In March 2023, the Greek Parliament reformed the national Migration Code. The changes will significantly impact migrant’s lives – some changes will improve their lives, others won’t. This blog covers changes that impact people’s access to a secure residence status, and highlights the introduction of a permit for former unaccompanied children. While the government is yet to define the modalities of its implementation, civil society highlights important gaps in the protection of some of the most marginalised people, including children. Except for a few provisions, the law will enter into force on 1 January 2024.

For an overview of regularisation mechanisms in Greece under the previous code, see Turning 18 and undocumented: supporting children in their transition into adulthood (annex 2: Greece).

Ten-year residence permit for young people

The new Code improves the eligibility conditions for the ten-year residence permit (“M2 permit”) for two groups of young people. Firstly, third-country nationals born in Greece or who successfully completed six grades of school in Greece and are younger than 23 at the time of application, are eligible for the ten-year permit. This regularisation mechanism already existed, but only gave access to a five-year permit.

Secondly, the new Code improves conditions for former unaccompanied children. Up until this reform, Greece had no way for former unaccompanied children to regularise their status. Now, article 161§1(c) extends the eligibility for the M2 permit to adults who arrived in Greece as unaccompanied children and successfully completed at least three years of secondary education in a Greek secondary school before they turned 23.

Although this provision entered into force upon the publication of the law earlier this year, it cannot be implemented until the relating Ministerial Decision is published. No information on this permit or how to apply for it is currently available on the Ministry of Migration and Asylum website.

The introduction of this new regularisation mechanism for undocumented former unaccompanied children is a positive development in itself. In addition, the length of the permit provides stability. However, the requirement to successfully attend three years of school in Greece before turning 23 can be challenging for many former unaccompanied children. Many unaccompanied and formerly unaccompanied children cannot enroll in school because places are limited (especially when enrolling in the middle of the year). Even when they do manage to enroll, they may struggle to follow classes in Greek, as many are not supported in learning the new language.

To apply for an M2 permit, the applicant must also have health care coverage and must not have been absent from Greece for more than two consecutive years. After its expiration, the M2 permit is automatically converted into a long-term residence permit (“M1 permit”).

Three-year permit for exceptional reasons

The reform complicates access to the A6 permit, a three-year permit for exceptional reasons. As before, this permit remains accessible to undocumented people who continually lived in Greece for seven years or more (art 134§5). However, the time awaiting an asylum decision no longer counts towards these seven years, effectively extending the time of precarity.

Five-year exclusion for false documents

The new Code sanctions people who provided false information or documents during an application procedure with a five-year ban from applying for a new permit or renewing their current permit. This ban can be issued by any competent authority and without a court order.

No security for unaccompanied children or agricultural workers

Overall, this reform may improve access to a secure residence permit for undocumented children and young people. The introduction of the ten-year residence permit for former unaccompanied children who attended school in Greece is particularly promising. Whether the permit will be accessible to undocumented young people in practice will however largely depend on the policies regulating the implementation of the law, especially the documents required to obtain the permit.

At the same time, the new Migration Code fails to introduce residence permits for two important groups, despite the continued advocacy work of Greek civil society, including PICUM members. First, unaccompanied children who do not apply or did not receive asylum continue to be undocumented. Greek law now leaves this group of children in a highly precarious situation, where they need to go to school and wait until they turn 18 to be able to apply for a permit. Secondly, the reform did not introduce any solutions for undocumented agricultural workers, who often endure serious exploitation and abuse.

Cover image: jimmy teoh – Pexels

On 8 and 9 June 2023, PICUM brought together migrant and human rights advocates, from both inside and outside our membership, at our General Assembly, to reflect on the participation of people with lived experience of precarious status in our work. This blog shares some highlights of our discussions.

PICUM’s 2023 General Assembly showcased the work of our rich and varied membership, and the ways undocumented people can be active in resisting and shaping the policies and practices that affect them.

A diverse and active network

In the opening plenary, we heard from Afrique Culture Maroc, an organisation founded and led by migrants and refugees in Morocco. In 2014, they were instrumental in securing the regularisation of some 27,000 undocumented people living in Morocco, drawing inspiration from regularisation campaigns run by PICUM members in Ireland, Belgium and other countries.

We also heard from Maisha, which was founded by and for African women in Germany in 1996 and successfully advocated towards the city of Frankfurt for support in meeting the needs of migrant women. While it originally focused on access to health care, Maisha now also works on labour and inclusion and runs a variety of programs to empower African women in Germany, and those who have been returned to their country of origin.

The Latin American Women’s Rights Service (LAWRS) is an intersectional feminist organisation for Latin American migrant women living in the United Kingdom. They have had success in leading a broad advocacy campaign in the UK centring migrant women’s voices and experience concerning undocumented women and gender-based violence, offer a helpline and support thousands of women every year who are exposed to violence, labour exploitation, trafficking and poverty.

PICUM member HIAS Israel underscored the importance of the network as a vital source of inspiration in a difficult political context and expressed appreciation for opportunities to do PICUM-supported mutual-learning exchanges with other members.

Stichting LOS, based in Utrecht, Netherlands, is one of PICUM’s oldest members. Their work has benefited from PICUM’s support and analysis – including a successful effort to resist a law that would have criminalised support to undocumented people. They also played a key part in developing a movement of young undocumented people who call for secure residence permits after they turn 18.

ASGI, the Italian Association for Juridical Studies on Migration, uses advocacy and strategic litigation to counter hostile legislation and policies in Italy, where various governments have been restricting the rights of migrants and asylum-seekers. ASGI is active in various working groups of PICUM’s network, where it appreciates the possibility to exchange information with other human rights organisations.

This year, PICUM also welcomed four new member organisations that are all led by people with lived experience of migration and provide direct support to undocumented people and people facing marginalisation: Siempre, a grassroots organisation providing support to the Latin American women’s diaspora in Belgium; Generation for Change, a migrant-led organisation working on community-building, awareness raising and service provision for people in migration in Cyprus; the Communauté Ivoirienne de la Grèce, an association that promotes the participation of people from the Ivoirian community in Greece in decision-making processes that affect them; and Uniao de Refugiados em Portugal, an organisation that provides various forms of support and assistance to migrants and refugees, including undocumented people.

Participation and empowerment

The General Assembly also featured dedicated discussions and workshops on participation and empowerment of people with lived experience.Irene Jagoba and Chanasi Potso spoke about their involvement in Justice for the Undocumented (JFU), the largest movement of undocumented people in Ireland, with over 2,500 members. After mobilizing for several years through marches, vigils, banner drops, selfies, press conferences and even parliamentary debates, they secured a nation-wide regularisation programme in 2022. Both Irene and Chanasi highlighted how important it is that the movement is led and organised by people with lived experience, and that relationships of trust are built with affected communities.While their participation was driven by the personal impact of policies and systems on their living and working conditions, both shared the conviction that change can only come through collective action and that they felt empowered having a role in pushing for that change.

Eva Maria Jimenez Lamas of the Brussels section of Belgian trade union CSC led a workshop on the union’s work with undocumented domestic workers who have been organising for the past few years within the League of Domestic Workers, and have been campaigning for decent work permits and working conditions, and for the regularisation of undocumented workers more broadly. She spoke of the importance of songs in building solidarity and connection, and the role of artistry, storytelling and theatre in expressing their vision for change and making their case to the public and to politicians. The work takes time: the women built their demands together.

Henriette Essami-Khaullot of the Office for the spokesperson of undocumented people (Belgium) shared her experience as an active member of the movement for change of undocumented people in Brussels. Prior to her activism, she hadn’t realised undocumented people could be organised; she was touched by the commitment of the people the met and the power of the actions they made together, which helped build her political consciousness and moved her to stand up for her rights. She reflected on the need to ensure diversity in movements to address specific challenges faced by different members of the community. For instance, she shared that in Belgium, the regularisation movement is primarily led and coordinated by men: this has meant that certain actions, such as occupations of buildings, have sometimes been organised without considering specific needs and facilities for women.

Allied spaces and groups can support the struggle of undocumented people, by providing safe spaces – and sometimes by stepping aside so that they can take the lead. Jonathan McCully of Systemic Justice, which partners with communities working on racial, social, and economic justice to bring about change through strategic litigation, explained the importance, in this setting, of  decentring the role of lawyers and prioritising the perspectives and priorities of communities.

Challenges and opportunities moving forward

The closing panel discussed future challenges and opportunities for change for human rights movements. Myriam Douo of Friends of the Earth Europe and Steering Group member of Equinox (an initiative that aims to mainstream racial justice in conversations around various topics, including climate change), spoke of how undocumented people are at the forefront of the climate crisis due to their living and working conditions. Natacha Kazatchkine of the Open Society Foundations discussed the democratic backsliding and shrinking space for civil society in much of Europe, and opportunities for building bridges between human rights defenders and migrants’ rights organisations. Riccardo Rossella of Civil Society Europe discussed the rise of the far right across the EU and its impact on the 2024 EU elections, which will likely result in a new European Parliament that is more fragmented and polarised than ever.

Regularisation, that is granting a secure residence status or permit to people who live in an irregular situation, is a key tool to improve the lives of undocumented people and their families and strengthen communities.

Over the last twenty years, most European countries have implemented some kind of regularisation measure, either temporarily (regularisation programmes) or permanently (regularisation mechanisms). But too often, regularisation measures have been limited, ineffective, or unfair. It is no surprise that many civil society organisations keep calling for more and better regularisation measures across Europe.

Between 2021 and 2023, the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland brought together European civil society organisations in the RISE UP (Rights, Innovation, Solutions and Evidence based policy for Undocumented People) project to share learning and positive examples of regularisation, showcase successful regularisation campaigns, and help civil society advocate and campaign for regularisation nationally. Project partners include the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland, the Confederation of Christian Trade Unions (CSC, Belgium), Aditus (Malta), and the Centre de Contact Suisses-Immigrés (CCSI, Switzerland).µ

In a policy brief released in April 2023, the project partners identified what they viewed as the best examples of regularisation since 2009 and seven key action points for civil society to use these examples to better advocate and campaign for regularisation towards their governments:

Belgium (2009)

Ireland (2022)

Malta (2017)

Switzerland (2017)

*The RISE UP project is funded by the European Programme for Integration and Migration.

This blog provides an overview of specific national labour migration and work permit policies in Portugal, based on this detailed case study. We also track how single provisions match policy recommendations we developed in our 2021 report on labour migration.

 

Work visas from outside Portugal

Workers who wish to work in Portugal can apply for a work visa from Portuguese embassies and consulates in third countries. This pathway is not restricted to particular nationalities or certain jobs. However, positions are often poorly advertised, and it can be challenging both for employers to recruit candidates, and for jobseekers to secure a job offer, from overseas.

To apply, workers need a formal job offer or labour contract in line with Portuguese labour standards, and have the required competences and skills.

Workers also need to apply for an entry visa to enter Portugal, that is valid for up to six months. Since August 2022, people are issued a “pre-residence permit” with their visa that facilitates access to social services until the Immigration Office issues the residence permit for employed workers in Portugal (see below).

 

Residence permits for employed workers

Combined residence and work permits based on employment are relatively accessible for people who already are in Portugal, regardless of nationality, both if they have a residence permit or not (I.e., they have a visit visa, are staying within a visa waiver period, or are undocumented).

In order to apply, all workers need to have a passport; a formal job offer or contract of employment, in any job or sector, of at least one year; evidence of sufficient means of subsistence (not clearly defined by the law which gives some degree of flexibility); evidence of adequate accommodation (rental contract or service receipts showing place of residence); no criminal record for offences that  result in more than one year in prison nor having a valid entry ban; a social security number (except in cases of promised employment contract) and a tax number.

Application criteria vary slightly depending on the person’s current residence status, namely if they have a residence visa or if they entered Portugal regularly and have a valid entry visa or stamp showing entry, within the visa waiver period. For undocumented workers who do not fall in any of those two categories, they would need to prove they have been working and making social security contributions for 12 months. Undocumented workers can register their employment with social security, obtain a social security number and pay social security contributions. Immigration enforcement as a result of this registration remains possible, but in practice it rarely happens.

When applying for a residence permit for an employed worker without a residence visa, the person is considered as irregularly residing. During this time (it can take between one and four years to receive a final decision) applicants do not have equal access to healthcare and are excluded from most social protection measures, despite paying into the social security system. If the employer does not pay taxes, workers may be unable to regularise their status, and risk being arrested and deported. There is no fee for processing the application, only a fee for the residence permit card itself. Undocumented workers may be subject to a fine for the time they have resided in Portugal irregularly, but this is not commonly imposed.

The residence permit for employed workers is valid for two years and can be renewed for successive periods of three years. Workers can work for multiple employers, and change employer and job sector at any time, based on the same application procedure and permit.

People with a residence permit can access unemployment benefits on the same terms as Portuguese citizens (if they have been employed for 360 days), and can apply for family reunification, although the process can be costly and burdensome. After five years, workers can apply for a long-term residence permit, and after six years, Portuguese citizenship.

Government figures for 2021 show that nearly 29,000 people obtained a residence permit for employed workers without a residence visa. This figure relates to those with regular entry into Portugal, but there is no data available on how many undocumented people who entered irregularly have been able to access this scheme. This was the most common means of obtaining a residence permit in Portugal.

 

Job-seeking visa

Job search visas, introduced in 2022, allow people to go to Portugal to look for work. This visa is not restricted to any nationality or job type.

To get this visa, people need to register in an official platform to declare their interest in going to Portugal to find work, and indicate their academic qualifications and professional experience. Job seekers need to have valid health insurance and accommodation, and show proof of means of subsistence, defined as the equivalent of three times the minimum wage (which as of 2022 was 705€ per month, resulting in a total amount of around 2,115€). The job-seeking visa is valid for 120 days and can be extended for a 60-day period. It authorises job-seekers to enter Portugal once, reside and carry out work until the visa expires or until they are issued a residence permit for employed workers.

When the person is issued the job-seeking visa, they will also get an appointment with the immigration authorities to register for a residence permit for employed workers.

People from the eight countries in the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, and São Tomé e Príncipe) are exempted from proof of valid health insurance and means of subsistence to access the job-seeking visa, if they can provide a letter of sponsorship. This is a letter in which a Portuguese citizen declares that they can cover the costs of food and accommodation for the person, as well as repatriation costs.

It is too early to evaluate the functioning of the job-seeking visa. Nonetheless, it will likely facilitate regular labour migration to the country and reduce the number of people refused entry and detained, especially for people from the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries.

 

Cover image: Nick Karvounis – Unsplash

In October 2021, the Spanish government passed a law to facilitate access to residence and work permits for unaccompanied children and young people who turn 18 and transition into adulthood. This blog collates official figures about its impact, and integrates comments from Jennifer Zuppiroli, Advocacy Officer at Save the Children Spain, one of the organisations that advocated for this reform.

The 2021 Spanish reform facilitates access to residence and work permits for all unaccompanied children, including those who arrived as children and were between 18 and 23 years old in October 2021 as well as those who age out in the future.

In the words of the Spanish government, “the reform aimed to reduce administrative, social and work-related vulnerabilities by making it easier for unaccompanied children to reach adulthood with documents, by allowing them to access the labour market from the age of 16, as well as preventing them from almost automatically becoming undocumented when they turn 18, as was the case previously.”

(Note that under Spanish law, any unaccompanied child cared for by the state is automatically considered to reside regularly in Spain, but that they were not always issued permits in time.)

Impact on children and young people

The reform has had a huge, positive impact on the lives of thousands of unaccompanied children and former unaccompanied children (now young adults), according to both the government and civil society.

Official figures from November 2022, a year after the reform came into effect, show that 16.716 unaccompanied children and former unaccompanied children were able to obtain a permit, exceeding the government’s predictions by 10%.

In the month of November 2022:

• 889 former unaccompanied children who had had a residence permit before turning 18 had a permit in adulthood too (compared to 384 people in November 2021). This is a twelvefold increase.
• 659 former unaccompanied children who did not have a residence permit before turning 18 did have a permit in adulthood (compared to 295 in November 2021). This is a ninefold increase.
• 540 unaccompanied children (16 and 17 year olds) had a permit that gave them the right to work, compared to 225 people in November 2021. This is a twentyfold increase.

Behind these numbers are young people who are now able to continue their studies, work with a regular contract, and have easier access to housing. In short, they finally have a chance to thrive. Thanks to this reform, 19-year-old Achraf has been working in a factory for several months, and living with three other former unaccompanied children in an apartment in Guadalajara, managed by the NGO Accem.

Without this reform, the majority of these 16.000 children and young people would have become or stayed undocumented, which meant interrupting their education, working at the mercy of exploitative employers, and ending up in the street.

According to official figures, 99% of all documented unaccompanied 16-and-17-year-olds were issued residence permits that explicitly permitted them to work. The employment rate of young people (16 to 23 years old) rose from 33% at the time of the reform to 54% only one year later.

Most (former) unaccompanied children are employed in the hospitality, agriculture, livestock, and fishery industries, and in administrative work.

The government has not seen an increase in the number of unaccompanied children arriving in Spain since the reform. In other words: enabling access to a secure residence status has not created a pull effect.

What civil society thinks of the reform

The reform was very much welcomed by Spanish civil society for several reasons. Firstly, it responds to various legal and practical gaps in the protection of unaccompanied children, including their access to a secure residence status or permit.

Secondly, and crucially, the reform recognises the extreme vulnerability of unaccompanied children, and shifts the institutional narrative around this group, from “dangerous children” to “children finding themselves in a dangerous situation.”

Thirdly, the reform reminded public institutions that they are responsible for granting residence permits to unaccompanied children and holds them accountable for all those cases where unaccompanied children were not able to regularise their stay in Spain.

Fourthly, its retroactive effect means that young people who had aged out in the last couple of years could also benefit from the reform. This only applies to former unaccompanied children who were between 18 and 23 years old at the time of the reform but ensures that some past wrongs are righted.

Notwithstanding this globally positive impact, Save the Children Spain, and other civil society organisations who advocated for this reform, see room for improvement in two key areas.

One area has to do with regional differences: the implementation of the law depends on the “foreigners’ offices” at provincial level (administrative divisions of the autonomous communities), that can have different interpretations of the eligibility criteria to access the residence and work permits.

The other area has to do with a general criterion of residence permits in Spain: not having a criminal record.  As multiple civil society organisations have underlined, people may have a criminal record precisely because they could not access a residence and work permit, and therefore make a living.

Children and young people may have seen themselves in the need to engage in survival crimes, or may have been forced to by adults. Forbidding people from accessing a residence and work permit is effectively a double punishment as it comes on top of whatever sentence they may be serving or have served.

The 2021-2027 EU Multiannual Financial Framework was adopted with the commitment to have a more mainstreamed and inclusive approach to the involvement of stakeholders in EU funding programmes management at national level.

EU funds supporting activities in the area of migration, border management, asylum and inclusion (AMIF, BMVI, ISF and ESF+) are bound by a partnership principle laying down an obligation for consultation with relevant actors, from the inception to the implementation of national plans. For the first time, Home Affairs Funds (AMIF, BMVI, ISF) are covered by these rules, in addition to cohesion funds that, since 2014, were already bound by the European Code of Conduct on Partnerships.

The legislation identifies a range of partners, including local authorities, social partners and fundamental rights bodies. Civil society organisations are also included in the list, given their key role in providing immediate and inclusive support on the ground. The AMIF also enlists refugee- and migrant-led organisations, national human rights institutions and equality bodies as key actors for consultation.

The programming of national plans was the very first test for the implementation of a more meaningful involvement of civil society. In January 2023, ECRE and PICUM surveyed 59 migration and asylum organisations in 22 Member States and two non-EU countries to assess their level of participation in this programming. The main findings of the survey point to a rather modest civil society participation in the decision-making of EU-funded programmes.

Low participation in migration and inclusion funds, none in security and border funds

Participation of civil society players in the programming of the national plans has been limited in terms of both quality and quantity. Only 20 out of 59 organisations surveyed provided oral or written inputs during the inception phase. In some cases, the quality of consultations has also been low. In Slovenia, the particularly short timeframes to comment on the proposed AMIF plan resulted in insufficient time to prepare meaningful contributions, and in Luxembourg and Austria, the AMIF consultations were only held informally.

Most inputs were provided to AMIF (17 times) or ESF+ plans (8 times), and no consultations were organised for BMVI and ISF programmes. While this is an area in which civil society organisations usually do not apply for EU resources, their participation in shaping national programmes should be ensured given the considerable fundamental rights risks that activities related to border management and security imply.

Persistent marginal inclusion of civil society in monitoring committees

The monitoring committees are the main platform for participation in the management of EU funds at national level. Partners should be represented in a balanced manner, with representatives of all the above-mentioned categories in each committee, in line with EU legislation.

However, the survey reveals divergent practices regarding participation in monitoring committees, both among Member States and among different EU programmes. Managing Authorities of Home Affairs funds are usually migration authorities and those responsible for ESF+ are usually social policy institutions.

As of January 2023, the surveyed organisations indicated that only five monitoring committees had members from civil society organisations working on migration, asylum and inclusion at national level. It is the case for AMIF and ESF+ in Germany, AMIF in Sweden, ESF+ in France and AMIF in Czechia. The situation may still change in the next months, as Member States have three months to set up a monitoring committee after the adoption of the programmes.

In France, AMIF monitoring committees are not open to civil society because the Managing Authorities fear this could lead to a conflict of interests, and only State departments are represented. In other countries, such as Spain, the BMVI national programme ticks the box of civil society participation, but no organisations working with migrants or inclusion feature in the membership.

Lack of transparency affects participation in monitoring committees

The selection procedures, availability of information and the overall work of the monitoring committees fail to respect key principles of transparency and accountability. Even the existence and the work of the monitoring committees is still significantly unknown to organisations working in those fields at national level, including among those receiving EU funds.

Despite the obligation to follow a transparent process, most respondents indicated that information provision from the Member States on the monitoring committees is generally low in terms of both quantity and quality. More than 60% of respondents specified that they are not aware of any monitoring committee, or that they have not been established yet (over 18%). A good practice in terms of transparency was observed in Bulgaria, where a website gathers all information on EU funds, and the call for expression of interest to join the AMIF monitoring committees was widely advertised.

The application of the partnership principle does not stop after the adoption of the national programmes, but continues during implementation and monitoring. It is in the interest of all tax-payers to ensure that EU money is spent in the most efficient way, and that the views of a plurality of actors are represented in a participative and well-balanced manner.

EU Member States have the opportunity to address existing flaws in the involvement of stakeholders in EU funds management. At the same time, the European Commission has the duty to ensure that the requirements are fulfilled. National authorities can still make monitoring committees accessible to all relevant players, including civil society organisations working with undocumented migrants, as well as those run by migrants themselves. Finally, they should contribute to create a transparent environment, where information on the composition and work of the committees is accessible, and where the committees are accountable to the public.

The EU and its Member States should not miss the opportunity to have a well-balanced and representative partnership in EU funding management, one that is capable to identify the key challenges and ensure that EU resources are used in the best way possible.

This blog summarises key findings from our media monitoring on the criminalisation of solidarity with migrants in Europe in 2022. The full report, including notes and sources, is available here.

Between January 2022 and December 2022, at least 102 people faced criminal or administrative proceedings in the EU for acts of solidarity with migrants. The figures stem from extensive media monitoring of national news conducted by PICUM and its network of volunteers over the past year.These findings illustrate a worrying trend in the EU. Previous research shows that at least 89 people were criminalised in the EU between January 2021 and March 2022, while at least 171 faced charges of facilitation of irregular entry, transit or stay in 13 EU Member States between 2015 and 2019.

Our media monitoring recorded 48 cases in Italy, 35 cases in Greece, twelve in Poland, and a total of seven cases reported in Malta, France, Germany, Spain and Lithuania. Criminalisation is an EU-wide phenomenon, and cases from other countries may have been undetected.

These numbers are likely to underrepresent what is actually happening in the European Union. On the one hand, statistical and official data concerning those who are being accused, charged or convicted for smuggling and related offences is largely absent. On the other hand, many cases go unreported because of fears of further victimisation, especially when those criminalised are migrants themselves. Other cases reported by the media might not have been detected by our alert system.

Besides judicial proceedings, human rights defenders and NGOs face several other forms of harassment. Our media monitoring recorded at least eleven different cases of non-judicial harassment, in addition to the 102 cases mentioned above, concerning at least four people and fifteen NGOs. One third of the cases concerned police harassment, while another third regarded restriction and entry difficulties, followed by confiscation of material, administrative fines, threats by right-wing private groups, defamation, and arrest.

France: ban on food distributions in Calais

In September 2020, local authorities in Calais, France, issued an order banning non-state mandated food distributions to migrants stranded in the woods. The order was renewed almost every month for two years. Authorities argued the ban had been put into place to re-establish public order, which was allegedly threatened by the food distributions. Volunteers were systematically prevented from accessing distribution sites, checked for their identity, and issued administrative fines. After a group of these aid organisations challenged the legality of the order, this was finally deemed “disproportionate to the pursued aims” by an administrative court in October 2022.

 

The criminalisation of migration

The root of the criminalisation of solidarity with migrants is the soaring criminalisation of migration itself. In 2022, migrants were criminalised for driving a boat about to capsize, driving a car across an EU external border, being on a boat that irregularly crossed a border, turning on a mobile phone’s GPS when lost at sea, and resisting pushbacks at sea. For these acts, they were charged with irregular entry, facilitation of irregular entry, acting for profit, involuntary manslaughter, causing an accident at sea, endangering the life of another (including of a child), violent resistance, and membership of a criminal organisation. Many of the cases collected by our media monitoring occurred in Greece, but cases were reported also in Romania, the Netherlands and Italy. In 2022, Borderline-Europe counted at least 264 migrants being arrested following their arrival by boat in Italy, and estimates the number to be around 350.

 

Acquittals and lengthy proceedings

Among the cases covered by our media review, no one was convicted, which shows how these trials are politically motivated, and judicially unfounded.

Italy: Andrea Costa, Baobab President

The president of the migrants’ rights association Baobab Experience, Andrea Costa, spent six years on trial for “aiding and abetting illegal immigration”. The charges were based on the fact that Andrea Costa and a number of Baobab volunteers had offered eight Sudanese and a Chadian citizen support to buy train and bus tickets from Rome, to reach the Red Cross camp in Ventimiglia. The prosecution against Andrea started in 2016, and charges were finally dropped in April 2022. In 2022, nine people received an acquittal decision. Even if they end in an acquittal, trials still have heavy consequences on human rights defenders’ finances, personal life, and psychological wellbeing. Trials often go on for years, because the state appeals first instance acquittal decisions. For six of the nine people acquitted in 2022, the judicial proceedings lasted for at least five years; for two of the nine, they lasted for more than two years; and only for one person was the length of the proceedings less than a month.

Of the 102 human rights defenders criminalised in 2022, almost 3 out of 4 were facing proceedings which were ongoing from previous years and for 9 out of 10, the trial is still ongoing.

 

Charges and acts of solidarity

Eighteen of the 102 people faced new charges in 2022, while the legal proceedings of eleven people closed in 2022.

People have been criminalised for actions including offering assistance with an asylum application; driving migrants by car or assisting them during a train ride; buying or giving money to buy public transport tickets to migrants; providing food, water and/or shelter to migrants; occupying abandoned buildings to shelter migrants; rescuing or helping migrants in distress at sea; helping migrants to disembark safely; being on a boat or helping others in need on a boat; helping migrants who had been pushed back to cross the border again; photographing coast guard vessels; and anti-racist, pro-migrant activism.

Germany: Julia Seelmann, Franciscan nun

In 2019 and 2020, German nun Julia Seelmann sheltered two Nigerian women who had fled sexual exploitation in Italy in her church. Seelman applied the long-standing practice of “church asylum” in Germany, which protected the women from deportation, and provided them with social support and accommodation. In 2021, the nun was accused of facilitation of irregular stay and ordered to pay a €500 ‘warning fine’ by a regional court. After appealing the court’s decision, she was eventually acquitted in 2022. Half of all 102 human rights defenders were criminalised for acts of solidarity on land, and half for carrying out acts of solidarity at sea.

Three out of four human rights defenders were charged with facilitation of entry, transit or stay or migrant smuggling (depending on how the crime is defined in the national legislation). A third of those charged with facilitation also faced other charges, including money laundering, membership of a criminal organisation, espionage, conspiracy, abuse of office, fraud, extortion, embezzlement, and obstructing investigations by authorities.

Other charges used to criminalise human rights defenders include: acts of terrorism; use of violence; unlawfully and forcibly removing a person to another country; causing another person to fear that violence will be used against them or their property; arrest, detention or confinement of a person against their will; disturbing the peace; radicalisation and being a threat to national security; breach of domicile and irregular stay.

Data encryption is a process that protects the integrity and privacy of our stored digital information (on a phone or cloud) and our moving data (such as chat messages). While being crucial for the safety and privacy of our communication, and a democratic society overall, data encryption has been increasingly challenged in the name of fighting crime.

In the aftermath of the 2015 and 2016 terrorist attacks in Belgium and France, national law enforcement agencies and Europol notably pushed the EU and its member states to create so-called ‘backdoors’ to encryption that would grant access to protected devices and messages.

More recently, the European Commission proposal for a regulation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse has introduced a series of encryption-weakening measures aimed to stop the dissemination of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online. As it stands, measures likely to be put into place if the proposal becomes law include ‘client-side scanning’, a technology that allows digital platforms and law enforcement to check messages against a database for ‘censurable’ content, before they are encrypted and sent.

‘Backdoors’ such as ‘client-side scanning’ make it possible for state and non-state actors – inside and outside the EU’s borders – to access our data en masse. As security technologist and Harvard Lecturer Bruce Schneier has noted, data encryption is a tool “uniquely suited to protect against bulk surveillance”. The prospect of potential mass surveillance of our online activities is especially worrying for marginalised and racialised groups, who are already disproportionately targeted by data-driven policing and surveillance in Europe, and for whom it is more difficult to claim the data protection rights they are entitled to. In many situations, these groups depend on encrypted digital communications services to keep themselves and others virtually as well as physically safe.

It is crucial that child protection is addressed at the European level. However, there are some issues that arise concerning the proposed Commission measures concerning CSAM online. There may be potential unintended harms against survivors of child abuse who rely on confidential communications to find help and report their abuse. These legislative changes may furthermore undermine encryption, and consequently online safety, in Europe and beyond, with devastating consequences for the work of human and migrant rights defenders.

Advocates have also challenged the idea that the intended measures will work at all, given the likelihood that perpetrators will switch to more ‘obscure’ platforms and the high error rates associated with detection measures, which mean law enforcement authorities investigating online child sexual abuse will have to devote limited resources to sift through mountains of potentially incorrectly flagged messages.

Chat services may keep asylum seekers’ sensitive communications with their lawyers private, and migrants’ contact with family and friends abroad, who are living under repressive regimes, safe. Customised apps allow survivors of gender-based violence, LGBTQI+ and undocumented people to access remote support services and (mental) health care without facing stigma or risking detention and deportation. Encrypted devices and clouds can protect migrants’ data when their phones are seized by border police upon entering the EU. They also ensure the integrity of digital evidence of abuse, if ever used in court by survivors of violence.

Those who defend the rights of vulnerable individuals, and journalists who expose the injustices they face, also depend on encryption technology to do their work. As humanitarian assistance to migrants and acts of solidarity across Europe are increasingly met with suspicion and criminalisation by European governments, human rights defenders use encryption to keep evidence of rights abuses safely stored, and communications with victims private. Activists with large social media followings also employ encrypted authentication to protect their accounts from being compromised by attacks. Journalists rely on encryption to safely connect with and protect their sources.

Online safety is crucial for a democratic society. It is also vital for marginalised people and those, like journalists and human rights defenders, working in spaces where the ability to denounce rights violations is already curtailed. Data encryption is a fundamental element of a safe online environment and should not be sacrificed in favour of “tough-on-crime” responses to societal issues that require holistic, victim-centred approaches.

This blog provides an overview of specific national labour migration and work permit policies in Ireland, based on this detailed case study. We also track how single provisions match policy recommendations we developed in our 2021 report on labour migration.

 

The General Employment Permit

General employment permits are not restricted to any particular nationality, but are only granted for specific occupations. A general employment permit can only be issued when the following three conditions are met:

• The employer has advertised the position for at least four weeks on official websites and in national newspapers, and has not found any EEA national candidate;
• The employer must demonstrate that at least 50% of their workforce are EEA nationals (50/50 rule);
• The minimum annual remuneration amounts to €30,000.

Applications for a General Employment Permit can be submitted by either the worker or the employer to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. When applying for the first time for a permit, the fee is €500 for a permit up to 6 months duration, and €1,000 for a permit up to 24 months duration. The worker must also apply for an entry visa, once they have had confirmation on their work permit.

To change employer, the worker needs to apply for a whole new Employment Permit. This cannot be done in the first year of employment, and the process means paying a new fee of €1,000, a new labour market needs test, compliance with the 50/50 rule and long waiting times. As these requirements can be burdensome and expensive, in practice, it can lead to workers being effectively tied to the same employer for five years, which is the time required before applying for ‘settled status’ or citizenship.

General Employment Permit holders can only apply for family reunification after one year and must meet strict criteria – in particular regarding minimum income, which blocks family reunification for many workers. Family members of workers under this permit cannot work and need to apply for an Employment Permit in their own right.

If workers are made redundant, they can access some form of unemployment benefits, depending on how many contributions the worker accrued with previous work. When workers lose their job through no fault of their own, or when their employer fails to notify the Department when a worker is made redundant, they need to apply for a Reactivation Employment Permit.

 

The Reactivation Employment Permit

In Ireland, non-EU citizens who held a work permit but became undocumented through “no fault of their own” and have remained in the country can apply for a Reactivation Employment Permit. « No fault of their own » can refer to cases such as labour exploitation and abuse, closure of the workplace without previous notice, being made redundant, or failure of the previous employer to submit the redundancy notification on time.

This scheme is not restricted to any nationality. Undocumented workers who fit the criteria above can apply for this permit based on a formal offer of employment in any job, except for domestic work. It is not necessary to conduct a labour market needs test. The employer can only offer a job to a non-EEA worker when at least half of the employees are EEA nationals. Workers under this permit must earn at least minimum wage (€11.30 per hour in 2023) and work for at least 20 hours a week.

Applications for Reactivation Employment Permits can be submitted by either the worker or the employer. When applying for the first time for a permit up to 6 months, the fee is €500, and €1,000 when the duration is up to 24 months.

The Reactivation Employment Permit follows the same conditions as the General Employment Permit as regards the right to change employer, access to unemployment benefits, and apply for family reunification.

Cover image: Jenifoto – Adobe Stock

We’re committed to ensuring undocumented migrants are heard and can shape and participate in the policies and services that affect them, including with regard to our work. What that looks like and how it can be achieved depends on the context and can be quite challenging.

In this blog, we discuss the participation of undocumented people in activism and in health care, and we highlight two new resources on those areas. We hope that these insights and resources can help organisations reflect on their own work to ensure that undocumented people have a say in the policies and services that affect them.

Political participation

Beyond the potential to make policies more inclusive and humane, undocumented migrants’ voices and experiences can help to inform policymaking processes. As a result, policies can be more effective, better meet the intended outcomes and create stronger relationships between governments and people.

However, undocumented people rarely have the opportunity to engage with policymakers and policy processes. The most obvious hurdle is the fact that they cannot vote and are thus not represented in the political sphere. They are also rarely (if ever) consulted by decision-makers, even though undocumented migrants are directly, and often negatively, affected by migration, economic and social policies.

Undocumented people who want to advocate for change struggle to have their voices heard. First and foremost, they risk arrest, detention and deportation because of their residence status. Secondly, they may simply not have the necessary time or resources, when struggling to make ends meet. Finally, they may find it hard to know how and when to engage with decision-makers without the guidance of more experienced advocates.

Participation of young undocumented people in activism

Enabling the political participation of young (formerly) undocumented activists by supporting their advocacy and campaigning helps promote meaningful representation and advance the rights of undocumented people.

In 2022, We Belong’s successful national campaign, co-designed and run by young migrants, led the UK to ease access to permanent residence for non-British children who have lived the better part of their lives in the country, by halving the required procedural time from ten to five years

Also last year, Ireland introduced a six-month regularisation programme after years of advocacy from the undocumented youth-led group Young Paperless and Powerful, who gave media interviews, met with politicians, and used creative tools such as art, music and film to raise awareness about the impact of growing up undocumented.

For years now, PICUM and its members have been supporting undocumented and formerly undocumented young people advocating for change. We brought young people together in three international youth exchanges in 2017, 2018 and 2019, and helped young advocates meet with EU policymakers whenever possible. Several of our members are migrant-youth-led organisations or have supported youth-led campaigns.

Support varies depending on the context. It can range from providing legal advice, mental health support, media training, information on policies, mentorship or other professionalising training on how to run a campaign or organisation and access funding – to creating safe spaces for young people to come together, self-organise, access political platforms, and meet with politicians and policymakers. At a recent workshop, we brought together young activists and organisations who already provide support or are keen to support advocacy work of undocumented youth. Their exchange revealed that even with good intentions, cooperation between young activists or migrant-youth-led organisations and established organisations can be tricky. Besides working, studying, and other commitments, young undocumented people may not find the time to engage in advocacy. Moreover, there is always a risk of young people’s participation being merely tokenistic, condescending or paternalistic attitudes leading to young people not being taken seriously, and an adverse mental health impact of advocating based on lived experience.

However, when these challenges are overcome, cooperation can be incredibly fruitful and beneficial for both parties. It may lead to issues being approached in a more holistic way, and allow both young activists and established organisations to exchange knowledge, skills, power, visibility, resources, and social networks.

To ensure others can learn from our and other members’ experience, we have published our brief Lessons Learned in Supporting Undocumented Young People Advocating for Change in English, French and Spanish.

 

Participation of undocumented people in service delivery and research

The need to include undocumented people in service delivery and research is particularly visible in the field of health care, as we highlight in our brief. Health services and interventions have traditionally been based on data generated from the general population. As a consequence, health care providers often failed to meet undocumented people’s needs when seeking care.

By employing participatory methods, organisations providing health services to undocumented people, as well as researchers, can address long-standing inequalities in access to healthcare and health outcomes between the undocumented and general population.

To make HIV prevention more effective, the HIV/AIDS patient-led NGO European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG) has been looking into how different communities perceive and wish to receive AIDS prevention measures. A community expert group guides the research and sets the project’s priorities. Maisha e.V., a Frankfurt-based NGO that runs a health clinic for people without health insurance and offers health support to migrant women, regularly conducts surveys to improve their health care delivery and decide what services to offer. These co-designed, community-based surveys are a way to gauge the opinions and experiences of the women using Maisha’s health services, as well as their health needs and priorities.

The lack of participation of undocumented people in research about them can lead to the reproduction of harmful stereotypes and toxic narratives. Participatory research, which meaningfully engages communities who are the subject of a study, not only combats this phenomenon but also produces stronger research findings.

For questions of ethics and effectiveness, those informing, shaping or implementing services geared towards undocumented and other communities are thus increasingly relying on participatory research. For instance, the research and policy NGO Focus on Labour Exploitation has conducted participatory research on vulnerability to modern slavery, with migrant live-in care workers in London, and on labour exploitation of platform workers with couriers in the UK’s app-based delivery sector.

When policymakers and service providers base their decisions on data generated through participatory methods, it is more likely that their decisions will be informed by the actual needs of undocumented people, instead of pre-conceived notions of these. As policies and services gradually become more inclusive, they can start breaking cycles of structural vulnerability and marginalisation of undocumented people.

This blog provides an overview of specific national labour migration and work permit policies in Finland, based on this detailed case study. We also track how single provisions match policy recommendations we developed in our 2021 report on labour migration.

 

Residence permits for employed people (TTOL permits)

In Finland, the “Residence Permit for an Employed Person”, abridged as “TTOL” in Finnish, is the most widespread residence and work permit across the labour market. This pathway is open to all nationalities, and is applicable to all jobs that do not require special expertise.

To apply, workers need to hold a valid passport and have a work contract, or a formal job offer, and relevant experience or qualifications. The applicant also needs to prove sufficient means to reside in Finland.

Aside from specific exemptions, the TTOL is subject to a labour market test: the employer has to advertise the vacancy for at least two weeks on official websites, indicate the number of applications received and why no candidate was suitable.

Applications for the TTOL are submitted by the worker, who can apply from abroad or in Finland. People applying from abroad will get a residence permit card that will suffice to enter the country (there is no need to apply for an entry visa). People who are irregularly residing in Finland may be able to apply if they meet the criteria. Application fees vary from 490€ to 740€, normally paid by the worker.

Like for other residence and work permits, there are two types of TTOL permit: type A and type B.

Type A permits are linked to permanent employment and are initially granted for one year. The permit is then generally extended for four years. This is the most widespread TTOL permit.

Type B permits are far less used, and are issued when the employment is a fixed term of less than two years; they are issued for the duration of the employment, and are renewable. After two years, the worker will get a type A permit, regardless of the length of the contract.

Workers with a TTOL can change employers freely at any time during the validity of the permit, within the same occupational field or category of work for which the initial permit was issued for. It is also possible to be unemployed on the TTOL, but only holders of a type A permit can access unemployment benefits.

People applying for the TTOL are eligible to apply for family reunification. TTOL permits also allow people to apply for permanent residence and for citizenship, depending on the length of their stay.

 

Residence permits linked to exploitation at work

In Finland, non-EEA workers who have experienced labour exploitation or significant negligence in the workplace can apply for special residence permits due to such exploitation.

The Residence Permit due to Exploitation by the Employer is a one-year permit for people who have experienced labour rights violations and have not yet found another job.

To apply, workers need to have worked with a valid residence permit and experienced labour abuse, including wage theft and overwork, but don’t need to prove any financial means. It is not necessary to have filed a formal complaint or initiated legal proceedings. The application costs 180€.The Residence Permit due to Exploitation by the Employer is an A type permit that is valid for one year. With this permit, people have full access to the labour market and can be unemployed or take steps to start a business during the validity of this permit. Once the person finds employment, they can begin the process to apply for another residence permit.

Workers who have been victims of exploitation or significant negligence at the workplace and already have a new job offer with another employer can apply for a Certificate due to Exploitation by the Employer. In such cases, workers are not granted a new residence permit but have the right to change employer on their current permit without any restrictions. The validity of the previous residence permit stands.

To apply, the worker needs to have a job offer or work contract with a new employer. The rest of the requirements and application process are the same as the Residence Permit due to Exploitation by the Employer, with the addition that the new employer will have to file an appendix to be submitted with the application. The fee for the certificate is 65€.

Cover image: Paul Theodor Oja – Pexels

A new law has recently come into force in Finland that expands health care for undocumented migrants living in the country. Under this law, undocumented people can now access necessary care – that is, care that health care professionals deem necessary. This covers, for instance, conditions like diabetes or asthma that, if left untreated, would constitute a risk to the person’s health and increase the likelihood of urgent care being needed in the future.

Before this change, Finnish legislation only guaranteed urgent care, which was often interpreted restrictively as emergency care. More inclusive practices were left to the goodwill of doctors and municipalities. For instance, some necessary care was already being provided in Helsinki and Espoo.

In principle, undocumented patients are still expected to pay the full cost of the care they receive. If they do not have sufficient resources, they are still expected to pay the “patient fees” (what is not reimbursed by the state), while the medical professionals will be compensated by the health care authorities. Questions remain around how to evaluate the patient’s financial situation and ability to pay, and how much they will be requested to pay.

The law also allows undocumented people to access full maternity care and paediatric care, and covers groups as diverse as people who were denied asylum and other undocumented migrants, people who are waiting for a residence permit linked to, for example, family ties, and EU citizens without health insurance.

This new law is the result of long-standing advocacy by health care professionals, human rights and migrants’ rights organisations, like the Finnish Refugee Advice Centre and Physicians for Social Responsibility Finland, and the Finnish Medical Association. Some of  these organisations participated in the parliamentary hearing at the committee of social and health issues on this law in September 2022.

Such advocacy also builds on the work of volunteer doctors and nurses at “Global Clinics” –  medical centres present in various Finnish municipalities, where undocumented people can receive free health care and information on their rights. The clinics were founded some 10 years ago to compensate for the lack of public health care services for the undocumented population, and to encourage greater involvement from the state.

While it is too early to assess how it will be implemented in practice, civil society has largely welcomed this law as a very positive development that promises to significantly improve health care for undocumented people in Finland. It is also an example of how long-standing advocacy can lead to change.

This blog is based on an interview with Meri Korniloff, Advisor at Physicians for Social Responsibility in Finland.