This post was written by Jamie Slater, former Advocacy Trainee, and Alyna Smith, Deputy Director.*

Since the EU Digital COVID Certificate Regulation went into effect on 1 July 2021, several Member States have used vaccine certificates to determine access to services and civic spaces. While many see this as a way to boost uptake of the vaccine among those hesitating, this is not true for everyone. For those already facing barriers to the vaccine, like undocumented migrants, requiring vaccination certificates to access public services and civic spaces compounds pre-existing exclusion. It also raises concerns about the increased policing of these spaces to the detriment of fundamental rights, particularly for groups already facing criminalisation.

In many European countries, registering for the vaccines is itself a challenge for undocumented people who cannot produce a social security number, national identity document or, in some cases, proof of a home address – common requirements to get the Covid-19 vaccine. Even if undocumented migrants can register, countries often have no specific policy safeguarding their personal data from being transmitted to immigration authorities. These barriers occur against a backdrop of extremely limited access to health care in Europe for undocumented people, and the pervasive risk of exposure to deportation, including by accessing services.

Undocumented people who do manage to get vaccinated cannot always get a digital COVID certificate. One barrier is due to limited access to the technology needed to obtain or display a digital certificate by some.  Another is that health databases themselves may not allow undocumented migrants to obtain digital certificates. In Italy, the code issued for “Temporarily Present Foreigners”, used by undocumented migrants to get health care, is not always recognised by the health ministry as valid for obtaining the country’s “Green Pass”, which is needed to access a panoply of public spaces and services, including workplaces and public transit.

On 9 June 2021, France became one of the first countries in Europe to implement its COVID-19 certificate system, requiring people to present a pass sanitaire (“health pass”) to use public transportation, enter restaurants, cafes and indoor public spaces, and for employees who work in these public spaces. While people from the age of 12 are required to present the pass sanitaire, unaccompanied children seeking recognition of their status as minors cannot request vaccinations without a legal representative’s authorisation, leaving children between 12 and 18 without a legal representative effectively excluded from civic and other public spaces. Both the French Ombudsperson and the French national medical association expressed concerns around the risks of further exclusion of marginalised and poorer populations.

Concerns over data protection and immigration checks may also deter undocumented people from registering for the certificate. In the Czech Republic, it is unclear – even more than half a year after the implementation of the policy – if data submitted when applying for the certificate would be transmitted to immigration authorities. Even when there are clear safeguards in place, data security breaches – such as in Germany recently – may nourish existing fears and dissuade people from getting the certificate.

There are also worries about the increased policing of certain spaces and the risk of more exclusion and discrimination. One advocate in Austria noted that virtually every kind of document check can foster fears of immigration consequences, and expressing concerns over increased random certificate checks by police in public spaces, which could equally increase the risk of ID checks and of immigration consequences. Advocates in Hamburg, Germany, have reported high levels of stress and exclusion from public services (including public transportation) among undocumented migrants because of the so-called “3G rule” that requires a person to certify they have been vaccinated, cured of COVID-19, or have tested negatively. These certifications are accompanied by ID checks. Because undocumented people often cannot provide identification and may not be able to provide the needed proof (including because they cannot obtain a vaccine certificate), they are effectively excluded from public services.

While in some countries vaccine updates increased after the imposition of vaccine certificates among certain segments of the population, this is not the case for everyone. Pre-existing inequalities disparately affecting ethnic minorities and people with lower incomes have an impact on vaccine uptake. A recent study conducted in the UK shows that vaccine certificates are predicted to cause certain groups, including black British ethnicities and non-English speakers, to be less likely to get vaccinated. For undocumented people, this is compounded by barriers to vaccine registration, distrust of authorities and risks of immigration enforcement – not to mention, in most countries, longstanding exclusion from national health systems due to their immigration status.

In the case of undocumented people, vaccination certificates are ill-suited to addressing vaccine inequities and restrict fundamental rights in ways that may not be necessary or proportional to achieving our public health goals.

We’ve seen that the way to boost access to and uptake of COVID-19 vaccines for undocumented people is to partner with local organisations to develop and implement programs that reach people where they are, and proactively address the systemic barriers they face. Public health overall would be strengthened by enabling undocumented migrants to receive reliable, clear information about the pandemic, the vaccines and their rights, from sources they trust – and our collective resilience to health emergencies improved by removing the systemic barriers they face to the health system.

* The content of this post was further adapted into an op-ed that was published on Al Jazeera under the title COVID-19 policies need to be inclusive of undocumented people. For the past year, PICUM has been working with national organisations to document COVID-19 vaccination programmes and their inclusiveness of undocumented people – including examples of promising practices. For more information and resources, visit COVID-19 and undocumented migrants in Europe.

Cover image: ROMUL014 – 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 November 2021 with Meri Korniloff, Programme Coordinator at Physicians for Social Responsibility in Helsinki, to discuss the situation in Finland. It is not meant to offer an exhaustive picture of the legal and practical context in Finland. 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 Finnish vaccination strategy say about undocumented migrants?

The Finnish vaccination strategy does not specifically mention undocumented migrants. But the Ministry of Health addressed a recommendation to the municipalities to grant access to the vaccination to people whose residence is not officially registered in a given municipality, which includes undocumented people. At Physicians for Social Responsibility, we advocated at the local level to ensure meaningful implementation of this recommendation.

Can undocumented people access mainstream vaccination points?

They can, but it depends on the booking system. Booking online requires official identification, which is largely not available for an undocumented person in Finland. As a result, it is extremely difficult for undocumented migrants to access the mainstream online booking system. It is possible to book by phone, but then contact with the operator can be challenging if the patient doesn’t speak Finnish, Swedish or English and doesn’t know the health care system.

Are there other possible avenues?

Yes, there are two alternative avenues for undocumented migrants to access the vaccine.

The first one is drop-in vaccination points, where people can go and get their vaccine without the need to book an appointment. These vaccination points were opened at a later stage of the national vaccination strategy. People who go to these drop–in points can provide a temporary health number, which is given to undocumented patients by health care providers themselves at the first point of contact. Someone could also go to a drop-in centre without such a temporary health number and be able to get one on the spot. It’s still unclear if someone without any form of identification could be vaccinated at these drop-in points.

The second vaccination avenue is mobile teams composed of public health care professionals who administer the vaccines at sites operated by NGOs on specific dates. This was the result of significant cooperation between the various bodies involved. In Helsinki, for instance, the city administration organised and deployed mobile units to two specific sites where undocumented migrants are known to live; social workers informed them about this vaccination route and made sure people would come on a certain date and time; NGOs reached out to undocumented migrants too, and accompanied people through the vaccination process, including by allaying fears about the vaccines.

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

In Finland, there is a strict firewall in place, which separates health care and immigration enforcement. Health care professionals are bound by strict confidentiality rules and can be trusted to not share personal data for purposes not related to health care.

Are there practical barriers for undocumented people to access vaccines?

There are three main practical barriers that hinder access to vaccines.

First, lack of information: people living in big cities, and who are in contact with NGOs, are generally informed about the various avenues to get the vaccines and about their rights. But not all undocumented migrants have social networks or access to information. For example, those who live in other parts of Finland, especially in small towns, may not have access to such information.

Second, there continue to be fears around contacts with public authorities, including the health care system, and around the vaccination itself.

Third, administrative barriers where there are no official guidelines for health care professionals about health care entitlements.

In Helsinki, undocumented people have largely good access to the vaccines because the system already includes undocumented patients and because there are many NGOs spreading the information about entitlements to the community.

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

In Finland, several restrictions have been introduced with regards to accessing places without a COVID-19 certificate, especially in response to the spread of the Omicron variant. The situation keeps changing rapidly.

It is impossible for undocumented migrants to obtain an electronic certificate from a dedicated website. But they can get a paper certificate after their vaccination at the vaccination point.

Cover image: MISTERVLAD – Adobe Stock 

In May 2020, the Italian government adopted a scheme to regularise undocumented workers in the country. One year on, the results are difficult to see. We spoke to Giulia Capitani, Migration Policy Advisor at Oxfam Italia, and part of migration reform coalition Ero Straniero, to know more.

What did the Italian government introduce in 2020?

The Italian government introduced measures to regularise undeclared work in the agri-food and domestic work sectors. In particular, the scheme they adopted in May 2020 aimed to provide work and residence permits to undocumented migrants already present in Italy and working in the agri-food and domestic work sectors.

How did the scheme work?

The scheme followed two tracks. In the first one, employers could apply for a residence permit for work reasons for their employees. This is both for when the employee is yet to be hired, and those who are already working irregularly for the employer.

In the second track, undocumented people who had recently worked in one of these sectors could themselves apply for a six-month residence permit to look for new work.

Criteria for both tracks were extremely complicated and rigid. We feel that they were set more as a result of political negotiations, rather than to provide a clear legal framework. And people only had a couple of months to learn about the procedure and criteria and prepare and submit their applications, as the scheme came into force on 19 May and applications were only accepted from 1 June to 15 August.

Can you explain more about these criteria?

First of all, the regularisation measure only concerned agri-food and domestic workers, including domestic care workers. Other sectors that employ lots of undocumented people, like restaurants, tourism, cleaning, and construction, were left out. The workers needed to prove that they worked in one of those two sectors covered by the regularisation. If they worked in other sectors, then they wouldn’t be eligible.

There were also several other criteria for workers.

For instance, they needed to prove that they were in Italy before 8 March 2020, which is when the first national lockdown was imposed. The Ministry of Interior had clarified that several documents could be accepted as proof of this, such as certificates of attendance of Italian classes provided by civil society organisations, reports from visits to hospitals, or even phone contracts and bills. But whether they would be accepted in practice by the prefectures very much depended on the prefectures themselves, many of which have been very restrictive in their interpretation of the ministerial guidelines.

For the job-seeking permit, workers also needed to prove that they had had a valid residence permit, which then expired – but they were only eligible if the permit expired after 31 October 2019, not before. It’s frankly really hard to find any logic to these criteria, and it’s a headache to try and explain them to people.

One of the most absurd criteria was probably the need to prove that you live in suitable housing, which means that your place must be of a certain size, be equipped with utilities that comply with quite stringent regulations, etc. This is just crazy, because we all know that, for instance, undocumented field workers live in shacks without electricity or water. And they’re the ones who should be able to get a regularisation. This criterion by itself is the reason for many residence permits being denied.

Then there were criteria to be met by employers too. Here the biggest issue was probably the requirement to prove that they have enough financial resources to employ somebody regularly. Many employers have been scared by this requirement because they feared it would lead to fiscal checks and fines. As a result, many decided not to introduce applications for permits for their workers. This was problematic also for employers of domestic care workers because it wasn’t clear what could be counted as “employer income” when the employer is a family.

What about the procedures to apply?

Procedures too were fairly complicated and generally not always accessible to workers. First of all, the applications happened online, which means that the workers needed access to digital devices and the internet, and needed to know how to navigate them, which isn’t a reality for everyone. At the same time, the administrative processes to grant the permit happen in person: during the COVID-19 pandemic, this has meant that the whole process was slowed down because of various restrictions to movement and gathering. Chronic understaffing of the prefectures has also contributed to slowing down the process.

Applications also have to go through an approval procedure, which includes authorisations from both the police (questura) and the labour inspectorate. While we understand the need for controls, the procedure should have been simplified and more staff provided to the territorial offices, especially for the labour inspectorate local offices.

What have these criteria and procedures meant for the results of the regularisation scheme?

The latest data released by the Ministry of Interior in October – so a little more than one year after the introduction of the scheme – shows that some 38.000 residence permits have been issued, and 11.405 were rejected.

27.823 are residence and work permits under track 1.

10.088 are temporary job-seeking permits under track 2, 6.593 of which have been converted into work permits.

The vast majority of the applications remain to be processed, which is about 180.000 out of some 230.000 applications. 78.887 of these applications have almost reached the first step (summons at the Prefectures for the signature of the work contract), but the final one is still lacking (issue of the residence and work permit at the Police Office). In some municipalities, the situation is really dire and reflects all the limitations and delays we spoke about: in Rome, for instance, out of 17.371 applications, only 1.242 residence permits were requested after the convocation at the Prefecture; in Milan, only 2.551 out of 25.900 applications; in Naples, 1.780 out of 19.268 applications.

What do you make of this measure?

Well, it is obviously good news when any person can regularise their stay in Italy. But the criteria for the two tracks were so rigid and complex that we have very little hope it will result in a meaningful improvement in the living and working conditions of the majority of undocumented workers in Italy. We also don’t like how Italian governments have been using short-term regularisation programmes over the years – some twenty since 2000! – as a patch to alleviate structural issues, without actually addressing those structural issues.

This latest regularisation measure, for instance, was largely adopted to stem labour shortages in the agri-food sector, since restrictions to international travel linked to the pandemic were preventing the arrival of seasonal workers from abroad. Maybe even more importantly, the lockdown restrictions inside Italy meant that police would stop people on the street and prevent them from reaching their workplaces.

So, this measure attempted to respond to those fears, to keep the agri-food production chain alive. It does nothing to address the lack of regular labour migration pathways, or the lack of decent work permits.

What’s worse, this scheme has also created new vulnerabilities.

What are those vulnerabilities?

Well, we’ve heard of several cases where the employer was actually using the prospect of regularisation to blackmail the worker, for instance, to require extra work. In other cases, employers made workers pay the 500€ forfeit (application fee set in consideration that the employer has not been paying all their taxes) which they should pay instead when they apply to regularise workers.

What would you have liked to see instead?

First of all, we’d have liked to see a regularisation scheme that applies to all sectors, not just agri-food and domestic work. Then, fewer and more flexible criteria to apply, including regarding the need to prove one’s presence in Italy before 8 March, or the need to provide suitable housing certificates. As for the application process, workers should have had more ownership of the process rather than depending so much on employers, to reduce risks of exploitation. Plus, the whole process should have been simplified, to facilitate both access to the regularisation procedure for the potential applicants, and the public administration.

More generally, we’d like to see structural reforms of our migration policies, including establishing more decent labour migration pathways for all sectors and long-term regularisation mechanisms, instead of narrow and temporary regularisation programmes like this one.

Cover Photo: Miravision – Adobe Stock

This blog post was authored by Francesca Pierigh, project coordinator of Vaccinating Europe’s Undocumented: A Policy Scorecard, at Lighthouse Reports.

Since March 2021, investigative nonprofit newsroom Lighthouse Reports has been working with PICUM to assess European vaccination policies and strategies, in terms of how inclusive they are of undocumented people. We embarked on a joint data journalism project to try and answer one apparently simple question: are undocumented people included in the vaccination efforts of European governments?

The answer is anything but straightforward. Policies are for the most part vague and open to interpretation. This can be a purposeful means of avoiding a charged political debate while still providing for this population, or it can be an exclusionary tactic to deny undocumented people access to the vaccines.

We collected all publicly available documentation related to the vaccination programmes (strategies, implementation plans, policies, but also statements from public health and national authorities) and assessed it through a questionnaire developed collaboratively by PICUM and Lighthouse Reports.

All answers we gathered were then cleaned, checked and validated by the team at Lighthouse Reports, where a data scientist turned them into scores. The results are 18 national Scorecards, one for each country we analysed.

The Scorecard is divided into five sections, each one attempting to assess a different aspect of vaccination policies and access for the undocumented:

• Policy Transparency evaluates government efforts to make national vaccine policies available to the public;
• Access for the Undocumented assesses whether language is inclusive or exclusionary and whether some of the practical barriers have been addressed;
• Identification and Residency Requirements identifies which requirements are needed to access the vaccines;
• Access for the Marginalised tries to understand how a country is accommodating the needs of other marginalized groups within its borders, which may or may not include undocumented people;
• Privacy Guarantees evaluates policies related to the collection, processing and sharing of data between health and other authorities.

The overall results, and each country’s results, can be consulted at this link, where more information on the project and its methodology is also available. Across the 18 countries in the sample, the best performers are the United Kingdom and Portugal. They are the only ones which received positive scores in all categories, earning the label “Open and Accessible”. At the other end of the scale are the “Closed Door” countries: Slovakia, Czech Republic and Poland, all of which are explicitly exclusionary.

Map from Lighthouse Reports

An important note here: the Scorecard only assesses written policies, documents and materials gathered online. That means that there may be a gap between policies and practices. We know, and have been documenting, that this is the case in many countries, even in the United Kingdom, which, despite scoring highest, has made trust in authorities very difficult for undocumented people with years of the “hostile environment”.

To provide a balance to the Scorecard results, many PICUM members in the countries analysed have been contacted and asked for their expert, on-the-ground opinions. Their quotes accompany the country results, where they are available, and balance the assessment of written policies. A number of case studies will also be published across European media outlets, and they will be linked from this page.

Some of the challenges undocumented people face in accessing the COVID-19 vaccines also reflect broader barriers they have faced for years in accessing health care. Unclear policies, vague languages, lack of national directives for how to include the undocumented are all too common in the lives of those who live among us, but are uncounted and often left out of our health and social care systems. At the same time, the development of some good practices is a promising sign, and, while they may apply only to vaccine access, there are hopes – and opportunities for civil society to advocate – to expand them to other health care.

Access to health care is a human right and a person’s residence status should not determine whether this right is granted or not. The pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities across the board, including in health care. It has also shown examples of how governments and civil society can work together to ensure that health care is accessible for everyone. It can be a turning point in recognising that we all benefit from genuinely inclusive, responsive health systems, and in states’ efforts to make this a reality for undocumented people too.

Cover Photo: Kate Trifo – Unsplash 

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