July 18-25, 2022 Mixed Migration—hebdo
This week, we credit Tajikistan for leaping ahead of Europe on doing right by its nationals detained in the al-Hol camp in northeast Syria. Then, as always, we sample the week's global migration news.
Welcome to Mixed Migration—hebdo! Here, in the time it takes to read one feature, you get a global sweep of the last week's most relevant migration policy developments, along with links to all the articles you need to dig deeper.
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Spotlight
This week, Tajikistan accepted the return of 42 spouses and 104 children of suspected ISIS fighters being held in the Kurdish-administered detention camps of al Hol and Roj in northeastern Syria.
The al-Hol camp was first set up in 1991 to accommodate refugees displaced by the Gulf War, and was used again on the heels of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. In 2015, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces captured the camp and the surrounding area from the Islamic State. As ISIS fighters retreated toward Baghuz, a small town on the Euphrates near the Iraqi border where they would fight their last stand, thousands of their wives and children retreated with them; when Baghuz fell in in 2019, tens of thousands of surrendering fighters were herded into al-Hol—with their families in tow. As of mid-2022, ~56.000 remain in al-Hol—the majority of them Syrian and Iraqi nationals, and the remaining ~12.000 from third countries, including numerous EU nationals. Humanitarian conditions were already dire back in 2019 and have worsened since then; security has all but evaporated, with over 100 murders having taken place in the last 18 months.
Unsurprisingly, the Western-allied Kurdish forces managing the camp have been begging, for years, for Western states to repatriate their nationals among the detained, soundly arguing that high-income states are better equipped to imprison radicalized fighters and to reintegrate family members wishing to leave this dark part of their lives behind. Iraq’s repatriation efforts are halting, but earnest. Unsurprisingly, Western states have done as little as possible to do right by their nationals—let alone their allies in the ground war against the Islamic state.
At-scale repatriations from al-Hol, especially of of non-combattants, are long overdue. If Tajikistan can step up, so can Europe.
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On to the news…
Asia
Post-occupation Afghanistan
Last Monday, 2 earthquakes struck in Afghanistan’s southeastern Paktika province, injuring 31 civilians and destroying 600 homes. On the same day, Dawn relayed the irregular settlement of ~700 Hazara Afghan refugees in a children’s park in Islamabad, on the heels of the dispersal of previous informal settlements near the National Press Club and Parliament House. Also on Monday, U.S. authorities announced a simplification in the Special Immigrant Visa application process, streamlining the filing into 1 form and reducing processing times. | On Tuesday, the WFP appealed for $172 million to enable it to store 150.000 tons of food assistance in remote Afghan provinces, for eventual distribution to at-need families. | On Wednesday, the United Nations mission in Afghanistan issued a report finding Taliban authorities responsible for systematic human rights violations—including at least 160 extrajudicial killings, 300 arbitrary arrests, and 56 instances of torture or ill-treatment—directed at civilians associated with the previous government, human rights defenders, and journalists (see the full report here). | This Monday, Afghan authorities celebrated the return of 272 Afghan IDPs from Kabul to their home provinces, the latest of ~6.000 displaced families to have returned from Kabul in recent months.
Myanmar and its neighbors
Last Monday, Bangladeshi authorities announced they had apprehended a high-level ARSA commander who had evaded capture by blending in amid the Rohingya refugee population encamped near Cox’s Bazaar. | On Thursday, the World Bank assessed Myanmar’s poverty rate has doubled in the 18 months since the military coup, with ~22 million Burmese, roughly 40% of the population, living below the poverty line. | On Friday, the International Court of Justice issued its ruling on the admissibility of the 2019 genocide case brought forth by the Gambia, finding against Burmese filings, and assuming competent jurisdiction to adjudicate allegations of genocide against the Tatmadaw. On the same day, Malaysian authorities announced the launch of a novel and nationwide Tracking Refugees Information System.
Sources: TOLOnews, Dawn, Reuters, IANS, RFA, the Irrawaddy, AFP, al Jazeera.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Ethiopia’s civil war
Last Monday, the TPLF named its negotiating team to join complex but urgent peace talks across a delegation from Addis Ababa. On the same day, conflict in Ethiopia’s central Bale Zone led to the killing of 20 civilians and the displacement of thousands from a wholly evacuated village. Also on Monday, TPLF officials admonished the recent reconstruction deal signed by the Ethiopian government and UNOPS, which they charge was made unilaterally by Addis Ababa with no input from Tigrayan stakeholders, and which they fear will deprive Tigray of reconstruction assistance in favor of less severely at-need regions. | On Tuesday, USAID announced a $55 million commitment to provide food assistance to ~2 million Ethiopian civilians who have seen their food security undermined by grain and fertilizer shortages caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On the same day, Somalian authorities denied any dometic troop presence in Tigray fighting alongside Eritrean forces, claiming to have found 5.000 trainees who had evidently gone missing in Eritrea and pledging to return them promptly to Somalia. | On Wednesday, the UAE announced a $60 million commitment to the WFP’s programming in northern Ethiopia, helping it provide food assistance to 1.6 million civilians in Tigray, Afar, and Amahara. | On Thursday, border crossings resumed at the Metema-Gallabat dry port connecting Ethiopia and Sudan, pursuing to its announced re-opening on the Sunday prior. On the same day, Addis Standard issued a thorough investigation into a flare-up of violence in the North Shewa Zone, along the borders of Oromia and Amhara, that saw at least 17 civilians and 28 security forces killed, and another 30 civilians injured, between July 10 and 12 of this year.
Conflict and displacement in the Sahel and in central Africa
Last Tuesday, the African Center for Strategic Studies tallied ~36 million displaced persons in Africa, representing 44% of the global total, attributing the bulk of this displacement to protracted conflict across the continent (see ACSS’s full report here). | On Thursday, the REACH Resource Center issued a report finding that 90% of households in the Western Sahel can no longer satisfy basic needs, driving increasing northbound irregular migration. | On Sunday, over 3.200 people were displaced by attacks by local armed groups in Nigeria’s northwestern Zamfara State. | This Monday, HumAngle highlighted the experience of homelessness in Lagos experienced by Nigerians in long-term displacement with no other settlement options.
The DRC and its neighbors
Last Tuesday, 88 refugees returned from exile in Angola to their communities of origin in the DRC’s Kasai province, from where ~35.000 civilians fled in 2017, of whom ~7.000 remain abroad—with voluntary returns suspended in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and resumed this last week. | On Thursday , Save the Children lamented the separation of at least 100 children from their families due to novel displacement in recent weeks in the DRC’s northeastern Rutshuru region, where over 10.000 families have been displaced by clashes between state forces and the M23 rebel group in recent months (see StC’s full report here). On the same day, negotiators from the DRC and Rwanda agreed to demand a rapid deployment of regional peacekeepers in the northeastern DRC to reduce regional tensions.
Sources: AFP, Addis Standard, the EastAfrican, Middle East Monitor, ANSA, HumAngle.
Middle East and North Africa
Conflict and displacement in Syria
Last Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reaffirmed his intention to invade northern Syria and establish a 30-kilometer buffer zone between the Turkish border and YPG-controlled parts of Syria. | On Friday, a Russian airstrike killed 7 people, including 4 children, in Idlib province. | This Monday, Kurdish authorities in northeastern Syria repatriatd 146 women and children, relatives of imprisoned ISIS fighters until recently detained in the Al-Hol and Roj contaiment camps, to Tajikistan.
Asylum seeker (im)mobility in the MENA region
Last Monday, TOLOnews relayed testimony from Afghan refugees repatriated from Turkey, attesting to mistreatment by Turkish authorities and poor conditions in pre-departure containment centers, all while accusing the Afghan Embassy in Ankara of complicity with the ~300 daily repatriation departures. | On Tuesday, Turkish authorities issued a novel regulation compelling taxi drivers to check the documentation of foreign drivers before initiating inter-city trips, such that tourists would need to show their passports, and refugees would need to show their international protection document, as well as a separate travel permit authorizing this travel. On the same day, a Moroccan court ruled on pending charges against 33 asylum seekers detained in Melilla during the June 24 deadly mass attempted crossing, finding them guilty of illegal entry into Morocco, and of disorderly and violent conduct, and sentencing them to 11 months’ incarceration and fining 4.000 dhirams (~€400). | On Wednesday, the Moroccan Association for Human Rights issued the findings of it investigation into the June 24 tragedy, tallying 27 fatalities and 64 missing persons, and finding causes of death to be a mix of chemical asphyxiation due to tear gas used by Moroccan and Spanish border police, and physical asphyxiation caused by the human crush against the border fence. | On Friday, the AP issued a detailed profile of the Stabilization Support Authority, a novel Libyan militia that appears to have consolidated control over maritime migration policing, operating with even greater brutality and lesser accountability than its predecessors. On the same day, 27 asylum seekers were transferred from Libya to Italy via a humanitarian corridor targeting the most vulnerable detainees in Libya’s asylum seeker detention centers. | On Sunday, Turkish authorities announced they had repatriated 215 Afghan asylum seekers, and were preparing to deport another 327, the latest of nearly 25.500 Afghans to be repatirated from Turkey thus far this year.
Yemen’s civil war
Last Tuesday, AFP highlighted the fragility of Yemen’s ongoing ceasefire as its August 2 expiration date (if not renewed) approaches, singling out the ongoing issue of road closures around Taiz, which continues vexing parties to the conflict, negotiatiors, and—most importantly—civilians in the frontline city. | On Thursday, UN Special Envoy to Yemen Hans Grundberg pleaded for the extension of the ceasefire in Yemen, highlighting a 60% decrease in novel civilian casualties and a nearly 50% decrease in novel displacement since it entered into effect. | On Saturday, artillery shelling in a residential neighborhood of Taiz killed 1 child and injured another 10 children.
Sources: al Jazeera, the Guardian, The New Arab, TOLOnews, Hürriyet, InfoMigrants, AP, InfoMigrants, Daily Sabah, AFP, UN News.
Maritime Migration Routes to & through the West
Central and western Mediterranean
Last Monday, Tunisian Coast Guard officers rescued 455 asylum seekers in 37 rescue operations across Tunisian waters. | On Wednesday, Salvamento Marítimo rescued 2 asylum seeking youth trying to cross the Straits of Gibraltar on surfboards, and another trying to cross by swimming, bringing them ashore in Algeciras for registration and medical care. On the same day, the Rise Above (Mission Lifeline) announced it had rescued just under 70 asylum seekers in 3 operations over the previous 4 days. | On Saturday, Italian authorities rescued 674 asylum seekers from a single fishing vessel adrift in waters 124 nautical miles south of the coast of Calabria, and retrieved the lifeless bodies of 5 passengers who had succumbed to dehydration. | On Sunday, the Sea-Watch 3 rescued 444 asylum seekers in five operations in the Central Mediterranean, and Ocean Viking (SOS Méditerrannée) rescued another 195 in a further 2 operations.
Atlantic-adjacent routes: the English Channel and Ruta Canaria
Last Monday, 330 asylum seekers reached UK soil across the English Channel, adding up to a total of over 15.000 arrivals thus far this year. | On Wednesday, Caminando Fronteras issued its monitoring report for the first half of 2022, tallying just under 1.000 asylum seeker fatalities at Spain’s borders in the last 6 months, ~800 of them perishing or going missing while trying to reach the Canary Islands (see CF’s full report here). | On Saturday, Salvamento Marítimo rescued 53 asylum seekers in waters off of Gran Canaria.
Gulf of Mexico
Last Wednesday, 8 Cuban asylum seekers made landfall in Key West, where they were promptly apprehended by U.S. authorities. | On Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted a wooden sailboat arrying at least 150 Haitian asylum seekers that had run aground in waters off of Boca Chita Key. | On Friday, 14 Cuban asylum seekers arrived autonomously to Long Key, where they were promptly apprehended by U.S. authorities. | On Sunday, authorities in the Bahamas rescued 25 Haitian asylum seekers, retrieved 17 lifeless bodies, and tallied as many as two dozen missing persons, from a vessel that capsized off the coast of New Providence island.
Sources: InfoMigrants, EuropaSur, infobae, EFE, 112 Canarias, Local10 News, AP.
Europe
EU migration policymaking
Last Monday, Irish authorities announced a 1-year suspension of visa-free travel for refugees who already have refugee status in one of 20 other EU countries, in response to an increase in asylum claims filed by people already grated refugee status in another EU country—to 479 such claims through 2021. | On Wednesday, German officials disclosed details of intended labor migration reforms—proposing to speed up the recognition of foreign professional qualifications, and allow migrants to travel while recognition is ongoing; to allow job seekers to immigrate to Germany to look for work, and not just with a work contract in hand; to increase the labor migration from non-EU Balkan states, currently set at 25.000 per year; and to reduce the income threshold for Blue Card eligibility in Germany. | On Thursday, Senegalese and Spanish officials met in Dakar, on the sidelines of an AU Summit, to discuss opening regular pathways for labor and circular migration between the 2 countries. On the same day, Statewatch issued a report revealing Frontex plans to set up an operations centers in Mauritania, and deepen collaboration with Senegal, to deter irregular migration toward the Canary Islands (see Statewatch’s full report here). Also on Thursday, negotiations toward a settlement broke down between Cypriot authorities and 2 Syrian asylum seekers pushed back to Lebanon from Cyprus’ shores, paving the way for litigation at the European Court of Human Rights. | This Monday, 9 Afghan refugees reached Italy from Tehran, part of a 300-strong first tranche of a humanitarian corridor intended to bring 1.200 Afghan refugees from southwest Asia directly to Italy over the next few months.
European migration (mis)management
On Tuesday, Spain’s Council of State approved a measure which, pending approval by the Council of Ministers within the next 2 weeks, would allow foreign workers to apply for jobs and Spanish work visas from abroad, and irregular migrants to regularize their status by obtaining job training in labor-scarce sectors of the economy. On the same day, the first 41 Azeri families returned to the rebuilt village of Aghali, part of the territory recaptured by Azerbaijan after 2 decades under contested Armenian occupation. Also on Tuesday, Italian authorities tallied ~10.000 migrant laborers living in penury in makeshift camps with limited access to rights or to basic services as they sustain Italy’s agricultural and food processing sectors. | On Wednesday, Dutch authorities disclosed they are considering using cruise ships as temporary accommodation for asylum seekers to alleviate pressure on the overcrowded Ter Apel reception center. | On Thursday, authorities in Cyprus disclosed that since October, they have terminated cash benefits for ~3.000 asylum seekers found to be working while drawing benefits, and announced plans to digitize cash assistance and restrict beneficiaries’ ability to use it to send remittances or to spend it on vices.
Baltic & Balkan border brinkmanship
Last Monday, asylum seekers and advocacy groups signaled that Lithuanian authorities appear to be releasing undeportable rejected asylum claimants from reception centers, permitting them to live on their own recognizance in Lithuania with limited rights and resources. On the same day, authorities in Latvia proposed extending the state of emergency along the Latvian-Belarussian border, in place since August, to November 10. Also on Monday, Europol announced it had broken a racket charging €10.000-€13.000 to smuggle asylum seekers from Iraq into the EU via Belarus, for an estimated €7 million in total earnings, arresting 10 individuals in Poland and another in the UK. | On Wednesday, a group of 50 asylum seekers filed an emergency appeal with the ECtHR, demanding to be rescued from an islet in the Evros where they became stranded on July 14, when they first crossed the river and were intercepted by local police, leading to the death of 1 asylum seeker violently beaten by officers, and the drowning of another 2 when pushed back to the islet. On the same day, Serbian authorities tallied ~3.000 asylum seekers living near the northern city of Subotica, trying to irregularly enter Hungary, where new police deployments an a restriction to 30 admissions per day have led to greater accumulations in the transit zones buffering to Serbo-Hungarian border. | On Sunday, police in North Macedonia intercepted a truck irregularly carrying 86 asylum seekers in its rear compartment, arresting the truck driver while detaining the asylum seekers for prompt return to Greece.
Displacement within and beyond Ukraine
Last Monday, authorities in Iceland announced they have received 2.200 refugees thus far this year, among them 1.300 from Ukraine, and expect a total 4.000 arrivals by the end of the year. | On Thursday, Israeli authorities issued a measure restricting the employment rights of the nearly 14.000 Ukrainian refugees in 17 Israeli cities, allowing them to only in certain sectors, including construction, agriculture, institutional nursing and hotel industries. On the same day, Balkan Insight highlighted the challenges faced by the nearly 10.000 Ukrainian refugees currently living in Montenegro and trying to build livelihoods in its relatively small economy. | On Friday, Ukraine and Russia signed a UN-brokered deal that will allow Ukraine to begin exporting ~20 million tons of grain through its Black Sea ports, while allowing Russia to ramp up fertilizer exports, a first step toward alleviating a worsening global food security crisis. | This Monday, the AP highlighted the economic difficulties prompting internally displaced Ukrainians to return to their home communities near the front lines, or preventing those at risk from evacuating in the first place, as the cost of lodging in cities in the reach rises to accommodate surging demand while livelihoods evaporate under the impact of the Russian invasion. On the same day, Dutch authorities opened centers for the estimated 65.000 Ukrainian refugees to get registration certificates inserted into their passports, which they will be required to possess by September 1.
Dystopia at the Home Office
Last Tuesday, High Court litigation revealed that the Home Office had received, and deliberately obfuscated, extensive documentation from UK government sources advising against the UK-Rwanda deportation deal, admonishing that Rwanda’s reception and human rights standards were insufficient to permit its proper operation. | On Wednesday, ongoing litigation revealed that several asylum seekers slated for deportation to Rwanda in last June’s intended flight have been recognized, since their near-deportation, by UK authorities as likely trafficking victims in need of a full assessment. | On Saturday, Rwandan authorities revealed that the UK-Rwanda deportation deal was intended to provide for the removal of 1.000 asylum seekers to Rwanda, but that until further notice there was capacity to receive only 200.
Sources: InfoMigrants, EFE, The New Arab, AP, el País, Open Caucasus Media, ANSA, DutchNews.nl, Cyprus Mail, LRT, LETA, efsyn, SchengenVisaInfo, The Reykjavík Grapevine, Haaretz, Balkan Insight, the Guardian, the Independent, PA.
The Americas
U.S. migration policymaking
Last Monday, Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington, DC pleaded with federal authorities for a policy-based solution to the increasing number of asylum seeker arrivals bused from Texas and Arizona to DC—part of a political pressure campaign by those states’ right-wing populist governors—which are exhausting local reception capacity. | On Tuesday, Bloomberg highlighted that USCIS is projected to see 6.200 writs of mandamus filed against it by the end of this year—compelling it to act in response to delays in completing travel authorization and green card proceedings—triple the rate from just 2 years ago. | On Wednesday, 100 advocacy group issued an open letter to the Biden Administration pleading for it to cease returns under the Migrant Protection Protocols, whose termination was sanctioned by the Supreme Court earlier in July, but not yet implemented pending the Court’s issuance of a certified judgment (see the full letter here). | On Thursday, the Biden Administration leaked it is looking into issuing new guidance to ensure that asylum seeking minors who arrive or become pregnant in the U.S. immigration system retain access to reproductive care, including abortion. On the same day, federal grand juries returned indictments including charges of conspiracy and illegal transport leading to injury and death against the 4 men arrested on the heels of the late June smuggling tragedy in San Antonio where 53 asylum seekers perished in the unventilated container of a truck. Also on Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court accepted a case involving a dispute between ICE’s ability to set its own detention priorities, and individual states’ ability to challenge those priorities in court, refusing to stay an adverse district judgment pending litigation, effectively allowing a single judge to upend DHS enforcement priorities. | On Friday, the Biden Administration disclosed it its developing a Secure Docket Card, intended to serve as a single-issuance ID card for all arriving irregular migrants, providing access to biometric and immigration data, and allowing usage as identification while within U.S. soil.
Irregular migration in Latin America
Last Monday, Migración Colombia issued a report tallying just over 2.475.000 Venezuelan nationals living in Colombia, ~1.8 million of them holding Temporary Protection (see the unveiling of the report here). On the same day, Colombia’s public and private sector launched a financial identity platform accessible to foreigners, allowing immigrants to access financial services on the same footing as Colombian nationals. | Last Tuesday, a northbound van carrying 15 asylum seekers crashed into another moving car on in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo León, killing 3 asylum seekers and injuring the remaining 12, and also killing 2 passengers of the other car. | On Wednesday, several hundred asylum seekers staged demonstrations in Tapachula, demanding that the Instituto Nacional de Migración issue them humanitarian visas allowing them to transit beyond Chiapas. | On Thursday, authorities in Panama tallied 48.300 irregular arrivals via the Darién Gap thus far this year, nearly 7.300 conducted by minors. | On Friday, 96 emigrants were repatriated to Cuba, evenly split between returnees from the U.S. and Mexico. | On Sunday, Mexican authorities detained 225 asylum seekers being kept in a warehouse near Mexico City. | This Monday, a novel caravan composed of ~2.000 asylum seekers departed from Tapachula toward Huixtla, complaining that migration authorities in Tapachula were too slow to issue registration documents. On the same day, the Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos formally demanded that regional and national authorities guarantee the protection, humanitarian support, and access to basic rights of this novel caravan. Also on Monday, Guatemalan authorities disclosed that 939 asylum seekers had been repatriated to Guatemala from U.S. soil in the first half of the preceding week.
Sources: the Washington Post, Bloomberg, Border Report, CNN, Slate, infobae, En Frontera, AP, EFE, UN News, ACN, Reuters, Milenio.
Oceania
Investor migration to New Zealand, asylum seeker detention in Australia
Last Wednesday, authorities in New Zealand announced a novel Active Investor Plus visa, which would allow settlement to investors committing NZ$5 million (~€3.1 million) to develop domestic companies. | On Friday, ongoing litigation in Australia revealed that domestic taxpayers are financing a monthly bill of ~$3AUD million (~€2 million) for asylum seeker containment in Austarlian hotels.
Sources: Reuters, the Sydney Morning Herald.
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Interesting that Tajikstan has accepted the return of the IS families. You are right, the way western nations have dealt with them has been shameful.