- 2019-01-25
The EU "shadow population" puzzle
Ten years ago, Lennys fled his native Venezuela. It was the latter part of Hugo Chavez's administration, and life was getting harder and harder. When an economic and political crisis was about to erupt in full, her father died at the hands of a criminal gang. She came to Barcelona on a tourist visa to join a friend and never returned.
Since then, Lennis has been living in what immigration experts call an "irregular" status. She has not obtained an official residence permit. She is now in her forties. Lennis used to work as a human resources manager in her hometown. After coming to Barcelona, she mainly worked as a maid. She earns about 700 Euros a month. She also does odd jobs, earning 35-40 Euros each time. Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia, Spain.
She is not an exception, but a member of the "shadow population" living in Europe. Lennis is a pseudonym. After them, because of the outbreak of wars and turmoil in the Middle East and Africa, millions of people have poured into the European continent in the past few years. The massive influx of population has contributed to the nativism of the Eurosceptics and complicated the fate of Lennis and other irregular immigrants.
The local authorities in Barcelona have issued a policy that can help irregular immigrants to naturalize and enable them to move out of the margins and integrate into society. Lennis is currently going through this procedure. But some politicians’ anti-immigration remarks puzzled her, suggesting that people like her prefer to live in a gray area of the law without access to many services or official protections.
"I think that as a human being, you should at least enjoy the lowest rights," she said in an interview at the local government office, which is very close to the Plaza de España where tourists gather. "I suggest that the leaders of these parties should try to live as an irregular immigrant in another country for a period of time."
The debate on immigration in Europe tends to intensify, and the fate of Lennis and other irregular immigrants may have an increasingly important impact in this debate. They are a diverse group: many people, like Lennis, came here legally through travel, work or family visas, but due to changes in personal circumstances, their visas have expired or expired. Some people enter the country illegally and do not have any legal right to stay.
The most rigorously censored and most often demonized groups are immigrants who fail to apply for asylum. Due to the surge in the number of immigrants entering the EU from 2015 to 2016 (more than 2.5 million people applied for asylum in the EU in two years), the number of these immigrants is increasing as asylum applications continue to complete the adjudication and appeal procedures. Between 2015 and 2017, nearly half of the first asylum applications were not approved, but many people who were rejected were not likely to return to their home countries—or even not at all.
Governments are avoiding the issue of how to deal with rejected asylum applicants and other shadow populations in Europe. Waves of hostile rhetoric and unrealistic goals—such as the Italian government’s pledge this year to expel 500,000 irregular immigrants—have concealed structural failures in dealing with practical issues.
The last thing they want to admit is that there is such a group of people in the country. Not only do they have no residence certificates, but they also cannot count the numbers and often get no reports.
Immigration management has gradually become a major topic in the elections of various countries and the EU’s agenda. The number of immigrants arriving in the EU via the Mediterranean this year was less than 100,000, while in 2015 it exceeded 1 million. Part of the reason for the decline in the number of immigrants is an agreement reached in 2016: the European Union agreed to pay Turkey 6 billion euros in advance. In exchange, Turkey agreed to repatriate immigrants who tried to enter the Greek islands via the country’s territory.
Many governments have tried to refuse to provide services for irregular immigrants and deport them, but such a policy may cause high labor costs for their own countries. From Barcelona to Brussels, more and more local authorities realize that hostile attitudes combined with official neglect will produce destructive results.
These cities are at the forefront of dealing with irregular immigrants from Africa, the Middle East and other regions. By providing them with services such as medical and health care, language courses and even legal aid, these local administrative authorities have incorporated these people into the local management system to varying degrees.
This is based on both humanitarian and practical considerations. It helps prevent public health threats, crime, exploitative labor, and forced concentrated housing that may lead to the division of communities.
"If we provide some means for these people to find their own way in our city... in the future they may be legalized and obtain legal residence permits," said Ramon Sanauja, who is in charge of immigration affairs at the Barcelona City Council. Ramon Sanahuja) said, "This is good for everyone."
The size of the shadow population in Europe is unknown, but experts generally believe that the number is huge and growing. The most comprehensive assessment ever made is the Clandestino project funded by the European Union. According to the project, the number of irregular immigrants in 2008 was between 1.9 million and 3.8 million-not only the difference between the minimum and maximum numbers is huge, but since then There is no update, despite the massive influx of immigrants since 2015.
A more synchronized, albeit imprecise, measure is to compare the number of people who are ordered to leave the EU each year with the actual number of people who leave. From 2008 to 2017, more than 5 million non-EU citizens were required to leave the EU. Official statistics show that about 2 million people have returned to countries outside the European Union.
Although it is not very accurate to compare these two sets of numbers-people do not necessarily leave in the same year they were ordered to leave-these figures do indicate that millions of people may have joined the shadow population of Europe in the past 10 years or so. Army. With the final trial of a large number of asylum applications filed since 2015, this group is likely to grow further.
This can explain to a certain extent why the European Union is focusing on increasing the repatriation rate of irregular immigrants. The official figure has dropped from 46% in 2016 to 37% last year. Although obstacles that lead to non-repatriation are sometimes legal-because some countries of origin are deemed unsafe-more obstacles are real. The countries of origin of immigrants often refuse to accept them because they do not have identity documents or the authorities of various countries dispute the authenticity of their documents. These migrants can neither enter the European Union nor return to their place of origin: they have nowhere to go.
“The population of the EU in a state of instability will only increase. This is indeed a big problem,” said Hanne Beirens, deputy director of the Migration Policy Institute Europe, a think tank. “Although the country At the level of the statement, "These people cannot stay," but at the local community level, these people need to survive."
When Serge Bagamboula came to Belgium on a student visa in 2009, he never thought he would live in this country illegally in 10 years. The 56-year-old Bagmbra is from Congo (Brazzaville) and went to the Université libre de Bruxelles to study for a master's degree. But after completing his studies, he decided to stay due to the deteriorating political situation and poor employment prospects in the country. He has now joined a movement organized by Belgian undocumented workers-known as "sans papiers"-seeking more rights and expecting greater recognition for their contribution to the local economy.
The Belgian government has not announced the estimated number of undocumented immigrants in the country, but NGOs estimate that there are hundreds of thousands. Brussels is a center. As a highly cosmopolitan city-one of the 19 districts has a registered population from more than 100 countries-it has become a natural destination for young people looking for opportunities.
The current Belgian government has a tougher policy against irregular immigrants and undocumented workers. One of the ruling parties, the New Flemish Alliance Party (NVA), pursues a hardline and nationalist line, and prioritizes the expulsion of "transit immigrants". "Transit migrants" refer to those who have usually arrived in Europe from North Africa or the Mediterranean, trying to transfer from Belgium to other countries (especially the United Kingdom). Hundreds of people sleep on the streets around Brussels North Railway Station.
“A large number of asylum applications have been rejected. Many of these applicants are trying to travel to the UK,” said Theo Francken, the Belgian Minister of Immigration. “They can be seen on the streets and highways.”
The number of irregular immigrants forcibly repatriated in Belgium rose from 8,758 in 2014 to 11.07 million in 2017. Construction sites and night shops (shops with longer opening hours) have been the targets of inspections by labor inspectors.
The New Flemish Union Party has proposed in Parliament that Belgium's amnesty for "unidentified persons" between 1999 and 2002 should not happen again. Belgian national law guarantees that irregular immigrants have access to emergency medical services, while EU law provides for some basic labor rights. Children of unidentified persons are also eligible to attend public schools. The country’s local administration provides funding to associations that help undocumented workers learn skills and find a place to live.
Bagmbra’s activities include working with local governments to free up idle housing for use by unidentified people, and launching projects aimed at enhancing the independence of female immigrants. "We want to tell people that we meet you every day, we help build this country, and our children go to school with your children," he said.
"People are talking about the immigration crisis, but this is actually a reception crisis," Bagmbula believes that Belgium has inadequate management of irregular immigration. "Today's immigrants will become tomorrow's undocumented people."
This is a tricky long-term reality facing the EU and its member states. There is already a considerable amount of shadow population in the EU, and existing data show that this number is still growing.
Compared to when he first came to Barcelona 10 years ago, Lennis's identity has changed. She has a work permit and pays taxes. She can get free medical care and complete a Catalan beginner course for free.
She believes that if governments just treat irregular immigration as a political issue, they will be very wrong. She said that treating immigrants harshly or simply letting them go is not only unfair, but also counterproductive to EU countries and the communities where these unstable populations live.