Migration

This week’s news roundup covers EU initiatives to create a Common European Asylum System as well as France’s possible new focus on immigration policy as well as highlighting opinion tools for Americans on their attitudes towards immigration after the failure of the Immigration Bill to be passed through the US Senate. Also stories on Aid workers killed in Lebanon and links towards the refugee tragedy in the Mediterranean are highlighted:

• French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said last Friday in his tour of Africa that France will not tolerate waves of African migrants coming to France. Since the election of France’s new President Nicolas Sarkozy, many migrants have been worried about the possible changes to France’s immigration policy. While Kouchner did show a tough stance on France’s new approach to immigration, he did clarify that France’s immigrants should be treated fairly and that much of the concern came from the high risk illegal immigrants. He may have been influenced by events last week where 110 bodies where discovered in the Mediterranean Sea between Malta and Libya, thought to be illegal immigrants who became victim to their “uncertain vessels” and a fortuneless journey.
• On June 6th 2007 the European Comission published a Green Paper to create the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) as well as an evaluation of the Dublin System and a Directive on long-term residence for the beneficiaries of International Protection. It is hoped that the focus on irregular migrations, which has dominated European Immigration Policy in the past, will be refocused towards the rights and obligations of all EU Member states on the rights of Asylum seekers in the EU. After the tragedy mentioned above, a mechanism to ensure the rights of Asylum seekers needs to be established equally in all EU states.
• With the failed progression on the Immigration Reform Bill, MSNBC has created a website to gain American’s opinions on the immigration issue and the reform bill from American citizens. While the Bill has been set aside indefinitely, the issue of immigration in the US still holds strong among many people. See the links here for opinions.
• In a June 11th article for the Guardian Newspaper, two Red Cross workers were killed and one seriously wounded today in Lebanon. The shell that hit their vehicle came from Fatah Islam militants held up inside the Northern edge of the Nahr al-Bared camp. For more information see the Lebanon post below.

This week’s news roundup takes a first look at France’s new ministry of immigration and national identity, Switzerland’s refusals to accept more Iraqi refugees and newest EU plans to curtail the number of illegal migrants employed throughout Europe:

• Nicolas Sarkozy is a man of his words. On May 18 he appointed Brice Hortefeux to lead the newly created ministry of immigration and national identity. In response, eight historians working on a national project on French immigration history resigned in protest. Among the eight is Patrick Weil, who developed the immigration policy program for the Jospin government back in 1997. Liberation has a full article on the demissions, while Le Monde quotes one of them as saying “to associate immigration and national identity is to portray immigration as a problem for France and the French in terms of their self-understanding.” The new ministry, headed up by a 30-year personal friend of M. Sarkozy, will eventually pull together all administrative functions related to immigration (i.e. visa and expulsion matters, asylum, integration and the elusive national identity) under one roof. For now, however, these areas will remain with their current ministries, while a full-fledged plan for their integration is developed, i.e. the foreign ministry will remain in charge of visa attribution.
• While Senators put the finishing touches on a compromise solution toward new a new US immigration policy, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of migrants, Jorge Bustamante, was kept out of immigrant detention centers in Texas. A scheduled visit to the T. Don Hutto facility in Taylor, Texas was called off at short notice, leaving Dr. Bustamante “frustrated,” though that must be a diplomatic understatement. The Dallas Morning Herald reports the following:
  “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement canceled Mr. Bustamante’s visit to Hutto because of pending litigation regarding the facility, according to a State Department spokesman. ICE officials have invited Mr. Bustamante to visit another family detention facility near York, Pa. The Hutto detention center – a former prison – houses about 400 noncriminal immigrants awaiting deportation or other outcomes to their immigration cases. “I am particularly concerned with the treatment of children and children’s human rights,” said Mr. Bustamante, who is from Mexico. The Hutto center has come under fire from civil liberties and immigration advocates, who contend families detained there are subjected to psychologically abusive guards, inadequate medical care and inhumane conditions.”

• The ACLU has a full site, including podcasts, dedicated to Dr. Bustamente’s trip and his insights. We will continue to follow this story in the coming days.
• The New York Times examines the situation of Haitian migrants leaving their country, frustrated with the lack of change. On their way to the promised land of the United States many get stranded on the Turks and Caicos islands, and have become an administrative burden for the local government. A tragic incident on May 4, when a Haitian refugee boat capsized off the Turks and Caicos leaving 90 dead and survivors blaming the aggressive tactics by local authorities for many of the deaths.
  
• Business Week reports on EU immigration Commissioner Franco Frattini’s new plans to penalize employers who take on illegal immigrants.
  
• We recently reported on the plight of Iraqi migrants. Switzerland is the latest country to refuse the UNHCR’s request to accept a contingent of the 20,000 migrants the organization has identified as particularly in danger of falling prey to excessive violence and torture. The majority of these would-be migrants are women and children. According to an article in the Neue Zuericher Zeitung, Switzerland is refusing to accept additional Iraqi migrants pointing to the fact that 5,000 refugees already reside in the country. Instead, government officials want to step up humanitarian aid to internally displaced Iraqis.

• <> The clock is ticking as Senators are meeting behind closed doors to put a cap on the much-awaited immigration reform package. An article in the Boston Globe outlines the remaining points of contention. We will have a full commentary on the likely compromise early this week.
• Think tanks are debating the ‘right’ solution to the issue Senators face. The North County Times highlights contradictory studies by the Heritage Foundation and the Immigration Policy Center on the impact immigrant workers have had on the US economy.
• With UK Prime Minister Tony Blair announcing this week that he will leave office on June 21st, analysts are busy at work reflecting on his political legacy. Over at the Migration Policy Institute, Will Somerville, does just that for immigration policy. He argues that Blair and his successive Labour governments have succeeded in building a robust immigration system, one that will shape the country’s approach to migration in the future.
• The MPI also has a brief on new French President Sarkozy’s immigration policies, which supports our commentary with a number of statistics. (This document is a PDF download and requires Adobe Acrobat).
• My friend, immigration journalist Daniela Gerson, addresses the issue of circular migration in her latest article for German news magazine, Der Spiegel. The article (in English) examines a new trend in labor migration: hiring mothers as seasonal workers to ensure they return home to their husbands and children in their country of origin. The European Union’s Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner, Franco Frattini, plans to address the issue of circular migration, which is an integral part of the EU migration strategy, in the coming days.
• Speaking of Frattini initiatives: integration and fundamental rights received a financial boost last month, when the Council gave the Commission proposal for a new budget toward the promotion of fundamental rights the go-ahead. Over 93 million Euro will be allocated to transnational projects between Member States and other NGO projects between 2007 and 2013.

Unsurprisingly, Nicolas Sarkozy has been elected French President. An article in the weekend New York Times reexamines the president-elect’s immigration policy, highlighting that despite his tough talking campaign, he does show a genuine interest in tackling some of the most pressing problems at hand. French papers are reporting that Sarkozy has reiterated his proposal to create a ‘Mediterranean Community’ to address the problem of immigration from Africa.

• The same paper carries the story of a young Indian immigrant in his quest to win the national spelling bee to help him bring his parents back from India.
• Baha Duengor, a Turkish journalist with Deutsche Welle, comments on the second Islam Conference in Berlin.  An overview of this week’s meeting can be found here.
• Switzerland is debating introducing a finger-printing scheme for migrants to assist in identifying illegal immigrants and those who overstay their visas.

As many analysts had predicted: it’s ‘Sego’ vs. ‘Sarko’ in the run-off election for the French Presidency on May 6. The race is now on to win the 18% of the electorate that gave their vote to centrist candidate François Bayrou. Given that Bayrou advocated a moderate take on immigration control, largely favoring the EU line agreed in the Hague Programme, Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal looks to win over his voters on the immigration issue. In any event, as campaigning resumes, this issue will emerge as one of the ‘make or break’ questions, as both have starkly opposing opinions. We will continue to monitor the progress of the debate in shorter updates throughout the next few weeks.

The elections in 2002 were remarkable for a number of reasons: first, immigration became a major issue of contention after it had been largely ignored for years, and second, the right-wing Front National was able to use it successfully to its advantage. In a vote that shocked the nation, former Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin was shut out of the second round of voting, when Jean-Marie Le Pen garnered 16.86% of the vote.

Following an outcry by civil society, particularly migrant NGOs and shocked international reactions, the only ‘moral’ decision for the electorate was to deal Le Pen a fatalistic blow at the ballot box during the second round. Unsurprisingly, despite his overall dwindling popularity, Jacques Chirac one this second round by a landslide, with 82%.

Naturally, the fact that Le Pen had won so much ground meant something: it meant that many in France were confused by the government’s policies. It also meant that many believed in the Le Pen-ian rhetoric, according to which immigrants were to blame for the slow growth of the economy. Alas, the government, now under Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin had little choice but to tighten existing immigration legislation. Asylum law was tightened, entry and residence curtailed and measures to combat illegal immigration were stepped up.

A first, yet feeble, attempt was made to work toward the better integration of migrants, by introducing so-called “integration contracts.” These ‘contracts’ forced migrants to attend language courses, alongside seminars on French society and values. In addition, these integration measures were supposed to offer more intensive individual support for adolescents from difficult backgrounds. These insufficiency of these measures were made painfully clear during the 2005 banlieu riots, however.

Addressing Islam

Since 9/11, France – as many other countries – has put a premium on constructively addressing the role of Islam in French society. The objective here has been to strengthen moderate Islamic forces that recognize the French Constitution as a primary guidance. With around 5 million Muslims, the country boasts the largest Islamic community in Europe. In 2003, the first French Islamic Council (CFCM) was elected. Its role was to represent all Muslims living in France vis-à-vis the government. It had additional responsibilities regarding the education of the country’s imams.

While addressing the needs of the large Islamic population in France, the government launched a near simultaneous reexamination of the secular values of the Republic. The headscarf affair, discussed in our earlier posting on migration issues in France, tapped a new discussion on religious symbols in schools. A lengthy discussion on “laïcité” – the separation of church and state ensued, which resulted in a new law to prohibit all religious signifiers in schools. This naturally included the removal of Christian crosses and the wearing of the Muslim headscarf and other symbolic relics.

Although analysts had predicted the contrary, the law was met with relatively little opposition. This is in part linked to the fact that the country’s Muslim organization, which had long opposed the law and encouraged protest, abandoned its criticism following the abduction of two French journalists in Iraq. The kidnappers had demanded the government drop the controversial law in the ransom notes communicated to Paris, threatening to kill the correspondents, should the government not comply with their demands.

In solidarity with the kidnapped journalists, who were freed in December 2004, the imams of all the leading mosques in France called upon girls to take off their headscarves before they entered school.

New faces - same policies

The government of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, which featured Sarkozy as the interior minister, focused on curtailing illegal immigration - particularly following the 2005 riots. Upon taking office, de Villepin had announced that he “believed in a generous and determined France. A France where there is a place for everyone according to their merits. A France of opportunities.” This policy sat well with the measures introduced toward attracting the best foreign students to France and facilitating their remainder in the country upon graduation.

In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, he promised to counteract the alienation of migrant youths by encouraging or even forcing companies to switch to a ‘blind’ recruitment process, whereby names of applicants and their racial or ethnic background would be obscured.  He also promised to increase the number of scholarships kids from ethnic and difficult socio-economic backgrounds received for elite preperatory schools. Individualized career counseling for France’s alienated suburban youth was also intended to help diffuse the situation.  In addition, his government was going to invest EUR 30 billion, “in order to renovate the whole urbanism.” Unfortunately, beyond these announcements, the Prime Minister’s website features no reference to the implementation of these measures.

Nevertheless, the period between 2002 and today was a busy one for France’s immigration policy, as outlined above. One of Sarkozy’s first key decisions was to close down the Sangatte refugee camp, which had become untenable by humanitarian standards. By 2005, the impact of the ‘reforms’ introduced by the earlier Raffarin government were beginning to make inroads. In the first months of 2006, 33,000 illegal migrants had been sent back, while the figure of those in detention centers more than doubled. Voluntary return payments, system which has resurfaced time and time again as a policy, was revamped, offering migrants willing to leave more money.

Rules for residency permits were also tightened during that time, diminishing the number of ‘cartes de sejour’ attributed. This, Sarkozy felt, was all linked to his policy of ‘resoluteness and severity.’ The continuation of this line, should he become Prime Minister, include the creation of a separate ministry for immigration and national identity and a further overhaul of the existing system.  Nevertheless, the regularisation of migrants continued under Sarkozy, despite official rhetoric to the contrary.

If we do see a ‘Sarko’ vs. ‘Sego’ run-off, as analysts are now predicting - in keeping with the flip-flop tradition of French polices - migrants’ status could change relative quickly depending on their individual situation. It will thus be interesting to closely follow the debate between these two polar opposites as they approach the second round in early May. Should Le Pen make the race after all, Sarkozy will be forced to take another tack to make his point clear…this should be an interesting Sunday…

French presidential hopeful, Nicolas Sarkozy, is coming under fire from those nipping at his heals ahead of Sunday’s election. It seems as though the hard-line stance he has been advocating throughout the months of campaigning is now beginning to haunt him. Reuters rounds up the criticism Sarkozy’s opponents have been lobbing at him over the past few days. The socialist camp of Segolene Royal and the centrist circles of Francois Bayrou are “portraying him as an agitated, dangerous right-winger,” according to Reuters. Both “say his inability to visit France’s multi-ethnic suburbs without a small army of riot police shows he is incapable of being the unifying force a president is supposed to be.”

The truth is that none of the candidates have put forth convincing programs to dismantle the alienation many, predominantly immigrant youths feel in France’s high-rise suburban areas, the banlieus.

An article in the New York Times Magazine underlines the potential for violence that still runs as an undercurrent in these areas. As described in my FPA commentary, many of the unemployed youths here feel that “they are unwelcome in a France.”  David Rieff, the author of the NYT Magazine piece agrees with my earlier assessment of the general malaise in these parts of France, where youths feel that the country’s “treatment of them, whether hostile or indifferent, utterly contradicts the claim the country makes for itself: that in France everyone is treated equally and that the Republic neither makes nor will accept any distinction between citizens on the basis of race, class or ethnic background.”

Behind the assimilist mantra put forth by every French government since the early seventies lies the reality, which Rieff addresses in his piece:

“There are data that seem to demonstrate that if your name is Mohammed or Fatima, you have less than 50 percent of the chance of being hired than you do if your name is Jean or Marie. The French Republic may proclaim its commitment to equal opportunity, but few French people believe it to be genuine. Abderrahmane Dahmane, who is in charge of the Sarkozy campaign’s relations with France’s immigrant communities, told me that when a policeman stops an immigrant youth, the youth might say something like “I’m as French as you,” and the policeman might agree, but they would both know it wasn’t true.”

Sarkozy will not be winning the French Muslim vote on Sunday - that electoral territory has been left largely to Bayrou and Sarkozy’s closest rival (according to today’s poll figures), socialist Royal. Surprisingly, even Jean-Marie Le Pen is making inroads with this electorate, by doing what Sarkozy might be afraid to do, following his disparaging remarks about migrant youths in 2005: Le Pen has been to the banlieus as part of his campaign. His campaign-manager daughter has promised all French citizens, regardless of skin color, greater acceptance and a better life. This slight modification in the Le Pen program might have an effect at the ballot boxes on Sunday, but Bayrou seems to be the leading candidate among the French Muslim community, in part for his strong commitment toward a roots-causes approach to migration and greater aid promised to North African countries.

Rieff’s article quotes Lhaj Breze, the head of the Union of Islamic Organizations in France: Breze smiled wanly: “I’m afraid you won’t find a single young French Muslim who will vote for him (Sarkozy) . No one is yet willing to forgive him. As far as they are concerned, what he said at the time of the riots — as well as his closeness to America’s policy in the Middle East, which is very important to the Muslim community in France — makes him unacceptable to them.”

Sadly, whatever the outcome of the vote on Sunday, a real seismic shift in France’s immigration policy - one that would address the integration issue in a comprehensive manner - is unrealistic. Should Sarkozy win the second round of the vote, scheduled for May 6, his majority will be a crucial factor against which to predict just how restrictive his new policies on immigration will be. Naturally, the President is not the sole figure of France’s executive - the National Assembly will have its voice heard. Analysts predict that despite perhaps being elected on a hard-line ticket, Sarkozy will have to - even if it’s just for the sake of keeping the peace - revert to a more conciliatory attitude toward resident legal migrants in France’s suburbs.

French voters will take to the polls for the first round of presidential elections on April 22nd. Immigration and national identity have emerged as key topics in the debate between the four leading candidates: Nicolas Sarkozy of the conservative UMP, Ségolène Royal from the Socialist Party (PS), centrist candidate François Bayrou and Jean-Marie Le Pen, the front-runner of the far-right Front National. A summary of the immigration debate in France can be found in this week’s analysis on the FPA homepage. In that article, I argue that since the arrival of the Front National on the political scene, it has had a considerable part in shaping the country’s immigration policy, as both conservative and socialist governments aimed to keep this far-right force at bay.

We will examine the evolution of France’s immigration policy and the candidate’s debate in a series of blogs over the coming days. The first part in our series will look at immigration policy in the 1980s and 1990s.

Contested Policies: France’s immigration policy in the 1980s

Francois Mitterand’s election as the first socialist president of the fifth republic gave immigration policy in France a more human face, after legal immigration had been halted in 1974 an restrictive measures introduced to reduce illegal migration in 1980 (through the so-called Bonnet laws). In the first euphoric days of socialist victory, the government emphasized a need to end the insecurities faced by migrants with respect to their legal status and set out to improve the situation inherited by twenty years of conservative rule. Thus, the expulsion of all foreigners born in France was suspended, retroactive regularization of illegal migrants that had entered the country before January 1, 1981 was introduced and immigrants were given the right to form interest organizations. The latter remains crucial for the immigration debate today, as powerful civil rights groups such as SOS Racisme and MRAP emerged from this shift in legal framework. Between 1981 and 1986, France saw an unprecedented increase in legislation on immigration related matters: 16 laws, 79 decrees and 220 circulars were issued during that time - many of these unfortunately reversed these early steps toward a comprehensive, rights-based approach for legal immigrants.

As the Front National began making inroads in local elections in the early eighties, winning key mayoral elections, the socialists soon began reverting to the traditional, restrictive line. Faced with rising unemployment, linked in part to the presence of migrants by the media, the socialists began to shift their policies in a last attempt to gain credibility among the French electorate on the issue. What followed was a reintroduction of an earlier repatriation scheme that gave migrants financial compensation if they returned to their home country and a toughening of already existing legislation whereby immigrants had to prove their employment status ahead of being granted residency. In the years leading up to 1986, the government’s policy became so riddled with contradictory elements, all legitimized by reference to French républicanisme, that both the FN and immigrant organizations saw a huge swell in membership and activism. According to numerous analysts, the socialists’ attempt at keeping all sides somewhat satisfied proved its biggest stumbling block in the 1986 elections.

Following the conservative victory in the 1986 parliamentary elections, Jacques Chirac became Prime Minister under Mitterand. His government faced the difficult task of having to win back the electorate that had been swayed by the FN, giving it a seat in parliament. The Pasqua laws of 1986 facilitated immigrant expulsion and gave local prefects and mayors a say in who should be sent back, localizing the debate. As a result, France’s deportation figures doubled only three months after the introduction of this new legislation, accompanied by street protests by anti-immigrant groups. In an attempt to steer a debate on French citizenship away from the populist arguments of the FN, the conservatives proposed to change the automatic attribution of French citizenship. This plan backfired, giving Jean-Marie Le Pen an even greater forum for his ideas. The return of a socialist Prime Minister under Michel Rocard and later Edith Cresson meant a gradual reversal of the Pasqua laws.

The so-called ‘headscarf affair’ in the late 80s, in which three Muslim students were banned from attending classes because they refused to remove their scarves in school, sparked an outcry of public opinion on the separation of church and state and the degree to which migrants needed to observe French traditions. This heated debate evidenced the the gaps that still remained between the actual inclusion of migrants in society and the tolerance of their respective religious and cultural differences. To respond to these questions, the government created the Haut Conseil d’Integration, a new state body to address the challenge of coordinating local integration programs in 1989. But even the creation of a new institution could not remedy the deeply rooted contradictions within the French immigration system.

Tied to the ’90s

The 1990s was the most confusing time in immigration legislation in France: race riots and a fresh debate on the Muslim headscarf gave the FN more grounds for their popular argument that the country’s national identity was being eroded by foreigners. The violent riots in Lyon and Paris were an early sign of the deep crisis in the country’s social cohesion that remains unresolved today, borne from the social and economic marginalization and exclusion of many of the country’s second and third generation immigrants.

During that same period, immigrant organizations became vocal players in shaping the political debate, which forced the government to launch a policy of regularization on a case-by-case basis, a policy, which is now being advocated by presidential-hopeful Ségolène Royal. Citizenship laws went from restrictive to more liberal, with the 1998 Gigou law reintroducing the automatic right to French citizenship for children born in France from foreign parents. Institutions were created to manage immigrant housing and social funds, but were chronically under-funded. Relegated to the outskirts of major cities, alienated by a system that claimed to respect diversity but relied largely on secularist French traditions transmitted through education, immigrant sub-culture began to play an increasingly larger role.

The mid-nineties saw a flood of legislation that curtailed the right to asylum, introduced stricter rules for French citizenship and facilitated deportation. Charles Pasqua had returned as center-right interior minister and introduced a vastly unpopular package of rules in 1986. The so-called “Pasqua I” law  undid the ius soli principle, according to which all born on French territory were quasi automatically French citizens. Immigrant children now had to certify their willingness to assimilate (NOT integrate!) and relinquish all “rights to be different.” Pasqua II officially eliminated France’s remaining constitutional obligations to grant asylum, while Pasqua III rescinded the automatic residency permit after 15 years on French territory, making it easier for long-term illegals to be deported in a matter of hours. His successor gave local prefects the right to expel foreigners locally, something only the interior minister could do prior to 1996. Insecurities among resident migrants grew, while the influx of foreign nationals to France was essentially set to zero.

Vowing to put an end to the “electoral football” (Maxim Silverman) consecutive conservative and socialist governments played with the immigration portfolio, socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin ordered a comprehensive examination of all migration related policies. Migration specialist Patrick Weil was given the job, though his advice nearly led to a major crisis in the socialist government. Critics felt that Jospin was “dishing into the bolws of the RPR and the FN” to achieve a widely held consensus. Weil’s report had one main objective: “to move away from the rhetoric of incrimination and suspicion” that had dominated the policy framework in the 70s and 80s. While remaining tough on illegal migration, Weil suggested a root causes approach that addressed development problems in migrant home countries, such as Northern Africa. Most of Weil’s suggestions were watered down considerably to make them palatable to French parliamentarians and in this form failed to achieve Weil’s original goal of raising the acceptance of immigrants in France. Too reined in by the threat of the next election, the Jospin government’s lofty plans of introducing a comprehensive immigration policy came in a dollar too short. Aside from giving in to public pressure and legalizing 80,000 ’sans papiers’ (illegal migrants), this last socialist government of the 1990s had little to show for itself.

The 1980s and ’90s serve as good examples of the patchwork of policies pursued by different governments over the years. With policies that shifted radically, sometimes within a few months, a large part of France’s immigrant population was left in a situation of insecurity. Little was done over these two years to assist in the active integration of migrants, who were for the most part relegated to social housing areas outside major French cities. The formation of the types of ghettos decried during the violent outbreaks in the fall and winter of 2005/2006 have their origins in the failed and ever-changing policies of the 70s, 80s and 90s.

The second part of our series will examine the developments between the end of the 1990s and today to help understand and contextualize the suggestions made by the presidential candidates ahead of the vote next week.