Welcome to the new PICUM newsletter, where we will update you about issues concerning undocumented people once a month. The updates will focus on systemic issues including regularisations, criminalisation of solidarity, detention and returns, labour rights and channels, access to health-care, access to justice, undocumented children and families.

Let us know what you think of our newsletter on communications@picum.org.

European human rights court dismisses humanitarian visa complaint from Syrian family

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights ruled inadmissible a complaint by a Syrian family who had sought a humanitarian visa at the Belgian embassy in Beirut, on the ground that the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) only applies within the jurisdictions of the State Parties. The family were refused the short term visas and claimed that their rights to an effective remedy and to a fair hearing (art. 13 and 6 of the ECHR) had been violated.

Continuous judicial harassment against French farmer who helped migrants

The public prosecutor's office in Lyon has filed an appeal against the acquittal of Cédric Herrou, a French farmer who had been charged with facilitation of irregular entry for guiding nearly 200 migrants through the mountains. Cedric Herrou was acquitted of all charges on 13 May 2020, after being given a four-month suspended sentence in August 2017. France's Constitutional Council later said Herrou's actions were not a crime under the "principle of fraternity". In December 2018, the Cour de Cassation - France's court of final appeal - overturned Herrou's conviction and sent the case back to the appeals court in Lyon, which quashed all charges.

Swiss prosecutor drops charges against pastor who helped undocumented migrant

Norbert Valley, an evangelical pastor, was definitively acquitted from all charges after being condemned in 2018 to pay a fine of 1,000 Swiss Francs for facilitation of irregular stay, for giving the keys of a flat to a Togolese man in an irregular situation. The court of La Chaux-de-Fonds acquitted him on 12 March 2020, and the Prosecutor has now decided not to appeal against his acquittal.

Council of Europe issues guidelines on protecting solidarity

The Council of Europe has issued guidelines on Protecting NGO Work in Support of Refugees and Other Migrants. The guidelines stress that laws, policies and practices should not prohibit or prevent NGOs from helping migrants at sea or on land, and that NGOs should be protected from any form of denigration, hatred or vilification.

Greece sharpens control over civil society working with migrants

In April this year, the Greek government adopted a Joint Ministerial Decision which sets particularly onerous requirements for the registration and certification of migration-related NGOs, and brings their activities and personnel under strict state control. Registration is necessary to access detention centres and government funding. Civil society reports that the provisions of the decision create legal uncertainty, confer excessive discretionary powers to the administrative authorities and amount to a disproportionate interference with the right to freedom of association.

Alan Kurdi ship prevented from rescuing people at sea

On 6 May, the Italian Coast Guard conducted an inspection on the ship Alan Kurdi and allegedly found "various irregularities of a technical and operational nature” for which the ship was placed under an "administrative stop" until the irregularities are rectified. As of 5 June, the ship continues to be impounded and is unable to carry out rescue activities.

Volunteers harassed in Calais

In Calais, volunteers from the organisations Utopia56 and Auberge des Migrants have been repeatedly fined for violating social distancing measures because the police did not recognise the validity of the travel certificate issued by the organisations to justify the movement of their volunteers during the lockdown. On 24 April, four Utopia56 members were arrested after filming the evacuation of a migrants’ camp in Grande-Synthe. They were released the same evening without any charge pressed against them.

Legal actions challenge searches of migrants’ mobiles by German immigration authorities

Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF), a Berlin-based legal NGO, has launched a legal action against Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees for its routine practice of examining data from asylum seekers’ mobile phones to verify information about their identity. GFF worked with a journalist to expose this practice in a December 2019 report, which provided a basis for the litigation. Evidence indicates that this practice is both intrusive and ineffective.

EU Court of Justice rules Hungarian transit zones are places of detention

The CJEU has ruled that the placing of asylum seekers or third-country nationals who are the subject of a return decision in the Röszke transit zone at the Serbian-Hungarian border must be classified as detention. Hundreds of asylum seekers will be now moved to reception centres while Hungary will have to close the transit zone camps. The decision marks a departure from the recent ruling of the European Court of Human Rights Ilias and Ahmed, where it was held that the accommodation of applicants of international protection in the Röszke transit zone did not amount to a deprivation of liberty.

UK initially releases, then resumes detention of migrants during the pandemic

While the UK released nearly 300 people from immigration detention at the start of lockdown on 23 March 2020, 295 people have subsequently entered immigration detention. According to UK charity Free Movement, which analysed Home Office data, “the Home Office has refused to empty detention centres completely, but the number of people detained at any given time has fallen significantly, from 1,278 at the start 2020 to 313 at the start of May.”

New research shows undocumented people fear accessing health care

Doctors of the World have exposed how excluded groups, including undocumented people, are being left behind in the UK’s COVID-19 response as control measures amplify existing health inequalities and put life-saving advice and care further out of reach.

The European AIDS Treatment Group second rapid analysis of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on people living with HIV indicates that people stranded in countries where they do not normally reside, including undocumented migrants, are facing challenges in accessing supplies of antiretroviral medications, due to cost or other restrictions.

EU Farm to Fork Strategy recognises need for workers’ rights in food systems

The European Commission has published ‘A Farm to Fork Strategy: for a fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food system’. The Strategy underlines the need for the European Pillar of Social Rights to be respected, especially when it comes to precarious, seasonal and undeclared workers. Reacting to the Strategy, EFFAT regrets the lack of specific actions in the draft action plan to realise these goals, as well as the lack of attention to workers in the hospitality sector. Slow Food has also highlighted more work is needed to establish fair supply chains and fair working conditions for all farmers, farmworkers, food artisans and in particular for migrant farmworkers, youth, and women..

ETUC maps impacts of COVID-19 on labour markets and workers in Europe

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) launched ‘COVID-19 Watch’ in April, a series of briefing notes to identify problems and share good practices to deal with the economic and social impacts of the C-19 pandemic on workers. The Seasonal Workers briefing note outlines national measures targeting seasonal workers to address labour shortages . A number of short-term measures are being implemented at national level to address labour shortages and ensure that food supplies are not jeopardised, but these measures often fall short in safeguarding workers’ health and safety despite the additional risks related to the current pandemic.

Italy: four arrested for labour exploitation in Southern Italy

Media report that two farms with an annual turnover of millions of euros, were targeted in an operation against labour exploitation on 3 May in Foggia in Southern Italy. The workers were forced to pay 30 euros every month to live in crowded and dilapidated containers and caravans, and worked up to 13 hours per day for 3-5 euros per hour. Three of the four individuals arrested were entrepreneurs, and face charges of labour exploitation and employment of irregular workers. The fourth is a young Gambian national who is being charged for his role as a gangmaster recruiting migrant workers to work on the farms. Five undocumented workers were identified in the operation; there is no information about outcomes for them.

Study finds migrant “key workers” are essential to Europe’s economy

A new study from the Institute of Labour Economics shows that on average, 13% of “key workers” in “essential jobs” in the EU are migrants. The share of migrant workers in these professions is close to 20% in many countries (e.g. Italy, Belgium, Germany, Sweden and Austria), while the largest figures are observed in Ireland (26%), Cyprus (29%) and Luxembourg (53%). In some key occupations - e.g. cleaners, and labourers in mining and construction - up to a third of key workers are foreign born.

Germany announces tougher penalties for labour rights violations in meat industry

The German government has announced a series of reforms to improve working conditions in the meat industry, which relies heavily on EU mobile and migrant workers, often employed through subcontractors. Reforms have been given new impetus after hundreds of workers tested positive for Covid-19 in recent weeks. Reforms are to include a ban on the use of subcontractors from January 2021, increased fines of up to €30,000 for companies breaching regulations, a digital system for logging working hours, and additional requirements on employers that provide accommodation. The Guardian has also reported on failures to protect workers in slaughterhouses and meat packing plants in Ireland, the UK and the US.

European Commission proposes slight increase of funding for migration issues

On 27 May, the European Commission presented its financial recovery plan to address the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The proposal, which relaunches the negotiations for the EU budget 2021 - 2027, increases funding for the Asylum and Migration Fund to € 11 billion from the € 9,205 billion proposed in 2018. The Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived, until now the only EU fund directing resources directly eligible to support undocumented migrants for social needs, will be extended until 2022. More on ECRE.

New resource looks at 20 years of the Tampere programme

The Migration Policy Centre has published a review of the last 20 years since the Tampere European Council Conclusions of October 1999 (The Tampere Programme), which set for the first time a common policy programme on Justice and Home Affairs in Europe. The book includes a chapter about regular and irregular migration.

UN bodies publish guidance to strengthen protection of migrants regardless of status

The Migrant Workers’ Committee and the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants published a Joint Guidance Note on the Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Human Rights of Migrants. It highlights the serious and disproportionate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on migrants and their families and their valuable contributions on the front lines of the responses to COVID-19.

 The UN Secretariat further raised the alarm about the three-fold impact of the pandemic on people on the move: besides the obvious health and socio-economic crisis, people on the move experience a protection crisis, as countries have imposed borders restrictions across the world.

Human rights court finds complex regularisation procedure incompatible with right to private life

In the case Sudita Keita v. Hungary, the European Court of Human Rights examined whether the repercussions on private life due to the difficulties in regularising one’s status amount to a violation of art. 8. The applicant, who was trying to get stateless status recognised, complained about the general impossibility of regularising his status in Hungary for a fifteen-year-long period. The Court considered that the difficulty of regularising his status impacted his private life in Hungary. The decision sets important principles on the accessibility of the statelessness determination procedure and underlines that art. 8 ECHR imposes a positive obligation on states to provide for effective and accessible procedures to have their status determined.

Portuguese regularisation leaves out tens of thousands of undocumented people

The Portuguese organisation SOS Racismo has estimated that 80,000 -100,000 undocumented migrants are excluded from the measure which provides regular status to people living in Portugal with an ongoing residence application until 1 July 2020. Those who do not benefit from the program do not have an ongoing residence permit request and were not able to initially apply due to their work in the undeclared sector and inability to demonstrate an accumulation of payslips and contracts needed for the application.

Italy adopts regularisation measure amid critiques

The Italian government passed a law on 13 May paving the way for around 200,000 undocumented agricultural, domestic and care workers to be regularised. The measure has two tracks: employers may submit an application to conclude an employment contract with a foreign national on the territory or declare an existing irregular employment relationship, and people whose residence permit expired since 31 October 2019 can apply for a temporary permit of 6 months to look for work. While an important step, the measure has been criticised, for example, for criteria being too strict and excluding many workers, providing only 6 weeks for applications, making workers very dependent on their employers and not addressing structural reasons for irregularity and exploitation.

Workers across Europe strike for broader regularisation

On 30 May, several migrant organisations in Italy, France, Germany, Turkey, Morocco, Spain, Lebanon, Belgium and Slovenia called a transnational strike denouncing residence and work permit measures that tie people to employers, income or family and perpetuate exploitation, and to demand an unconditional and unlimited European residence permit.

In France, 210 organisations and 300 public figures called for national manifestations, also on 30 May, in support of regularisation measures for undocumented people to access social support and health care.

UN agencies urge states to regularise essential migrant workers

In a recent UNHCR/IOM discussion paper on Covid-19 and mixed movements, the two UN agencies say that “forced returns cannot be the only solution” and also acknowledge the vital role played by migrant workers in some economic sectors. They call on the EU to “fundamentally change its approach to migration and labor mobility and should make a serious effort to regularize those whose contribution to the economic recovery will be essential.

Spain: regularisation campaign gathers over 200 organisations

In Spain, a powerful campaign for regularisation #RegularizacionYA was launched in May and now counts more than 200 organisations taking part. 41,000 people have asked the Spanish government for an urgent and extraordinary regularisation of migrants

New research exposes COVID-19 impact on survivors of gender-based violence

Research from the University of Birmingham exposes the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on migrant survivors of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in five countries, including the UK. The study shows that lockdown measures can mean that survivors are locked down with perpetrators, with no access to shelters nor to online support services. Additionally, undocumented migrant survivors feared seeking medical help – scared of being detained and/or deported.