#post deportation

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Letter to the editors: Refugee Law Project recommends Uganda post-deportation risks article

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Europe and the US are so focused on keeping refugees out, that what happens to those who get in but are later deported back to their countries of origin almost always slips beneath our collective radar.

Please take the time to read a short piece on what happens to Ugandans deported back to Uganda, and what Refugee Law Project is able to do in such situations. The piece, A grim return: post-deportation risks in Uganda, is written by Charity Ahumuza Onyoin, Programme Manager Access to Justice at Refugee Law Project. The article appears in the latest edition of the Forced Migration Review (FMR 54 Resettlement), published by the Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford University.

For more information, please contact us or visit our website. You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Whatsapp [phone]).

Regards,

Moses A. Nsubuga

Ag. Programme Manager - Media for Social Change

Refugee Law Project

[phone]

Toll Free 0800-100555

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Post-deportation risks in times of externalised border control

This piece was originally been published as DIIS Policy Brief November 2016, and was drafted by Maybritt Jill Alpes, Postdoc Researcher, The VU University of Amsterdam, and Ninna Nyberg Sørensen, Senior Researcher, DIIS. It is republished here with permission by the authors.

People face insecurity and threats after forced returns

Growing perceptions of international migration as a security issue have led to increasing criminalization of international migration, not only in migrant receiving countries, but also in countries of transit and origin, where rejected and forcibly returned migrants risk becoming ‘illegal at home’. The present Policy Brief suggests that post-deportation monitoring can help improve security and hence migration and refugee policy.

European context for discussing deportation

In the hope of containing and reducing the flow of asylum seekers and irregular immigrants, European Union member states have introduced various mechanisms, including the ‘effective and humane return’ of people. Critics have argued that deportation can never be ‘humane’ but rather represents the ultimate form of forced migration, which is deemed legitimate when carried out by states under readmission agreements. Questions about the costs and capability of deportations to bring down migration pressure have also been raised.

Post-deportation risks

Post-deportation risks can be divided into three forms:

1. Economic and psychosocial risks

Upon arrival in a country of origin, all forced returnees are at risk of economic and psychosocial harm, including those who opt for assisted return programs due to a lack of legal alternatives. A deported person often become stigmatized and may not have family or friends upon arrival. Consequently, secure shelter, access to housing and employment can be challenging. Deportation may also interrupt a person’s educational trajectory, professional skills might no longer be of relevance and social security payments in deporting countries may not be retrievable. Depression and even suicide may occur.

After forced returns, people have particular protection needs when requiring specialized medical care or when deported to a country where they have lived only as toddlers, as is the case with former non-accompanied minors.  Severe harm to family life is done when deportation tears apart family members. Deported pregnant women face specific health risks before and during delivery, and possibly years of separation from their partner with only meagre hopes for family reunification.

2. Insecurities in the hands of state agents

Police officers verify the identity of forced returnees upon arrival at the airport, particularly when travel documents were issued by deporting states. Depending on the respective country of origin, a deported person can be associated with wealth, treason or moral inadequacies. While the risk of monetary extractions, confiscation of luggage, arbitrary detention and criminal prosecution may happen to any returned person, ethnic, religious, linguistic and sexual minorities are particularly vulnerable to such practices. The insecurities people face in the hands of state agents have repercussions beyond the forced returnee when wider family networks are relied upon for negotiating release and buying protection.

3. Inhumane and degrading treatment

In some cases, readmission entails a risk of persecution and torture, inhumane and degrading treatment as encompassed by the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Such a risk may arise from state officials in countries of origin who arbitrarily detain and mistreat forced returnees, and from non-state actors, such as criminal gangs and loan sharks issuing (death) threats to force the repayment of debts incurred to finance the original travel. Countries of origin with weak judicial systems and systemic impunity offer little protection to forced returnees from such treatment. Forcibly returning individuals to inhumane and degrading treatment amounts to refoulement.

The groups of risks highlighted above explain why many people attempt to re-migrate after deportation.

Migration management creates different post-deportation risks

Post deportation risks are specific to different categories of forced returns:

1. Non-admission at borders

Border authorities decide whether people will be admitted or not. Whilst non-admitted individuals strictly speaking not are deportees, they nonetheless are forced to return after rejections. Without the possibility to apply for asylum, such returns violate the principle of non-The, as widely documented for the case of pushbacks in the Mediterranean Sea.

In the case of air borders, EU carrier sanctions oblige airlines to return individuals to their last transit point, i.e. not country of nationality, where they often do not fulfill entry requirements either. Because of new legislation in departure and transit countries, non-admitted people risk criminal prosecution for the offence of having attempted to travel through irregular means. In such countries, forced returnees can become subject to detention in slow and corrupted justice systems.

Three years after the Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreement and two years after a series of bilateral readmission agreements with EU member states, Morocco passed a law criminalizing irregular exit attempts in 2003. Tunisia amended its legislation in December 2003 and March 2004, shortly after signing in 2003 a police collaboration agreement with Italy. Algeria passed a law in 2008 criminalizing irregular exit attempts. This law came three years after the signing and entry into force of the Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreement in 2005 and respectively one, two, four or five years after bilateral readmission agreements with Malta, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland and the UK. In Cameroon, the offence of “attempting to emigrate illegally” can be traced back in case law to 2013. This follows the signature of a French Cameroonian bilateral agreement on migration and development in 2009, foreseeing financial and technical support for the Cameroonian police in its combat against illegal migration.

2. Readmission agreements with clauses for third country nationals

Since 2005, all EU readmission agreements oblige signatory countries to accept third country nationals who have transited through their territories when deported from the EU. Practices and laws in transit countries can result in detention and secondary deportation. Lack of legal safeguards for deportees in transit countries are of great concern.

3. Accelerated asylum procedures with insufficient legal aid for applicants

Although the decision to forcibly return a person can constitute refoulement, states and international organizations do not systematically collect information about the human rights situation of returned persons. Failed asylum seekers can be at risk upon return if seeking asylum is considered an act of treason, when fraudulent documents were used in the asylum claim, or when authorities object to a returnees’ use of their freedom of expression or political mobilization while abroad.

The increasingly close cooperation between EU member states and countries of origin on issues of migration control weakens the confidentiality of asylum applications. During identification missions of police officers of countries of origin to detention centers in deporting countries there is little oversight and control on the data shared.

4. Dublin regulations

Since the Dublin Convention came into force in 1997, EU member states forcibly return asylum seekers to the member state where he or she first arrived. Dublin returns often cut asylum seekers off from social networks. Reception conditions in some countries imply the de facto detention of forced returnees. In 2011, the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice qualified forced returns to Greece as inhumane and degrading treatment.

Recommendations

1. Effective forced return monitoring must be put in place

2. Memoranda of understanding and agreements with readmission clauses should be negotiated with the participation of parliamentarians and civil society and be made publicly available

3. Cooperation with countries of origin should strengthen local judicial systems and secure the confidentiality of information on prior irregular status, asylum claims, health and sexual orientation

4. Extraterritorial complaint mechanisms and legal aid for out-of-country appeals should be put in place

Suggested links:

Post-Deportation Monitoring Network

Declaration of the Rights of Expelled and Deported Persons

Refugee Support Network, (2016), After Return: documenting the experiences of young people forcibly removed to Afghanistan

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Letter to the Editors: Crowdfunding request for group providing practical support to Nigerians deported from the UK

We, Post Deportation Support, are a group of people who have been deported to Nigeria against our will by the Home Office, taking us far away from the family and communities we had built up in the UK.

We have now set up a group to support other people in our situation, who have been deported from the UK, and are trying to resettle in Nigeria or challenge their deportation. We work with groups in the UK like The Unity Centre and Roots to Return, particularly when there are charter flights that deport up to 100 people from the UK to Nigeria every 2 months.

We provide practical and emotional support, picking people up from the airport in Nigeria when they have been deported, help them to contact any friends or family they may still have in Nigeria, document people's stories to raise awareness of the injustice and violence of deportations of foreign nationals from the UK and the impact on their family members, keep in touch and help with resettlement - such as finding accommodation and a job.

We do this because we want people experiencing forced deportation to know that they are not alone. Detention and deportation in the UK can make you feel like no one will support you, and so we want people to know that we are here offering support and solidarity.

We want people to know that we do not work for the UK Home Office, and do not support the Home Office in any way. We believe that the people we offer support and solidarity to have been unjustly and often violently deported from the UK against their will, torn away from their long-time families and communities. Many people we meet in Nigeria were not given enough time or help in the UK to put in their asylum or human rights claim, and were deported before they had the chance to work on gathering more evidence, finding a lawyer, or finding money to pay legal fees. We think that the Home Office create this environment of hostility to foreign nationals in the UK, and do not provide proper support - instead they detain and deport people inhumanely.

The money we are trying to raise will go to transport funds for getting to and from the airport people are deported to, phone credit and phones for people to contact any friends or family they may still have in Nigeria, food for when people have just arrived, emergency accommodation costs, emergency transport costs, resources for us to be able to record people's stories. Here is the link to our crowdfunding site.

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Review of “Post-deportation risks: Criminalised departure and risks for returnees in countries of origin”

The following piece, written by Sevda Tunayboylu and submitted to the IRRI Rights in Exile Newsletter on 14 December 2015, is a review of a catalogue that discusses the risks facing irregular migrants and refugees upon their deportation to their country of origin or a third country. The piece has been edited lightly for style.

The catalogue, “Post-deportation risks: Criminalized departure and risks for returnees in countries of origin,” is based on a project initiated by Dr. Maybritt Jill Alpes, post-doctoral researcher at VU Amsterdam and Sciences Po, Paris (Paris Institute of Political Studies) and carried out by six students from Sciences Po Paris.

As a result of the European Union member states’ deep concerns regarding irregular migration and border security, migration policies have become more restrictive and stringent. Among these policies, readmission agreements and applications of the safe countries of origin concept have become a common tool used by the EU, enhancing the risk for direct and indirect refoulement of irregular migrants, and refugees.

The country catalogue has been generated in order to provide an overview of post deportation risks for failed migrants and refugees who have been returned to their countries of origin.

As emphasized in the catalogue, migration policies of the EU member states do not only affect the persons inside of their borders, but also the ones outside by influencing the national law of emigration countries. Although the right to emigrate is protected under the international human rights instruments, restrictive migration policies can impose sanctions on exit, and create risks for returnees in their country of origin upon return.

Therefore, the catalogue aims to address following questions:

A. Which emigration countries prosecute their own nationals for failed attempts to emigrate illegally? And,

B. In which countries can deportees, rejected asylum seekers, and/or non-admitted travelers face monetary extortions, detention/imprisonment, and/or physical violence upon arrival at the airport in their country of nationality?

The project aims to create a country catalogue in order to provide an overview of post deportation risks, and the findings are based on a review of human rights reports and on keyword searches in country of origin reports.

As a result of the findings, the country catalogue is divided into two categories. Category A consists of the countries which criminalize illegal emigration and Category B consists of the countries in which state practices create return-related risks.

In Category A, Algeria, Cameroon, Cuba, Iran, Macedonia, Morocco, North Korea, Pakistan, and Tunisia have all directly criminalized illegal emigration and created laws to persecute those who attempt to leave the country without proper documents.In other countries, such as Senegal, illegal emigration is indirectly criminalized through the misuse of smuggling laws in order to punish the migrants. Similarly, in Egypt, migrants are indirectly criminalized through a law that punishes the disclosure of rumors regarding the internal situation of the country with the aim of undermining its stature.

Under Category B, the catalogue lists practices and decisions by state authorities that can create vulnerabilities and risks for returned migrants. Thus, researchers have identified three possible threats that come from the practices of national authorities: money extortion/fines, detention/imprisonment, and physical violence.

Returnees particularly face monetary extortion in Albania, Cameroon, Cuba, China, Congo (DRC), Egypt, Eritrea, Guinea Conakry, Haiti, India, Iran, Libya, Macedonia, Mauritania, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, The risk of imprisonment and detention is also very common for returnees from EU, specifically in Albania, Algeria, Cameroon, Chad, China, Congo, Cuba, Egypt, Eritrea, Guinea Conakry, Haiti, India, Iran, Macedonia, Morocco, North Korea, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tunisia.

Finally, the catalogue refers to physical violence returnees may face, varying from ill treatment to “shoot to kill” policies in Albania, Algeria, Cameroon, China, Congo, Cuba, Egypt, Eritrea, Guinea Conakry, India, Iran, Libya, Macedonia, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Senegal, Sri Lanka, and Tunisia.

Further research on the topic would be necessary in order to expand and improve the country catalogue, as emphasized by the researchers themselves. Due to the financial and human resource limitations, the current catalogue only consisted of recorded practices of country of origin authorities.

Also, the catalogue does not include countries such as Brazil, Honduras, Ivory Coast, Moldova, Myanmar, Serbia, Somalia, Togo, and Turkey, although there is evidence of high deportation rates from the European Union member states to them.

Moreover, there is a need for further research into risks facing transit migrants when they are returned to a third country and not their country of origin.

Besides these limitations, this country catalogue is an invaluable first step towards  disclosing the post deportation risks in the emigration countries and exposing the human rights implication of the readmission agreements.