This blog post was written thanks to the contribution of Doris Doku, a Ghanaian activist living in Malta.

On 4 October, hundreds of people gathered on the streets of Valletta, Malta’s capital city, to call on the government to uphold the rights of migrants living in the islands. The demonstration gathered local activists, including migrants, and civil society organisations, following the case of a migrant worker who was injured at work in a construction site and left by his employer on the side of a road with no assistance. According to the protesters, such cases of abuse and exploitation are the result of Malta’s migration policies.

At the centre of the protests are the country’s policies on work and residence permits, which, among other things, result in the impossibility of undocumented migrants securing any form of long-lasting status in Malta.

A major issue is that in Malta, many migrants work regularly and pay taxes but don’t have residence permits. They are issued a so-called ‘yellow book’ document which allows a person to work pending deportation. But, this is not a proper permit. And while paying contributions to the country’s social security system – often for many years – they do not have access to many of the social benefits that are available to Maltese citizens, including family allowances, retirement pension, unemployment benefits, or COVID-19 related state support.

As for residence permits, one of the main problems concerns the Specific Residence Authorisation (SRA) policy, a temporary regularisation programme established in November 2018, which was discontinued in 2020. The SRA policy responded to the critical situation facing undocumented people in Malta, triggered in part by the discontinuation of a previous regularisation mechanism.

Under this residence policy, migrants would receive a 2-year residence permit which gave access to basic services and welfare benefits, including mainstream education and health care, as well as a permit to access the labour market.

“For migrants in Malta, life isn’t a right, it’s a privilege”

Doris Doku, migrant activist

Towards the end of last year, the SRA policy was terminated. The government agency Identity Malta stopped receiving new applications on 31 December 2020. More stringent renewal requirements were also introduced. As a result, many people have been unable to regularise their status, even after years of living and working in Malta. Hundreds of people who were able to access status have become undocumented again when their 2-year permit was up for renewal.

Children have also been denied access the SRA residence permit when one of the parents does not meet the criteria.

Migrants and civil society organisations are asking that the SRA policy be reinstated and reformed so that people can be lifted out of irregularity and access services and social support, including for their children.

On the day of the protest, the demonstrators delivered a petition to the Home Affairs Ministry in Valletta with their demands. The ministry’s staff did not receive them and only accepted to get the petition from under the building’s entrance door.

Should the government fail to respond to the claims, the activists have said they’re ready to continue the protest.

Photo courtesy of Aditus Foundation

As part of our efforts to monitor access to the COVID-19 vaccines for undocumented migrants in Europe, we’re speaking with national-level advocates about the situation in their countries. This interview was conducted in October 2021 with Ida Carlsson of Läkare i Världen (Doctors of the World), to discuss the situation in Sweden. It is not meant to offer an exhaustive picture of the legal and practical context in Sweden. Please get in touch at info@picum.org if you have information you’d like to share, and follow our Twitter page @PICUM_post to get more recent updates.

What does the Swedish vaccination strategy say about undocumented migrants?

The Swedish vaccination strategy foresees specific vaccination avenues for people living in vulnerable situations such as homeless people, asylum seekers, refugees with humanitarian permits. Undocumented migrants are also included in this category, at least from April 2021.

Can they access mainstream vaccination points?

No, the booking system wouldn’t allow that. To book your vaccine at a mainstream vaccination point, you need a personal number and a bank ID, which you use in Sweden as a form of digital identification to access online services and for online purchases. These numbers aren’t available to undocumented people. What is available to them is a sort of alternative health care number, which they get the first time they access health care and they can use to continue accessing care, but this is not valid for the mainstream vaccination points.

Where can they go then?

It depends on the regions. In some regions, like in Malmö, undocumented people can call a primary health clinic, provide their health care number and book an appointment. In Stockholm, authorities have set up mobile medical teams which vaccinate uninsured people. Civil society organisations, like Doctors of the World Sweden, accompany them in this process.

What about immigration risks as a result of people getting their vaccine?

In Sweden, medical confidentiality applies to everyone, and we’ve never heard of people being reported to immigration enforcement. However, many undocumented people still fear contacts with public authorities, because of perceived risks of deportation.

Are there other practical barriers?

At the start of the vaccination campaign, some people were unable to effectively access the vaccines at primary health clinics, because of lack of adequate information about their rights.

While this is no longer an issue, another obstacle is misinformation around the vaccines themselves. But this is something we observe in the general population as well.

Let’s talk about COVID-19 certificates. Are they required to access places and services? Are they accessible to undocumented people?

In Sweden, you can access any place or service without proof of vaccination. In general, the Swedish public health response to COVID-19 relies on recommendations rather than obligations. That said, COVID-19 certificates can be issued as proof of one’s vaccination, especially for travelling outside Sweden.

To access the electronic certificate from the dedicated website, however, you need either a personal number, which is only available to regular residents, or a “coordination number” which is assigned by the Swedish tax agency, on request, to people who have no registered address, which is the case for several undocumented people. In this instance, undocumented people who want to get their certificate would need to access the dedicated website, and request a coordination number by downloading, printing, filling in an posting a specific form in the mail. All this can be a complicated process for some undocumented people.

Cover photo: Adam Gavlák -Unsplash 

After months of negotiations, in October 2021, the Spanish government adopted a decree to facilitate access to residence and work permits for unaccompanied children as they turn 18 and transition into adulthood. This reform to the Regulation of the Aliens Act (Reglamento de la Ley de Extranjería) is expected to improve the lives of young migrants and is welcomed by civil society organisations and associations who have long advocated for such a change.

The decree came into effect in mid-November.

Who benefits from this reform? How?

The reform facilitates access to residence and work permits for unaccompanied children, as well as those who arrived as children and aged out (known in Spanish as Extutelados) and are now between 18 and 23 years old. The change is expected to improve living conditions and integration prospects for thousands of young people. According to government’s data, approximately 15,000 people will benefit from this reform, of which 8,000 are children and 7,000 young people older than 18 years old.

Unaccompanied children

For unaccompanied children the reform:

• simplifies bureaucratic procedures to access residence and work permits before they turn 18, in terms of documentation required and involvement of different public bodies;
• extends the validity of residence and work permits to two years, which can be renewed once for a period of three years as long as they’re underage. Previously, permits had to be renewed every year, which led to the saturation of courts and administration;
• ensures that their documentation process starts within three months of arrival. Previous legislation set this period at nine months, which put lots of children in situations of great uncertainty for a much longer period of time. It also helps reduce the number of children who turn 18 without this documentation;
• allows them to work when they are 16.

Former unaccompanied children currently between 18 and 23 (Extutelados)

For those who recently became adults and are younger than 23, the reform:

• extends the validity of the residence permit they had as an unaccompanied child for another six months;
• grants them access to the Spanish basic income scheme (“minimum vital income”, around 470€ per month), which was set up in 2020 to prevent poverty and social exclusion;
• allows them to get a work permit if they can prove a monthly income, from subsidies or other sources, of 470€. Under previous legislation, aged out unaccompanied children were not automatically allowed to work, even if they had a residence permit. To obtain a work permit, they had to find a full-time job for at least one year, an extremely difficult task.
• makes it easier for undocumented aged out unaccompanied children to regularise their status, on the condition that they have an income of at least 470€ per month.

What are the weaknesses of the reform?

In general, the reform has been welcomed and celebrated by the regional governments, NGOs, human rights defenders, civil society and the Spanish Ombudsman.

However, civil society has also expressed concerns. First of all, undocumented extutelados who have a recent criminal record cannot access the residence permit, even if they meet all other requirements. Civil society organisations point out that this is problematic, as many young people were pushed into survival crime by the previous legislation that denied them access to residence permits and viable support systems.

Secondly, current age assessment policies will leave many young people behind. For instance, young people who were never part of the child protection system will not be able to benefit from the reform. This is especially hard for those that were mistakenly assessed to be adults, even though they had birth certificates and official documentation stating otherwise. There are also important backlogs, especially in the autonomous communities that see more arrivals than others. In the Canary Islands, for instance, 1,100 people are still waiting to have their age assessed; if the final decision is not reached in time, they won’t benefit from the reform.

Thirdly, the documentation given to the unaccompanied child is not fully secure. It does not prevent the child from being returned to their country of origin, if the government finds that it would be in their best interests to be repatriated to their family or even returned to child protection services. PICUM members are waiting to see what this will mean in practice.

Even though these concerns exist, the Spanish reform is a good example of how simplifying procedures and realistic regularisation criteria can protect children and young people from harm. It also responds to the very real challenges aged out unaccompanied children face and, by facilitating their access to a residence permit, will certainly ease their transition to adulthood in safety and dignity.

Cover photo: DTIBERIO – Adobe Stock

As part of our efforts to monitor access to the COVID-19 vaccines for undocumented migrants in Europe, we’re speaking with national-level advocates about the situation in their countries. This interview was conducted in September 2021 with a representative of Red Cross Austria to discuss the situation in Austria. It is not meant to offer an exhaustive picture of the legal and practical context in Austria. Please get in touch at info@picum.org if you have information you’d like to share, and follow our Twitter page @PICUM_post to get more recent updates.

What does the Austrian vaccination strategy say about undocumented migrants?

The Austrian vaccination strategy doesn’t explicitly mention undocumented migrants. But government communications about the vaccinations, on their website, on social media and flyers, state that vaccinations are free of charge for any person residing in Austria, including people without Austrian social insurance.

How does one access the vaccines?

The procedures vary between regions. In general, though, you would need to book your vaccine either through an online platform or by phone. At the beginning of the vaccination campaign, these were necessary steps to access the vaccine. Now it’s possible to get vaccinated in certain vaccination points also without an appointment. In some regions, though, you’d still need to register on the online platform even if you’re not taking the appointment.

What information does one need to provide, when booking or registering for their vaccine?

Again, it can vary slightly from region to region, but in general you’re required to give your full name, date of birth and email address, sometimes a phone number. The social security number is not required, and indeed is an optional field to fill in in the online platform.

At the vaccination point, however, you’re generally required to show an identification document, which could even be a non-EU ID. If a person would like to get vaccinated and doesn’t have an ID, the alternative is to access civil society and other initiatives that provide vaccinations to undocumented and uninsured people in all regions.

Where can undocumented people go to get their shot?

Undocumented people can in principle access the same venues that are available to the general public, including mainstream vaccination centres, medical clinics and GPs offices. In practice, it is more likely that they would access “pop-up centres” which are temporary and can be set up in buses or shipping containers. There are also initiatives organised by civil society organisations, where the access threshold is very low.

We talked about the need to show an ID card at the vaccination point. Are there other barriers for undocumented people to access the vaccines?

There are a few, yes. First of all, the vaccination points are often set up in places that are outside larger cities and are hard to get to by public transport. And some of them are only temporary, which makes it difficult for undocumented people to locate or keep track of them.

Then there’s a language barrier. The online booking platform, for instance, is only in German. More generally, the government’s communications are often not translated into many languages, beyond Turkish and Balkan languages. As civil society organisations, we try to fill these gaps through our own campaigns.

What about the risk of immigration checks for undocumented people accessing the vaccine?

In Austria, we have a very clear and formal separation between health care services and immigration authorities. However, we can’t assess the real risk of immigration consequences for undocumented migrants, and we don’t know what impact this may have on people’s willingness to access public health care. Regardless of the actual risks, the fear over immigration consequences is definitely there among the undocumented community, and this could very well represent a barrier to their vaccination.

Let’s talk about the COVID-19 certificates. How does this play out for undocumented people?

People without social insurance, which includes undocumented people, wouldn’t be able to request and download an electronic certificate. But they can get a paper version directly at the vaccination point. This obviously has its own limitations, because the paper can be lost and can be easily damaged.

Beyond whatever form the certificate comes in, for instance whether paper or on your device, there’s the whole policing of the COVID-19 certificates that poses issues with regards to undocumented people. Virtually any kind of document check can foster fears of immigration consequences; this is all the more relevant considering that those who control the validity of the certificates can also ask for an ID document.

While we don’t necessarily expect waiters and restaurant owners to carry out ID checks, we are concerned about government plans to increase randomised certificate checks by police in public spaces, which definitely increases the risk of ID checks and ultimately immigration consequences.

Cover image: SASITHORN – Adobe Stock

As part of our efforts to monitor access to the COVID-19 vaccines for undocumented migrants in Europe, we’re speaking with national-level advocates about the situation in their countries. This interview was conducted in September 2021 with Houda Merimi of Médecins du Monde France to discuss the situation in France. It is not meant to offer an exhaustive picture of the legal and practical context in France. Please get in touch at info@picum.org if you have information you’d like to share, and follow our Twitter page @PICUM_post to get more recent updates.

What does the French vaccination strategy say about undocumented migrants?

The French vaccination strategy doesn’t mention undocumented migrants explicitly, but it does mention people in precarious situations as a target group. This group wasn’t given a high priority for the vaccination, as the vaccination campaign was only opened to them almost at the same time as the general population, that is people younger than 50, rather than with priority groups vaccinated earlier based on age and other factors.

On the other hand, some notes from the Ministry of Health do mention migrants explicitly, following regular meetings with civil society.

So can undocumented people get a COVID-19 vaccine?

In terms of administrative access, it’s always been possible for undocumented people to get the vaccine, in principle, as no residence papers or ID documents or public health insurance are required to get the vaccine. Also, the vaccines have always been free for everyone.

Do people need to book their vaccine? And how can undocumented people do this in practice?

At the start of the vaccination campaign, people needed to go through a booking process to get their vaccine indeed. Now, in some cities it’s possible to get vaccinated without an appointment, but this varies from region to region as it’s a decision of the local health authority.

Booking one’s vaccine can be done either online or by phone. Undocumented patients only need to provide their full name, and the operator should give them an ad-hoc health number and a date for the appointment. The process has been smooth whenever we’ve been able to accompany undocumented people through it, but we’ve heard of cases where the operators have refused to book their appointment because they didn’t have a health insurance number. This is why local health authorities need to better communicate with all actors involved in the vaccination process.

Where can undocumented people go to get their shot?

There are several avenues. The first one to be set up was the vaccination centres. Then vaccination was made possible in pharmacies, at GP’s offices, in local health centres and then crucially in the so-called PASS (permanences d’accès aux soins de santé), which provide health care to uninsured people and are usually found in the hospitals. In practice, undocumented people would go more easily to the vaccination centres, if they could get an appointment, or to the PASS to get vaccinated.

In addition, some local health authorities have provided dedicated funding to the PASS centres to operate mobile medical teams, which would go where people in precarious situations live, including informal encampments, slums, squats, and on the street. Some NGO are also operating their own mobile teams to help reach out to these groups, such as the French Red Cross or Médecins Sans Frontières. Concerning Médecins du Monde, even if we have contributed to immunisation activities in some locations, our systematic intervention is rather about providing information and raising awareness around COVID-19, including the vaccination.

What about immigration risks as a result of people getting their vaccine?

In general, the French data protection regime is strong, especially for medical data. All data linked to the COVID-19  tests and vaccines is stored in the SIDEP platform, which was reviewed and approved by the French data protection authority (Commission Nationale Informatique et Libertés, CNIL). That said, certain actors are worried about the involvement of the Ministry of Interiors in the vaccination campaign, as the Ministry often co-signs the legal texts designed since the declaration of the national health emergency was developed with the Ministry of Health. One could wonder if the prefectures take any data from the regional health authorities.

And regardless of whether these are actual risks, many undocumented people do fear immigration consequences should they come forward to get vaccinated. This is obviously a major barrier to their vaccination in and of itself.

Are there other practical barriers?

There are several. The first one is the language barrier: many vaccination points don’t have professional interpreters, which is problematic. Think about the questions you’re asked when you go to get vaccinated, about your own health and medical history, information about the side effects and their monitoring: without an interpreter, we doubt that those questions are correctly posed, understood, and answered.

The second barrier has to do with the lack of adaptation of the vaccination campaign to the specific living and working conditions of many undocumented people. For many, for instance, time is a real constraint, as they may be working informally, with long or unsocial hours, with few or no breaks, which are incompatible with the opening hours of the vaccination points.

The third barrier concerns the lack of awareness of the vaccination options, and then the amount of fake news about the vaccines themselves. At Médecins du Monde, we’ve been working with the public health agency (Santé Publique France) to design and deliver tailored communications campaigns, including through online videos, leaflets and billboards, translated into several languages.

Where do unaccompanied minors fit in the vaccination campaign?

The vaccination campaign is particularly problematic for unaccompanied minors. Since the start of summer, the vaccination was authorised for people aged 12 to 18, which would in principle cover lots of unaccompanied teenagers. But a lot depends on their age, as procedures are different for children over and children younger than 16. The law is unclear as to unaccompanied minors, so what’s being done is the fruit of the interpretation of regional health authorities.

In short, those who are over 16 don’t need the parent’s or guardian’s consent to their vaccination. For those who are younger than 16, it depends. Those who were recognised as unaccompanied minors and are therefore taken in charge by child care services (aide sociale à l’enfance) need the authorisation of the director of such service. Those who are not currently recognised as unaccompanied minors should need the authorisation of a juvenile judge, but regional health authorities have interpreted this differently, accepting to vaccinate those children only with their consent and if they are accompanied by an adult of their choice.

Given all this, it’s clear that determining the age of the child becomes ever more crucial. The problem is that the age assessment procedures are often biased and inaccurate, which prevents many unaccompanied teenagers from getting vaccinated, and from accessing their COVID-19 certificate.

Let’s talk about COVID-19 certificates. The French pass sanitaire is now required to access many places and services. What does this mean for undocumented people?

In principle, undocumented people too can either download their COVID-19 certificate from an app on their phone, or get a paper version at the vaccination point upon request. But if people accidentally lose their paper after being vaccinated, it can be very difficult to get another copy because of bureaucratic shortcomings linked to the ad-hoc health number.

The biggest issue is that because of all the barriers we spoke about, many undocumented people are still not vaccinated, don’t have a COVID-19 certificate and therefore now don’t have access to lots of places and services. This even includes a more restricted access to hospitals! Hospitals have often set up different entries for people who have a certificate and those who don’t: this is where it gets tricky. These different entries are often not adequately signalled, and personnel hired to check the certificates isn’t always able – or willing – to help people without a certificate to the right entry, starting from the fact that they may not speak their language. Plus, the sheer sight of people checking documents at the entry of the hospital can scare undocumented people and ultimately keep them out.

Cover image: Phil_Good – Adobe Stock

Under international and EU law, there are several human rights reasons for which people who do not qualify for asylum cannot be deported. These include the principle of non-refoulement, the protection of family and private life, the best interests of the child and the prohibition of arbitrary detention. In addition, several circumstances that are outside of an individual’s control can make deportation or return impossible.

For people who for whom return is impossible, or undesirable, many EU countries foresee residence permits that go outside the scope of international protection.

But in recent years, EU migration policies have been consistently focusing on increasing returns and closing access to these national residence permits. Such an approach rests on the mistaken belief that for undocumented people, the only option is to return – either by force or “voluntarily”. The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum is built on this assumption and attempts to entrench it throughout the EU’s immigration and asylum procedures.

Three recent proposals, the Recast Return Directive, the Screening Regulation and the amended Asylum Procedures Regulation go one step further in this direction, by assuming that all people who arrive or reside in the EU irregularly and whose asylum applications are unsuccessful should immediately return or be deported.In reality, people continue to reside irregularly for a wide range of reasons, and may indeed have other grounds for residence than an asylum application. According to official estimates, every year 300,000 people cannot return from the EU for different reasons, including human rights and factual considerations.

60 national protection statuses exist in the EU, in addition to international protection (i.e. asylum and subsidiary protection). The Pact proposals would risk practically closing access to these and other national-level residence permits.

At least seventeen EU member states provide residence permits based on humanitarian reasons. In addition, specific statuses based on the principle of non-refoulement exist in at least seven EU member states.

In addition, twelve EU member states provide a temporary residence permit on medical grounds; at least five member states have legislation granting special permits for undocumented victims of domestic violence; at least eight member states have regularisation mechanisms accessible to children, young people or families; and at least six member states have procedures for stateless people.

Some countries also provide access to residence permits based on factors such as length of residence, employment, school attendance of children and other local social ties.Read our briefing paperSome member states grant residence permits to some victims of crimes (e.g. domestic violence, trafficking in human beings or particularly exploitative working conditions), to allow them to seek protection and report abuse in a safe way and to access remedy. The EU legal framework requires or encourages permits to be granted in some circumstances, in particular for victims of domestic violence with a dependent status (Citizens Directive and Family Reunification Directive), victims of human trafficking (Residence Permit Directive) and labour exploitation (Employers’ Sanctions Directive).

These various permits are based on criteria which are often not assessed in the asylum procedure. At least half of the 60 national protection statuses existing in the EU are currently examined by other authorities than those handling asylum applications, and in many instances are not part of the international protection procedure. The refugee status determination procedure, which is the core of asylum procedures, evaluates whether the person has been or has a risk of persecution because of their “race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion,” or would suffer serious harm as defined by article 15 of the EU Qualification Directive.

What is usually not considered is: whether it’s in the best interests of the child’s development and long-term well-being to live in the country or a third country; whether people might face risks of serious harm when they are deported or return to a country of transit or another third country; whether their health condition might prevent their return; whether they might have strong private or family ties in the country (in particular, but not only, for people who have been living in the EU for years); and whether they might qualify for other national-level residence permits.

A migration system that respects the fundamental rights of everyone ensures people can access residence permits granted at national level. A fair and efficient system does not leave hundreds of thousands of people in limbo.

We recommend member states to comprehensively assess fundamental rights considerations (including but not limited to the right to health care, private and family ties, best interests of the child and non-refoulement) and whether third country nationals fulfil the criteria to apply for an autonomous residence permit or other authorisation granting a right to stay before a return decision is issued. For children, this means including a formal, individual and fully-documented procedure examining all aspects of a child’s situation and considering all options in order to identify which durable solution is in the best interests of the child.To learn more about this topic, please read our briefing paper.

The renewed EU action plan against migrant smuggling (2021-2025), presented by the European Commission at the end of September, risks exacerbating all the reasons why migrant smuggling happens in the first place.

At the EU level, migrant smuggling is defined as the facilitation of irregular entry, transit or stay into a country, and is often portrayed as a very lucrative business operated by powerful criminal networks that exploit migrants. In reality, research has shown time and time again that most people convicted for smuggling are in fact individuals, often helping friends and family, or migrants themselves trying to reach a certain country. We also know that people who want to reach Europe often have no other way to get here in a regular manner, and have to rely on other people who help them cross irregularly.

The Action Plan furthers these common misconceptions and uses them to justify measures that are actually counter-productive and harm the fundamental rights of migrants. Crucially, it fails to recognise that restrictive migration policies often incentivise smuggling activities: the more limited the regular pathways, the more people will be forced to rely on smugglers to access Europe.Read our briefingIn line with such biases, the Plan focuses on stemming irregular migration through stepping up returns, and on increasing pressure on third countries to prosecute and punish smugglers, with little consideration for basic safeguards.

No attention is paid to the root cause of smuggling, which evidence shows is linked to the lack of regular pathways to cross borders. International calls to create such regular pathways, also included in the Global Compact for Migration, are not heeded either.

Cooperation with and sanctions of third countries

In the Action Plan, the European Commission aims at incentivising cooperation with third countries to fight against migrant smuggling outside the EU, including by linking it to development cooperation funds and stepping up cooperation on return and readmission agreements. This is very much in line with trends of so-called “externalisation” of migration policy, whereby the EU passes the buck to third countries to manage/prevent migration, and crucially fill the gaps of our failing migration system.

The Action Plan does not only address cooperation with third countries, but also sanctions towards countries involved in “artificially creating and facilitating irregular migration”, which is equated to migrant smuggling. The Commission devotes a section to Belarus, which has been allowing migrants to cross its territory and pushing them to the borders of EU countries like Lithuania and Poland in retaliation to economic sanctions. Labelled as a “hybrid attack to destabilise Europe” which “instrumentalises” migrants, the Commission urges EU states to put pressure on Minsk through concerted action on a number of policy fields, including visas, trade, development, and financial assistance.

This approach reinforces an extremely problematic narrative which, on the one hand, presents migration as a threat, while, on the other hand, legitimises serious fundamental rights violations at the EU external borders.

Increasing returns

The Action Plan endorses and builds on several key tenets of the 2020 Migration Pact, which sets out priorities in EU migration management for the years to come, mainly by increasing detention and returns.

In this line, the Plan repeatedly stresses the need to increase returns to reduce incentives to irregular migration. Just like the Migration Pact, this Action Plan also foresees a big role for the EU’s border control agency Frontex in stepping up returns. This is no good news for human rights, as the agency has been investigated for multiple allegations of complicity in human rights violations at the borders.

Surveillance and digital technologies

The Plan foresees measures that increase surveillance on people arriving to Europe in several ways.

On a micro-level, the Plan endorses measures in the Migration Pact which allow border guards to interrogate migrants about smuggling activities. Crucially, the Plan explicitly suggests that information collected in reception centres and during the asylum interviews should be shared with prosecutors, which risks leading to abuses of power and disregard of procedural safeguards.

The Plan further suggests increasing monitoring around asylum reception centres to prevent asylum seekers from being reached by smugglers. This measure will likely lead to more controls and restrictions to the freedom of movement of people in the centres.

On a macro-level, the Plan features digital technologies as further tools to survey and fight against migrant smuggling, including by developing artificial intelligence programmes and brushing up on old plans to increase social media surveillance through Frontex. The use of artificial intelligence in the public sphere presents high risks of discriminatory profiling, which have been denounced by various civil society organisations.

Weak protection for people in vulnerable situations

To detect and protect people in situations of vulnerability, the Action Plan only relies on screenings done at the borders (so-called “pre-entry screenings”). These screenings are introduced by the EU Migration Pact and essentially focus on identity and security checks for anyone arriving at EU borders. Assessments of individual vulnerabilities are possible but not mandatory, which raises serious doubts about how effective this process can be in detecting vulnerabilities.

The very few references to assistance to vulnerable migrants are limited to campaigns to dissuade irregular migration, existing instruments on trafficking in human beings, and a short mention of the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child.

Criminalisation of humanitarian assistance

The fight against irregular migration and migrants’ smuggling often rhymes with criminalisation of solidarity with migrants. Humanitarian acts such as providing food and shelter can be seen as aiding irregular entry or outright smuggling operations. On this aspect, the Plan reiterates that acts which are “mandated by law” (for instance lifesaving operations by specific NGOs) should never be criminalised. However, it also explains that a different set of rules applies to what the Plan calls “humanitarian acts not mandated by law” (e.g. providing food, shelter, car lifts or information). With regard to these acts, member states are merely “invited” to make use of the possibility to amend their national legislations to exempt them from criminalisation.

The criminalisation of people helping migrants as a result of the fight against irregular entry is not new. In 2017, the European Commission already hinted at risks of criminalisation of humanitarian assistance when evaluating EU legislation on the facilitation of irregular entry. In 2018, a study funded by the European Parliament found that the same EU legislation had “resulted in the policing of citizens and civil society”.

Today, the new Action Plan optimistically claims that previous studies show that policies related to the facilitation of irregular entry are effective, “although some aspects should be clarified”.

The European Commission has committed to re-evaluating the Action Plan in 2023. We hope this will be an opportunity to rethink the whole approach to migrants’ smuggling, and put migrants’ rights front and centre.Cover image: danmir12 – Adobe Stock

This blog post was written by Indrė Balčaitė, independent researcher, with contributions from Giedrė Blažytė, Research Director at Diversity Development Group, and Lina Grudulaitė, Coordinator at the Refugee Council of Lithuania.

In 2015, hundreds of thousands of migrants, mostly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, landed in huge makeshift camps on the Greek Aegean islands and in South-Eastern Europe’s cities and borderlands. At the time, Lithuania failed to show solidarity with people fleeing conflict or the European Union member states where the migrants ended up. Media portrayed migrants as a threat, politicians quarrelled about the EU refugee resettlement quota, processes were slow and authorities picky. Out of 1077 refugees allocated for Lithuania, the country managed to resettle half of that number by mid-2021.

In 2021, Lithuania is undergoing its own test with undocumented migration, although on a smaller scale. Having missed the opportunity to review its reception and integration infrastructure a few years ago, the country with a population under 3 million and much more substantial experience in emigration than immigration was unprepared. Whereas previously there had been around 100 irregular arrivals reported a year, the number was 50-150 a day by July (Turkey was reporting on average 480 irregular arrivals a day in the same month). With the asylum seeker registration centre able to accommodate only around 250 people, increased numbers of migrants in a pandemic presented a formidable logistical challenge. On July 2^nd, an ‘extraordinary situation’ was announced. Citizens’ protests against opening new sites for accommodating migrants added to the tension in an already polarised society.

From the start, the Lithuanian government has been vocal about the culprit of the unprecedented situation, rallying support in the EU. Alexander Lukashenko, the illegitimate president of Belarus, had threatened to “flood” its neighbour with irregular migrants in revenge for EU targeted economic sanctions that Lithuania had lobbied for. Journalists shed light on how migrants coming primarily from Iraq end up at the Belarusian-Lithuanian border with the help of Belarusian tourist visas and migration brokers. On July 1^st,^,  Lukashenko’s presidential decree allowed citizens of 73 countries to visit Belarus visa-free for five days, ostensibly for COVID-19 vaccinations. In August, a video footage emerged of Belarusian officers in riot gear pushing migrants into the Lithuanian territory. EU condemned Belarusian actions as ‘direct attack’ on its external border and an attempt to ‘instrumentalise human beings for political purposes’ but has not acknowledged that violations of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights were being committed by Lithuania, Poland and Latvia in response to the situation.

Lithuania is also using those human beings for political purposes. Politicians have repeatedly justified severely restricting access to asylum with a toxic discourse. Migrants already intercepted or trying to cross into Lithuania (now also Latvia and Poland) are dehumanised and neglected or mistreated. While accusing Belarus of violating its international obligations, Lithuania’s treatment of migrants falls short of international human rights standards too. Curtailed access to asylum, automatic detention of all asylum seekers, including children, illegal expulsions, denying them due process and coercion, among other issues, are all part of Lithuania’s new EU external border management.

The resolution passed by the Seimas (Parliament) on July 13^th portrayed undocumented migrants as participants in a ‘hybrid aggression’ against Lithuanian sovereignty. On the same day, the Seimas hastily changed the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens so as to excise the airport transit zones, official border crossings, border zones and asylum seeker holding centres from Lithuanian state territory where more human rights safeguards apply. It also legalised the automatic detention of asylum seekers, including children, having entered the country undocumented in an extraordinary situation (or state of war or emergency). Their right of movement can now be denied for up to six months while awaiting the decision whether they will be allowed into the country, with limited possibility to appeal it. On August 10^th, the law was amended again to stipulate that in an extraordinary situation, applications for asylum by undocumented migrants would be accepted only at official border crossing points or Lithuania’s embassies abroad prior to travel. In reality, neither option is feasible. The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, the UNHCR, the European Council of Refugees and Exiles, Lithuanian human right advocates and civil society actors have criticised the new arrangements as violating migrants’ and asylum seekers’ fundamental rights.

The harsh reality of the new migration governance is evident. A barbed wire fence along the 679km-long Lithuania-Belarus border is under construction. Journalists and humanitarian organisations are not allowed to work in the border areas (only at the detention centres). Since early August, Lithuanian border guards no longer intercept undocumented migrants but actively prevent them from crossing into Lithuanian territory with very few exceptions. This has led to migrants being stranded at the border or rerouted to neighbouring Latvia and Poland, with officers from Belarus pushing them out and the border guards of its three EU neighbours pushing them back. In late August and early September, the European Court of Human Rights approved interim measures, demanding that Latvia and Poland provide humanitarian assistance to stranded migrants and that Lithuania halt the removal of five Afghan nationals to Belarus. On September 19^th, four bodies of stranded migrants, who probably died from hypothermia, were found along the Belarus-Polish border.

With access to asylum practically blocked for new undocumented arrivals, migrants already in the holding centres are not faring better. Over 4,100 people, a quarter of them minors, face overcrowding and very poor conditions, many freezing in military tents in dropping temperatures. They lack information about their cases and access to legal advice. All asylum applications are fast-tracked, with no consideration of individual circumstances and applicants being pressured to accept voluntary return or be deported. For independent Lithuania, this is the first serious encounter with undocumented migration flows but its government led by Ingrida Šimonytė is learning fast from the worst examples in migration management.

Cover: paulius goravicius/EyeEm – AdobeStock 

As part of our efforts to monitor access to the COVID-19 vaccines for undocumented migrants in Europe, we’re speaking with national-level advocates about the situation in their countries. This interview was conducted in June 2021 with Diana Dimova from Mission Wings Foundation to discuss the situation in Bulgaria. It is not meant to offer an exhaustive picture of the legal and practical context in Bulgaria. Please get in touch at info@picum.org if you have information you’d like to share, and follow our Twitter page @PICUM_post to get more recent updates.

What does the Bulgarian vaccination strategy say about undocumented migrants?

The Bulgarian vaccination strategy doesn’t mention undocumented migrants. It sets out priority groups in terms of age, medical conditions and work. Thanks to advocacy from civil society organisations, the strategy also includes refugees and asylum-seekers held in Bulgaria’s six reception centres.

Would undocumented migrants still be able to access the vaccines somehow?

Well, the health care system in Bulgaria doesn’t generally recognise people without residence or identity documents. This is also true for the COVID-19 vaccines.

The mainstream booking system is not accessible to them, because they would need to provide a social security number. There may be a possibility to still get the vaccine in so-called “green corridors”, that is vaccination centres (usually part of hospitals or other health establishments) where anyone – not according to the priority groups – could go and get the vaccine. You’d still need some documentation but it’s unclear what type, so it may be possible for someone with a foreign passport to get vaccinated.

Are there any plans to make the vaccines more accessible to undocumented migrants?

Not at this stage. We’ve been trying to discuss access to the vaccines for this group with the Directorate of Migration, in vain. We’re now planning to address letters to various bodies, including the national Ombudsman, to get some clarification on who is responsible to provide the documentation that would allow undocumented migrants to get the vaccine.

Would there be any risks of immigration consequences if an undocumented person tries to access the vaccines?

We can’t exclude it, but it seems quite unlikely given the poor communication between health care services and police authorities.

Cover: Toniflap – Adobe Stock

As part of our efforts to monitor access to the COVID-19 vaccines for undocumented migrants in Europe, we’re speaking with national-level advocates about the situation in their countries. This interview was conducted in August 2021 with Neil Falzon from aditus foundation to discuss the situation in Malta. It is not meant to offer an exhaustive picture of the legal and practical context in Malta. Please get in touch at info@picum.org if you have information you’d like to share, and follow our Twitter page @PICUM_post to get more recent updates.

What does the Maltese vaccination strategy say about undocumented migrants?

The Maltese vaccination strategy doesn’t mention undocumented migrants, but prioritises groups based on age and medical conditions. Undocumented migrants are also a very small group of migrants in Malta, as most persons coming to the islands gets some sort of a document confirming their presence on the territory.

But the question of the vaccination of migrants quickly became evident for us. When the vaccination campaign reached people in their fifties and forties, we started to get calls from migrants and refugees to inquire about the vaccination.

Was it possible for them to book their vaccination?

It was for migrants residing here regularly, such as those holding work permits, and beneficiaries of protection, meaning refugees and holders of subsidiary protection. To book your vaccine online, at the start of the campaign, you had to have either an ID or a residence permit number, which basically left asylum-seekers and undocumented people out.

How did you go about addressing this?

With other civil society organisations, we got in touch with the government and called for inclusive access to the vaccines, based on both human rights and public health arguments. Our first calls fell flat: the government responded that the vaccination was only for regularly residing people, and that in any case it would have been nearly impossible to reach undocumented people as they weren’t registered anywhere.

So, what changed?

Well, things changed as younger age groups got to book their vaccine. At that time, the government opened the vaccinations to all people in open reception centres and to detained migrants, regardless of their residence status. And then, out of the blue, when all Maltese citizens could have received their shot based on their age and medical eligibility, they opened up access to the public vaccination centres too. So anyone can now turn up at a vaccination centre and get their shot. In fact, thousands of migrants have been queuing to get their shot, also because we saw that many employers expected staff to be vaccinated in order to ensure a Covid-safe workplace.

Are there any other avenues for undocumented people to get their shot?

Yes, the central vaccination hub remains open. For some time, there were mobile teams administering the vaccine at various locations. These were staffed by medical students, civil servants, and civil society volunteers and were hugely successful particularly amongst the migrant communities.

Are there any practical barriers to access the vaccines for undocumented people?

Well, there’s lots of public information out there, on billboards, buses, and on civil society online ads, which is good. The biggest issue is the reluctance of some migrants to get the vaccine. From the beginning of the outbreak, we were engaged in information campaigns targeting migrants as we were aware of misconceptions and information gaps within particular communities. We face the same challenge in relation to the vaccines.

Are there any risks of immigration checks if an undocumented person tries to get their vaccine?

The government made it clear that there would be no data sharing with immigration authorities. But we don’t have a formal separation between public services and immigration enforcement.

What about people in immigration detention?

Undocumented people in immigration detention were actually the first to benefit from the government opening up the vaccination campaign to migrants. This was largely due to the fact that it was easier for the authorities to manage the vaccinations in reception and pre-removal detention places as opposed to public vaccination points: anyone residing in a centre is obviously registered and therefore traceable, which is key to administer the vaccine doses.

COVID-19 certificates are now required in Malta to access lots of services and places. Are those certificates available to undocumented migrants too?

Yes. When an undocumented person gets their vaccine, they also receive a health number which they can use to download their COVID-19 certificate from the website of the Health Ministry.

Cover: Aliaksandr – Adobe Stock

As part of our efforts to monitor access to the COVID-19 vaccines for undocumented migrants in Europe, we’re speaking with national-level advocates about the situation in their countries. This interview was conducted in August 2021 with Sergio Ferreira from the Association de Soutien aux Travailleurs Immigrés (ASTI) to discuss the situation in Luxembourg. It is not meant to offer an exhaustive picture of the legal and practical context in Luxembourg. Please get in touch at info@picum.org if you have information you’d like to share, and follow our Twitter page @PICUM_post to get more recent updates.

What does the Luxembourgish vaccination strategy say about undocumented migrants?

The Luxembourg vaccination strategy doesn’t mention undocumented migrants explicitly, but they are now being reached by the vaccination campaign.

Was this from the beginning?

No, we actually didn’t have a great response from the government at the start of the campaign. We were only able to advance things from mid-July, thanks to internal changes in the Health Ministry.

What was agreed?

The government agreed to open the vaccination centres for undocumented people on selected days in August and in September.

The way it worked was that civil society organisations like ours gathered the contacts of undocumented people who wanted to get vaccinated. We then sent this list to the health ministry, which in turn communicated the contacts to the vaccination centres. This way, the centres could trace the administration of the doses.

How’s that going?

It’s very promising. In the first days, they were able to vaccinate some 2150 people without any particular issue. The health ministry even arranged for the security guards at the vaccination centre to wear civilian clothes, so undocumented people would more readily trust that there wouldn’t be any immigration consequences. At ASTI, we were there the first day to facilitate the process but we realised that our presence wasn’t needed after all.

Are there any other avenues for undocumented people to get vaccinated?

There will be. The government is arranging for the administration of the vaccines through GPs for free, including for undocumented people, from end of September or start of October. We’re still discussing with the health ministry how to implement this in practice for undocumented people.

Access to the GPs is already possible for undocumented people, in principle, but they would need to pay a so-called “voluntary social insurance”, which costs about 110€ per month. Through this, they can get a social security number, which they can use to access primary care, including COVID-19 vaccines at GPs. Obviously not everyone can afford to pay 110€ a month, and that’s why we’re working with other allies to call for universal health coverage. So what’s being proposed now is to open up access to the GPs for the COVID-19 vaccination, without paying this voluntary social insurance.

Are there any risks of immigration consequences for people who access the COVID-19 vaccines?

No, we even got a written guarantee from the health ministry that no data sharing would happen with other authorities. We also got a similar guarantee from the government IT centre (Centre de traitement informatique de l’Etat) which stores personal data for the purpose of delivering the COVID-19 certificates. These certificates are indeed handed to undocumented people too, on paper, at the vaccination point.

Are there any outstanding issues?

The biggest problem now is outreach. We were able to reach out to the Brazilian community, which is really engaged on access to the vaccines, and the Chinese and Balkans communities, but less so to people from originating from Africa, the Middle East and Maghreb. The government doesn’t seem particularly invested in publicising efforts to vaccinate undocumented migrants, probably because they fear that the issue would quickly become politicised.

Cover: Llibert Losada – Unsplash

As part of our efforts to monitor access to the COVID-19 vaccines for undocumented migrants in Europe, we’re speaking with national-level advocates about the situation in their countries. This interview was conducted in July 2021 with Pablo Iglesias Rionda from Medicos del Mundo to discuss the situation in Spain. It is not meant to offer an exhaustive picture of the legal and practical context in Spain. Please get in touch at info@picum.org if you have information you’d like to share, and follow our Twitter page @PICUM_post to get more recent updates.

What does the Spanish vaccination strategy say about undocumented migrants?

The Spanish federal vaccination strategy explicitly mentions undocumented migrants and other marginalised populations as groups to be vaccinated. They’re not identified as a priority group, and the strategy doesn’t detail how to reach them. Several regional strategies, which implement the federal framework, equally mention undocumented migrants.

Let’s look at how the booking system works.

The mainstream booking systems are managed by the regions. In some regions, the local health centres call people who are registered in the regional health care database. In others, like in Madrid, the booking can be done via an app, but it still needs a valid health insurance number.

That’s where it gets tricky for some undocumented people.

Why some?

Since 2018, a law allows for access to health care to undocumented people who can prove that they’ve lived in Spain for at least 3 months, and that their country of origin doesn’t cover their medical expenses. If you’re undocumented and you can prove these two points, then you can get a health insurance number that grants you access to some health care, including the COVID-19 vaccines.

How easy is this?

It’s not. Many undocumented migrants aren’t able to prove these points. Proving that you’ve lived in Spain for at least 3 months is already quite challenging. The means of proof are regulated by the regions, and some ask for documentation which isn’t readily available to undocumented migrants. For instance, some regions ask for registration with a local municipality, which can be difficult to get if you don’t have a lease contract or other proof of residence. It’s really a chain of subsequent barriers, and you always need something to unlock the next one. And this is just the first point.

The second point, proving that your country of origin won’t cover your medical expenses, can be even more challenging. To prove this, you need to get a certificate from your country of origin, and for certain countries, this document is not provided by the embassy. So it means that you have to go back to your country of origin to get it, and then try to enter Spain again, with no more regular ways to get here than there were at the first attempt.

And then it’s not just undocumented migrants who face challenges in accessing health care, and the COVID-19 vaccines.

Do you have other groups in mind?

Yes, for instance those who arrive to Spain as part of family reunification. These are people who in principle would have a residence permit in Spain. Partners and children who come to Spain via family reunification are covered by public health insurance, but parents are not. As parents, they’re often older than the average, and at higher risk of developing strong COVID-19 symptoms. But they face greater hurdles to access the vaccination, since they wouldn’t be registered in the public health databases.

Are regions trying to reach out to undocumented people, beyond the mainstream booking system?

There are some good practices at the regional level. Most regions are proposing that NGOs like Medicos del Mundo act as a bridge between undocumented people and the health care system. At Medicos del Mundo, for instance, we have contacts of undocumented people we work with, so we provide their telephone number to regional health care authorities, who will call them and administer the one-dose Jansen vaccine in mainstream vaccination points. But we don’t have access to all undocumented people of course. So while this cooperation with NGOs is useful, it has to be complemented by broader outreach campaigns.

Are there any particular groups that would be harder to reach?

Well, for instance, undocumented people working in secluded areas like the fields in southern Spain. The regions should deploy medical teams to those areas. Then there are undocumented sex workers, and homeless people too. We’re asking the authorities to develop a protocol to reach these and other marginalised groups.

Are there any risks of immigration checks as a result of people accessing the COVID-19 vaccines?

No, our data protection framework has an absolute prohibition for immigration authorities to get and use personal data from health care providers. That said, media have recently reported that in Ceuta some hospitals have been calling the police when an undocumented person couldn’t provide proof of coverage for their health care.

Cover: Harrison Fitts – Unsplash