoyés depuis l’Europe :
#Association_malienne_des_expulsés
Notre association a été créée le 6 octobre 1996 suite à des expulsions massives de Maliens immigrés dans le monde entier (France, Angola, Arabie Saoudite, Libéria, Zambie, etc.). A cette époque, nos compatriotes, démunis et humiliés par leur mésaventure, se réunissaient au Haut Conseil des Maliens de l’Extérieur (HCME). Ousmane Diarra, expulsé d’Angola, prit l’initiative de les réunir pour tenter de leur venir en aide en créant l’Association des Maliens Expulsés (AME). Un collectif de soutien mobilisant plusieurs organisations et individus se mit en place pour mener des actions communes.

Une des premières actions significatives de l’AME fut d’organiser, en 1997 , une marche de soutien dans Bamako pour faire libérer 77 Maliens expulsés de France par le « 36e charter Debré » et emprisonnés par le gouvernement malien de l’époque. Deux semaines après cette marche, les expulsés emprisonnés étaient remis en liberté.

Grâce à un financement d’Emmaus France, un local a été loué pour accueillir les expulsés et leur permettre d’avoir un suivi médical et des soins. Certains expulsés avaient des séquelles consécutives à une grève de la faim, d’autres avaient subi des brutalités policières lors des expulsions. Nous déplorons le décès de deux personnes par manque de moyens financiers.

http://www.expulsesmaliens.info/local/cache-vignettes/L150xH132/siteon0-38e4a.jpg

Plusieurs articles abordent la question du #vocabulaire. Faut-il les appeler #migrants #réfugiés #sans-papiers #demandeurs_d_asile #exilés ? Compilation ici :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/414225

#enfants #enfance #mineurs #sans-papiers #histoires #poésie

Report on the state of EU-Algeria relations: implementing a partnership rich in challenges and opportunities

Between March 2017 and April 2018, the EU and Algeria demonstrated their desire to deepen their political dialogue and cooperation in all partnership areas.

That is the conclusion of the progress report on the state of EU-Algeria relations published today by the European Commission services and the European External Action Service with a view to the 11th EU-Algeria Association Council in Brussels on 14 May 2018.

The dialogue has been stepped up through many high-level visits and has been deepened, in particular in the sectors of security, the fight against terrorism, and energy. Tangible progress has also been made in numerous areas ranging from justice, agriculture and fisheries to research and civil protection, in a bilateral or regional framework.

High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini said: ‘Since the March 2017 Association Council, our relations have been stepped up on both bilateral and regional questions. Our partnership is progressing and consolidating. Based on the constitutional review of 2016, the reform of the political governance system in Algeria remains at the heart of our partnership and has the support of the EU for its implementation, in particular in the fields of justice and participatory democracy. We are also building a relationship of trust with regard to security, aimed at regional stability and the fight against terrorism, to the benefit of our citizens.’

Johannes Hahn, Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, added: ‘The EU is ready to continue support for reforms, in particular those aimed at diversifying the Algerian economy. We are confident that EU support will help to improve the business climate and develop entrepreneurship. It is in Algeria’s interest and in the EU’s interest too. We hope that this cooperation, which is aimed at strengthening the Algerian economy, will help us to overcome our trade differences and will pave the way to more European investment that will create jobs in the country.’

The report identifies the progress made by Algeria and the European Union in the areas of mutual interest identified by their Partnership Priorities since they were adopted in March 2017: i) governance and fundamental rights; ii) socio-economic development and trade; iii) energy, environment and climate change; iv) strategic and security dialogue; and v) the human dimension, migration and mobility.

By means of this report, the European Union reiterates its willingness to boost the EU-Algeria partnership still further and support Algeria in these numerous areas.

▻http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-3564_en.htm

’National day of shame’ : #David_Lammy criticises treatment of Windrush generation

Labour MP says situation has come about because of the hostile environment that begun under Theresa May, as he blames a climate of far-right rhetoric. People who came to the UK in the 1950s and 60s are now concerned about whether they have a legal right to remain in the country. The government has admitted that some people from the Windrush generation had been deported in error, as Theresa May appeared to make a U-turn on the issue Some Windrush immigrants wrongly deported, UK admits.

►https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfy1mDdNtEQ

Amber Rudd’s resignation letter in full and the Prime Minister’s response

Amber Rudd has resigned as home secretary amid increasing pressure over the way the Home Office handled immigration policy.

Her resignation came after leaked documents undermined her claims she was unaware of the deportation targets her officers were using.

Downing Street confirmed Theresa May had accepted Ms Rudd’s resignation on Sunday night. She is the fifth cabinet minister to have left their position since the Prime Minister called the snap election in June 2017.

▻https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/amber-rudd-resignation-letter-full-transcript-windrush-scandal-theres

Il grosso scandalo sull’immigrazione nel Regno Unito

I giornali britannici hanno scoperto che alcune politiche – promosse da Theresa May da segretaria agli Interni – hanno colpito persone che erano arrivate regolarmente

https://www.ilpost.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/GettyImages-3416247.jpg

▻https://www.ilpost.it/2018/04/27/generazione-windrush

#Amber_Rudd, the Windrush scandal and the reluctant Remainer

The Windrush scandal is undoubtedly the scene of a crime, multiple crimes. But which scene and what crime now needs maximum public exposure?

▻https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/nando-sigona/amber-rudd-windrush-scandal-and-reluctant-remainer

’It’s like a death sentence’ : ex-NHS worker billed £4,388 for treatment

Falling ill on a visit from Jamaica became costly nightmare for #Pauline_Pennant, who had worked in UK for 30 years

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a66d4945fa053a7450798b339d8f1a43aadaaf13/591_627_5356_3213/master/5356.jpg?w=620&q=20&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&dpr=2&s=c159d9feb0fe0fdd9f5a77b9db7d495b#.jpg

▻https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/23/go-die-not-interested-windrush-citizen-feels-neglected-by-britain?CMP=s

Black history is still largely ignored, 70 years after Empire Windrush reached Britain

Now, 70 years and three to four generations later, the legacy of those who arrived on the Windrush and the ships that followed is being rightly remembered – albeit in a way which calls into question how much their presence, sacrifices and contributions are valued in Britain.

▻https://theconversation.com/black-history-is-still-largely-ignored-70-years-after-empire-windru
#histoire #mémoire

Chased into ’self-deportation’: the most disturbing Windrush case so far

As Amelia Gentleman reflects on reporting one of the UK’s worst immigration scandals, she reveals a new and tragic case.

In the summer of 2013, the government launched the peculiarly named Operation Vaken, an initiative that saw vans drive around six London boroughs, carrying billboards that warned: “In the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest.” The billboards were decorated with pictures of handcuffs and the number of recent immigration arrests (“106 arrests last week in your area”). A line at the bottom adopted a softer tone: “We can help you to return home voluntarily without fear of arrest or detention.”

The Conservatives’ 2010 manifesto promise to reduce migration to the tens of thousands had been going badly. It was time for ministers to develop new ways of scaring immigrants into leaving and for the government’s hostile environment policy to get teeth. More than 170,000 people, many of them living in this country legally, began receiving alarming texts, with warnings such as: “Message from the UK Border Agency: you are required to leave the UK as you no longer have the right to remain.”

The hope was that the Home Office could get people to “self-deport”, frightening them into submission. In this, politicians appeared to have popular support: a YouGov poll at the time showed that 47% of the public approved of the “Go home” vans. The same year, Home Office vehicles began to be marked clearly with the words “Immigration Enforcement”, to alert people to the hovering presence of border guards.

Operation Vaken ran for just one month, and its success was limited. A Home Office report later found that only 11 people left the country as a result; it also revealed that, of the 1,561 text messages sent to the government’s tip-off hotline, 1,034 were hoaxes – taking up 17 hours of staff time.

Theresa May’s former adviser Nick Timothy later tried to argue that the vans had been opposed by the prime minister and were only approved while she was on holiday. But others who worked on the project insisted that May had seen the wording on the vans and requested that the language be toughened up. Meanwhile, the Immigration Enforcement vehicles stayed, with their yellow fluorescent stripes and black-and-white checks, a sinister presence circling areas of high migration. Gradually, the broader strategy of intimidation began to pay off. Some people were frightened into leaving.
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In my two years of reporting on what became known as the Windrush scandal, Joycelyn John’s experience was the most disturbing case I came across. Joycelyn arrived in London in 1963 at the age of four, travelling with her mother on a Grenadian passport as a British subject. She went to primary and secondary school in Hammersmith, west London, before working in hotels in the capital – including the Ritz and a Hilton.

Some time around 2009, she lost her Grenadian passport, which contained the crucial stamp giving her indefinite leave to remain. She had trouble getting a new passport, because her mother had married and changed her daughter’s surname from Mitchell to John. Because she never registered the change, there was a discrepancy between Joycelyn’s birth certificate and the name she had used all her adult life. She spent several years attempting to sort out her papers, but by 2014, aged 55, she had been classified as living in Britain illegally. She lost her job and was unable to find new work. For a while, she lived in a homeless hostel, but she lost her bed, because the government does not normally fund places for people classified as illegal immigrants. She spent two years staying with relatives, sleeping on sofas or the floor.

In that time, Joycelyn managed to gather 75 pages of evidence proving that she had spent a lifetime in the UK: bank statements, dentists’ records, medical files, tax records, letters from her primary school, letters from friends and family. But, inexplicably, this was not enough. Every letter she received from the Home Office warned her that she was liable to be deported to Grenada, a country she had left more than 50 years ago. She began to feel nervous about opening the door in case immigration officers were outside.

A Home Office leaflet encouraging people to opt for a voluntary departure, illustrated with cheerful, brightly coloured planes and published about the same time as the “Go Home” vans were launched, said: “We know that many people living in the UK illegally want to go home, but feel scared of approaching the Home Office directly. They may fear being arrested and detained. For those returning voluntarily, there are these key benefits: they avoid being arrested and having to live in detention until a travel document can be obtained; they can leave the UK in a more dignified manner than if their removal is enforced.” This appeal to the desire for a dignified departure was a shrewd tactic; the idea of being forcibly taken away terrified Joycelyn, who saw the leaflets and knew of the vans. “There’s such stigma... I didn’t want to be taken off the plane in handcuffs,” she says. She was getting deeper into debt, borrowing money from a younger brother, and felt it was no longer fair to rely on him.

When the hostile environment policy is working well, it exhausts people into submission. It piles up humiliations, stress and fear until people give up. In November 2016, Joycelyn finally decided that a “voluntary” departure would be easier than trying to survive inside the ever-tightening embrace of Home Office hostility. Officials booked her on a flight on Christmas Day; when she asked if she could spend a last Christmas with her brother and five sisters, staff rebooked her for Boxing Day. She was so desperate that she felt this was the best option. “I felt ground down,” she says. “I lost the will to go on fighting.”

By that point, she estimated she must have attempted a dozen times to explain to Home Office staff – over the phone, in person, in writing – that they had made a mistake. “I don’t think they looked at the letters I wrote. I think they had a quota to fill – they needed to deport people.” She found it hard to understand why the government was prepared to pay for her expensive flight, but not to waive the application fee to regularise her status. A final letter told her: “You are a person who is liable to be detained... You must report with your baggage to Gatwick South Virgin Atlantic Airways check-in desk.” The letter resorted to the favoured Home Office technique of scaring people with capital letters, reminding her that in her last few weeks: “YOU MAY NOT ENTER EMPLOYMENT, PAID OR UNPAID, OR ENGAGE IN ANY BUSINESS OR PROFESSION.” It also informed her that her baggage allowance, after a lifetime in the UK, was 20kg – “and you will be expected to pay for any excess”.

How do you pack for a journey to a country you left as a four-year-old? “I was on autopilot,” Joycelyn recalls. “I was feeling depressed, lonely and suicidal. I wasn’t able to think straight; at times, I was hysterical. I packed the morning I left, very last-minute. I’d been expecting a reprieve. I didn’t take a lot – just jeans and a few T-shirts, a toothbrush, some Colgate, a towel – it didn’t even fill the whole suitcase.” She had £60 to start a new life, given to her by an ex-boyfriend. She had decided not to tell her sisters she was going; she confided only in her brother. “I just didn’t want any fuss.” She didn’t expect she would ever be allowed to return to Britain.

In Grenada, she found everything unfamiliar. She had to scrub her clothes by hand and struggled to cook with the local ingredients. “It’s just a completely different lifestyle. The culture is very different.” She was given no money to set her up and found getting work very difficult. “You’re very vulnerable if you’re a foreigner. There’s no support structure and no one wants to employ you. Once they hear an English accent – forget it. They’re suspicious. They think you must be a criminal if you’ve been deported.”

Joycelyn recounts what happened to her in a very matter-of-fact way, only expressing her opinion about the Home Office’s consistent refusal to listen when I ask her to. But her analysis is succinct: “The way I was treated was disgusting.” I still find it hard to accept that the government threatened her until she felt she had no option but to relocate to an unfamiliar country 4,300 miles away. The outcome – a 57-year-old Londoner, jettisoned to an island off the coast of Venezuela, friendless and without money, trying to make a new life for herself – is as absurd as it is tragic.

*

In April 2018, the leaders of 52 countries arrived in London for the Commonwealth heads of government meeting. The Mall was decorated with flags; caterers at Buckingham Palace prepared for tea parties and state dinners. In normal times, this summit would have been regarded as a routine diplomatic event, heavy with ceremony and light on substance. But, with Brexit looming, the occasion was seen as an important opportunity to woo the countries on which Britain expected to become increasingly reliant.

A week before the event, however, the 12 Caribbean high commissioners had gathered to ask the British government to adopt a more compassionate approach to people who had arrived in the UK as children and were never formally naturalised. “I am dismayed that people who gave their all to Britain could be discarded so matter-of-factly,” said Guy Hewitt, the Barbados high commissioner. “Seventy years after Windrush, we are again facing a new wave of hostility.”

Hewitt revealed that a formal request to meet May had been declined. The rebuff convinced the Caribbean leaders that the British government had either failed to appreciate the scale and seriousness of what was happening or, worse, was aware, but did not view it as a priority. It smacked of racism.

By then, I had been covering cases such as Joycelyn’s for six months. I had written about Paulette Wilson, a 61-year-old grandmother who had been detained by the Home Office twice and threatened with deportation to Jamaica, a country she had left half a century earlier; about Anthony Bryan, who after 50 years in the UK was wrongly detained for five weeks; and about Sylvester Marshall, who was denied the NHS radiotherapy he needed for prostate cancer and told to pay £54,000 for treatment, despite paying taxes here for decades. Yet no one in the government had seemed concerned.

I contacted Downing Street on 15 April to ask if they could explain the refusal to meet the Caribbean delegation. An official called back to confirm that a meeting had not been set up; there would be other opportunities to meet the prime minister and discuss this “important issue”, she said.

It was a huge mistake. An article about the diplomatic snub went on the Guardian’s front page and the political response was instantaneous. Suddenly, ministers who had shown no interest were falling over themselves to express profound sorrow. The brazen speed of the official turnaround was distasteful to watch. Amber Rudd, then the home secretary, spoke in parliament to express her regret. The Home Office would establish a new team to help people gather evidence of their right to be here, she announced; fees would be waived. The prime minister decided that she did, after all, need to schedule a meeting with her Caribbean colleagues.

There were a number of factors that forced this abrupt shift. The campaigner Patrick Vernon, whose parents emigrated from Jamaica in the 50s, had made a critical connection between the scandal and the upcoming 70th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks. A fortnight earlier, he had launched a petition that triggered a parliamentary debate, calling for an immigration amnesty for those who had arrived as British subjects between 1948 and 1971. For months, I had been describing these people as “Caribbean-born, retirement-age, long-term British residents”, a clunky categorisation that was hard to put in a headline. But Vernon’s petition succinctly called them the “Windrush generation” – a phrase that evoked the emotional response that people feel towards the pioneers of migration who arrived on that ship. Although it was a bit of a misnomer (those affected were the children of the Windrush generation), that branding became incredibly potent.

After months of very little coverage, the BBC and other media outlets began to report on the issue. On 16 April, the Guardian reprinted the photographs and stories of everyone we had interviewed to date. The accounts were undeniable evidence of profound and widespread human suffering. It unleashed political chaos.

*

It was exciting to see the turmoil caused by the relentless publication of articles on a subject that no one had previously wanted to think about. Everyone has moments of existential doubt about whether what they do serves a purpose, but, for two weeks last April, the government was held to account and forced to act, demonstrating the enormous power of journalism to trigger change.

At the Guardian’s offices in London, a team of reporters was allocated to interview the huge number of emerging Windrush voices. Politicians were contacted by constituents who had previously been nervous about giving their details to officials; they also belatedly looked through their constituency casebooks to see if there were Windrush people among their immigration caseload; finally, they began to speak up about the huge difficulties individuals were facing as a result of Home Office policy.

Editors put the story on the front page, day after day. Any hope the government might have had of the issue quickly exhausting itself was dashed repeatedly by damaging new revelations. For a while, I was unable to get through my inbox, because there were too many unhappy stories about the government’s cruel, bureaucratic mishandling of cases to be able to read and process. Caroline Bannock, a senior journalist who runs the Guardian’s community team, created a database to collect people’s stories, and made sure that everyone who emailed got an answer, with information on where to go for advice and how to contact the Windrush Taskforce, set up by Rudd.

I found the scale of the misery devastating. One morning, I came into work to find 24 messages on my answerphone from desperate people, each convinced I could help. I wanted to cry at my desk when I opened a letter from the mother of a young woman who had arrived in Britain from Jamaica in 1974, aged one. In 2015, after being classified as an illegal immigrant and sent to Yarl’s Wood detention centre, she had taken an overdose and died. “Without the time she spent in Yarl’s Wood, which we understand was extremely unpleasant, and the threat of deportation, my daughter would be alive today,” she wrote. The government had been aiming to bring down immigration at any cost, she continued. “One of the costs, as far as I am concerned, was my daughter’s life.”

Alongside these upsetting calls and letters, there were many from readers offering financial support to the people we interviewed, and from lawyers offering pro bono assistance. A reader sent a shoebox full of chocolate bars, writing that he wanted to help reporters keep their energy levels up. At a time when the reputation of journalism can feel low, it was rewarding to help demonstrate why independent media organisations are so important.

If the scene at the office was a smooth-running model of professionalism, at home it was chaos. I wrote until 2am and got up at 5am to catch up on reading. I tapped out so many articles over two weeks that my right arm began to ache, making it hard to sleep. My dictaphone overheated from overuse and one of its batteries exploded. I had to retreat entirely from family life, to make sure I poured out every bit of information I had. Shoes went missing, homework was left undone, meals were uncooked. There was an unexpected heatwave and I was aware of the arrival of a plague of ants, flies and fleas (and possibly nits), but there was no time to deal with it.

I am married to Jo Johnson, who at the time was a minister in May’s government. As a news reporter, I have to be politically independent; I let him get on with his job and he doesn’t interfere in mine. Life is busy and mostly we focus on the day-to-day issues that come with having two children. Clearly, there are areas of disagreement, but we try to step around anything too contentious for the sake of family harmony.

But the fact did not go unnoticed. One Sunday morning, Jo had to go on television to defend Rudd, returning home at lunchtime to look after the children so I could talk on the radio about how badly the government had got it wrong. I can see why it looks weird from the outside; that weekend it felt very weird. I had only one brief exchange about the issue with his brother Boris, who was then the foreign secretary, at a noisy family birthday party later in the year. He said: “You really fucked the Commonwealth summit.”

*

On 25 April, Rudd appeared in front of the home affairs select committee. She told MPs she had been shocked by the Home Office’s treatment of Paulette and others. Not long into the session, Rudd was thrown off course by a question put to her by the committee’s chair, Yvette Cooper. “Targets for removals. When were they set?”

“We don’t have targets for removals,” she replied with easy confidence. It was an answer that ended her career as home secretary.

In an earlier session, Lucy Moreton, the head of the Immigration Service Union, had explained how the Home Office target to bring net migration below 100,000 a year had triggered challenging objectives; each region had a removal target to meet, she said. Rudd’s denial seemed to indicate either that she was incompetent and unaware of how her own department worked, or that she was being dishonest. Moreton later told me that, as Rudd was giving evidence, colleagues were sending her selfies taken in front of their office targets boards.

Rudd was forced back to parliament the next day. This time, she admitted that the Home Office had set local targets, but insisted: “I have never agreed there should be specific removal targets and I would never support a policy that puts targets ahead of people.” But, on 29 April, the Guardian published a private memo from Rudd to May, sent in early 2017, that revealed she had set an “ambitious but deliverable” target for an increase in enforced deportations. Later that evening, she resigned.

When I heard the news, I felt ambivalent; Rudd hadn’t handled the crisis well, but she wasn’t responsible for the mess. She seemed to be resigning on a technicality, rather than admitting she had been negligent and that her department had behaved atrociously on her watch. The Windrush people I spoke to that night told me Rudd’s departure only shifted attention from the person who was really responsible: Theresa May.

*

Joycelyn John was issued with a plane ticket from Grenada to England in July 2018. “A bit of me was ecstatic, a bit of me was angry that no one had listened to me in the first place,” she told me when we met at her still-bare flat in June this year. She had been rehoused in September, but the flat was outside London, far from her family and empty; council officials didn’t think to provide any furniture. Friends gave her a bed and some chairs, but it was months before she was able to get a fridge.

In late 2018, she received a letter of apology from the then home secretary, Sajid Javid. “People of the Windrush generation who came to Britain from the Commonwealth, as my parents did, have helped make this country what it is today,” he wrote. “The experiences faced by you and others have been completely unacceptable.” The letter made her cry, but not with relief. “I thought: ‘What good is a letter of apology now?’ They ruined my life completely. I came back to nothing. I have had to start rebuilding my life from scratch at the age of 58.”

She still has nightmares that she is back in Grenada. “I can feel the heat, I can smell the food, I can actually taste the fish in the dream – in a good way. But mostly they are bad memories.” The experience has upended her sense of who she is. “Before this I felt British – I just did. I’m the sort of person who would watch every royal wedding on television. I feel less British now. I feel I don’t belong here, and I don’t belong there.”

While a government compensation scheme has been announced, Joycelyn, like most of the Windrush generation, has yet to receive any money. Since the government apologised for its “appalling” treatment, 6,000 people have been given documents confirming their right to live in the UK. Joycelyn is one of them. But, although her right to be here is now official, she hasn’t yet got a passport – because she can’t afford the fee. And she remains frightened. “I’m still looking over my shoulder all the time. I’m a nervous wreck.”

▻https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/14/scale-misery-devastating-inside-story-reporting-windrush-scandal?CMP=sh

Plusieurs articles abordent la question du #vocabulaire. Faut-il les appeler #migrants #réfugiés #sans-papiers #demandeurs_d_asile #exilés ? Compilation ici :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/414225

Et c’est l’UNHCR, donc ils sont censés être bien !

ça me rappelle cette page du HCR, que j’avais déjà signalé sur seenthis : ▻http://seen.li/awv2

Point de vue du HCR : « Réfugié » ou « migrant » – Quel est le mot juste ?

Les réfugiés sont des personnes qui fuient des conflits armés ou la persécution. Ils étaient au nombre de 21,3 millions à travers le monde à la fin 2015. Leur situation est périlleuse et intolérable au point qu’ils traversent des frontières nationales afin de trouver la sécurité dans des pays voisins, et ils sont par conséquent reconnus internationalement en tant que réfugiés accédant à l’aide des États, du HCR et d’autres organisations. On les identifie précisément car il est dangereux pour eux de retourner dans leur pays et qu’ils ont besoin d’un refuge ailleurs. Ne pas accorder l’asile à ces personnes aurait potentiellement des conséquences mortelles.
Les migrants choisissent de quitter leur pays non pas en raison d’une menace directe de persécution ou de mort, mais surtout afin d’améliorer leur vie en trouvant du travail, et dans certains cas, pour des motifs d’éducation, de regroupement familial ou pour d’autres raisons. Contrairement aux réfugiés qui ne peuvent retourner à la maison en toute sécurité, les migrants ne font pas face à de tels obstacles en cas de retour. S’ils choisissent de rentrer chez eux, ils continueront de recevoir la protection de leur gouvernement.

►http://www.unhcr.org/fr/news/stories/2016/7/55e45d87c/point-vue-hcr-refugie-migrant-mot-juste.html

#mots #terminologie

Plusieurs articles abordent la question du #vocabulaire. Faut-il les appeler #migrants #réfugiés #sans-papiers #demandeurs_d_asile #exilés ? Compilation ici :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/414225

Le tweet a changé d’adresse :
▻https://twitter.com/UNHCRfrance/status/948268939775283201