November

The European Council took stock during a session on 29 and 30 October 2009 of progress made on implementing measures regarding irregular immigration, and called for further efforts to be made.

Migrant rights advocates have protested the sale of an “Illegal Alien” Halloween costume by major US retailers such as Target, Walgreens and Amazon.com. The costume consists of an orange jumpsuit, similar to prison garb, with "Illegal Alien" stamped in black across the chest; a space alien mask; and a fake Green Card. Activists and immigrants said that they found the costume to be offensive as it depicted undocumented migrants as “not one of us”.

The Inter Press Service News Agency featured an article on 13 October 2009 about an autonomous school in Zurich that is run by undocumented migrants and offers German language classes for more than 150 undocumented migrants and asylum seekers. According to one of the teachers, the decision to establish the school was taken in December 2008, after a group of undocumented migrants had squatted in a church in Zurich for more than two weeks, demanding the right to stay in Switzerland.

The Spanish parliament approved the government’s proposal to amend the Law on the Rights and Freedoms of Aliens in Spain and Their Integration (“Ley de los Derechos y Libertades de los Extranjeros en España y su Integración”) on 29 October 2009. (See PICUM Newsletters July and October 2009.) While rights groups have welcomed some of the new provisions, such as increased protections for victims of human trafficking, several NGOs have warned that the amended law will significantly restrict the fundamental rights of immigrants.

A new paper published by Real Instituto Elcano on 27 October 2009 examines irregular migration to the European Union through the border between Romania, Moldova and Ukraine. The paper, titled "La inmigración irregular en Europa Oriental: la frontera entre Rumanía, Moldavia y Ucrania", is available in Spanish at http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/wps/portal/rielcano/contenido?WCM_GLO....

Poland’s Commissioner for Civil Rights Protection, Janusz Kochanowski, has appealed to the Polish Ministry of Interior and Administration (MSWiA) to regularise undocumented migrants in Poland. In a letter sent to MSWiA in August 2009, Kochanowski suggested that an amendment to the Aliens Act should allow for the regularisation of undocumented migrants who have not been in conflict with the law. At present, irregular immigrants in Poland are only able to regularise their status if they have a terminal illness, if their children are born in Poland, or if they marry a Polish citizen.

The Dutch National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings, Corinne Dettmeijer, presented her seventh annual report on human trafficking in the Netherlands to the Dutch Minister of Justice, Hirsch Ballin, on October 29. Dettmeijer found that there was a serious lack of suitable accommodation for victims of trafficking and that judges dealing with cases that involved exploitation in the sex industry were insufficiently informed about the subject.

A court in Sicily has acquitted three members of the German organisation Cap Anamur who had been tried for aiding irregular migrants by rescuing 37 stranded African migrants in the Mediterranean Sea in 2004. The Italian authorities had only allowed the organisation’s ship, the “Cap Anamur II”, to dock after three weeks, and all of the migrants were deported after landing in Sicily.

According to human rights activists, about 500 irregular migrants are held under extremely poor conditions in the detention centre on the Greek island of Samos. The activists report that families and children sleep on the floor, that the centre’s only social worker has resigned, and that 15 to 20 unaccompanied minors have been held for more than 15 days, while another nine minors have been in the centre for 55 days. Source: UNHCR Greece Press Review, 26 September - 2 October 2009 (source cited: Avgi, 2 October 2009).

The documentary film director José Chidlovsky was questioned by police in Toulouse on 5 October 2009 for giving shelter to an undocumented woman who is a protagonist in one of his documentary films. The woman had become suicidal when she was faced with deportation following her 18th birthday in April 2009.