July 4-11, 2022 Mixed Migration—hebdo
This week—where all the things happened, but only some were reported—we kick off with a cross-Aegean discussion on EUropean border control, & then turn to the week's updates in migration policymaking.
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
Between BoJo’s long overdue resignation and the criminally under-reported Bab al-Hawa closure, there’s enough to go around for multiple spotlights this week—but I had a long week as well, and will be discussing the former in this week’s Fractured podcast—so I’m reserving my reflections until then. In the meantime, I leave you with Begüm Başdaş and Giorgos Christides, two of the best-informed people out there on the issue of irregular migration from Turkey to Greece (and back).
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On to the news…
Asia
Post-occupation Afghanistan
Last Monday, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation disclosed that over 4.550 Afghan civilians had been repatriated from Iran over the prior 3 days. On the same day, authorities signaled that Afghan civilians were allowed to use their ID cards to enter Pakistan via the Torkham crossing east of Kabul and Jalalabad—on the heels of disruptions at the crossing that led to the accumulation of 3.000 Afghans stranded on the Pakistani side of the border. | On Tuesday, civilians in southwestern Afghanistan began complaining that a 3-day closure of the Abrisham border crossing point was disrupting commerce and regular travel into and back from Iran. | On Friday, UN-OCHA tallied the novel displacement of 27.000 people from Balkhab district in central Afghanistan.
Myanmar and its neighbors
Last Monday, Tatmadaw raids in Myanmar’s central Sagaing province displaced ~5.000 civilians from 10 villages, contributing to a total displaced population of ~340.000 in Sagaing alone. | On Tuesday, The Irrawaddy disclosed that heavy fighting in Myanmar’s southeastern Karen State had Waw Lay. | On Wednesday, 8 Sri Lankan asylum seekers reached India, bringing the total number of irregular arrivals across the Palk Strait since Sri Lanka’s economic meltdown to 100. | On Friday, ~2.000 civilians were displaced from 6 villages in Myanmar’s central Magwe region, fleeing arson attacks by the Tatmadaw.
Sources: TOLOnews, The Irrawaddy, the Times of India.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Ethiopia’s civil war
Last Monday, a large number of Amhara civilians were attacked and killed in 2 villages west of Addis Ababa, with Ethiopian authorities and the OLA trading blame for the attack. | On Thursday, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed admitted that spiraling conflict in Oromia is killing soldiers and police officers on a daily basis, vowing to destroy the OLA as negotiators seek out peace in Tigray. | On Friday, health administrators signaled dire outcomes in Wag Hemra, a TPLF-occupied region just beyond southern Tigray, where ~90.000 IDPs face starvation and deadly disease as humanitarian access remains blocked. | On Sunday, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission issued its first annual report since its constitution in 2019, documenting systematic physical abuse against civilians by both state and non-state armed groups across Ethiopia, pervasive due process violations, and the widespread detention of journalists and press workers covering internal conflict.
Conflict and displacement in the Sahel and Great Lakes region
Last Wednesday, leaders of the DRC and Rwanda committed to a cessation of hostilities in North Kivu, on the heels of mediation in Luanda facilitated by Angolan authorities. On the same day, 103 Rwandan refugees returned from the DRC after a 28 years in exiles. | On Thursday, M23 leadership signaled they did not consider themselves subject to the ceasefire between the DRC and Rwanda, and resumed hostilities against DRC forces in North Kivu.
Civil conflict and internal displacement in Nigeria
Last Thursday, ISWAP-affiliated fighters attacked a humanitarian convoy and looted 40 trucks’ worth of food aid destined to IDPs living in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno Stat. On the same day, HumAngle relayed the narratives of survivors of the 2014 Gwoza Massacre in northeastern Nigeria, where Boko Haram fighters killed ~400 civilians after facing stiff local resistance trying to seize the area, eventually displacing several thousand civilians. | On Friday, Nigerian Federal Commissioner for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons disclosed that national authorities have registered less than 85.000, (about 2%) of Nigeria’s ~3.2 million IDPs, about half of whom life in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno State. On the same day, the Nigeria Security Tracker recorded a significant increase in insecurity within Nigeria, with just over 430 civilians killed this June. | On Sunday, regional authorities approved a framework to enable IDPs in Nigeria’s western Niger State to cast votes in local and national elections from their place of displacement, in time for national elections in 2023.
Sources: the Guardian, AP, Addis Standard, the EastAfrican, The New Times, HumAngle, Daily Trust, Punch, Daily Post.
Middle East and North Africa
Asylum seeker (im)mobility in the MENA region
Last Monday, Lebanese authorities indicated their wish to repatriate 1.5 million Syrian refugees in coming years, at a rate of 15.000 Syrian refugees per month, pledging to go head regardless of the potential response from UNHCR or from the international community. On the same day, Moroccan authorities initiated litigation against 65 asylum seekers detained in the June 24 Melilla border fence tragedy, accusing of illegally entering Morocco, assaulting border security, and facilitating irregular migration. | On Tuesday, French authorities announced they had repatriated 51 children from the al-Hol detention camp in northeastern Syria, where ~56.000 people, including former ISIS fighters and non-combatant family members, live in containment. | On Wednesday, Turkish authorities disclosed they had detained just under 33.500 asylum seekers over the whole of June, and repatriated just over 16.700. | On Friday, Russian delegates vetoed a UN Security Council resolution which would have kept open the Bab al-Hawa crossing, a key lifeline to deliver humanitarian aid do the 2.4 million Syrian IDPs stranded in Idlib province, plunging a long-suffering population into near-certain abjection. | On Sunday, local officials and aid workers predicted famine and immiseration in Idlib as the Bab al-Hawa crossing point closed indefinitely, having seen 4.600 aid trucks pass through thus far this year. | On Monday, The New Humanitarian predicted that the closure of the Bab al-Hawa crossing would affect 4 million IDPs, cutting off food and medical aid to 2.4 million direct recipients while subjecting all to a sudden and severe economic dislocation.
Yemen’s civil war
Last Tuesday, warring parties in Yemen committed to consolidating the ongoing ceasefire, which has held since April 2, through Eid al-Adha. | On Wednesday, Ansar Allah announced they would reopen a secondary road to the besieged city of Taiz, easing conditions therein and upholding a pending commitment as part of the fragile but ongoing ceasefire in Yemen’s civil war, though they held fast to their refusal to open the main road to Taiz unless government forces withdraw from the city. | On Thursday, WFP Director David Gressly signaled that an oil spill in the Red Sea caused by the breaking of the decaying FSO Safer would crater the livelihoods of 200.000 families living off of fishing in coastal Yemen.
Sources: AP, InfoMigrants, al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, TNH, IANS, the New Arab, The Energy Mix.
Maritime Migration Routes to & through Europe
Ruta Canaria
Last Monday, Salvamento Marítimo rescued 39 asylum seekers from a vessel found adrift in waters off of Gran Canaria, rushing 19 to hospital for urgent treatment. | On Sunday, Salvamento Marítimo rescued 54 asylum seekers from a damaged vessel in waters off of Lanzarote. | This Monday, rescued 167 asylum seekers and tallied 2 missing persons in waters off the Canary Islands.
Mediterranean and Aegean Seas
Last Monday, the Ocean Viking (SOS Meditérannée) rescued 15 asylum seekers from the Central Mediterranean, bringing their total on-board numbers to 306. | On Tuesday, authorities in Mali disclosed that 22 Malian nationals perished on a vessel carrying 83 asylum seekers that drifted for over a week of the coast of Libya before it was intercepted. | On Thursday, the GeoBarents (MSF) rescued 315 asylum seekers in 6 rescue operations in the Maltese search-and-rescue zone of the Central Mediterranean, blasting Maltese authorities for absconding from their duty of rescue under international law. On the same day, Greek authorities announced they had turned back 4 vessels carrying 155 asylum seekers toward Lesvos. Also on Thursday, Aegean Boat Report documented the arrival of 45 asylum seekers to Lesvos, of whom only 9 were registered by the asylum service. | On Friday, Aegean Boat Report documented the arrival of 9 asylum seekers to Lesvos, none of whom were registered by the asylum service. On the same day, local authorities found the lifeless body of an asylum seeking women in Chios, believed to have succumbed to dehydration and starvation, in likely fear of being pushed back to Turkey.
The English Channel
Last Monday, French authorities rescued 48 asylum seekers from a vessel that had broken down in waters off of Dunkirk, and detained another 7 preparing to attempt an irregular maritime crossing near Boulogne-sur-Mer. | On Wednesday, French authorities rescued another 166 asylum seekers in waters just off the coast of northern France. | On Friday, 23 asylum seekers reached UK soil after being intercepted at sea and brought ashore, with the threat of deportation to Rwanda reiterated from Whitehall shortly after their arrival.
Sources: EFE, InfoMigrants, al Jazeera, ERT, Aegean Boat Report, ChiosPress, the Indepenent.
Europe
EU migration policymaking
Last Monday, lawmakers disclosed that, next Wednesday, the European Parliament’s budgetary control committee would be reviewing the findings of the OLAF investigation into wrongdoing at Frontex that had led to former director Fabrice Leggeri (who requested to be allowed to attend the hearing, and was rebuffed by the committee). | On Wednesday, the ECCHR filed a complaint against Slovenia and Croatia before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child alleging border guards from both countries conducted the chain pushback of an 8-year old unaccompanied Rohingya child, returning him to Bosnia rather than taking responsibility for his well-being or best interest. On the same day, the German government approved a measure easing access to long-term residence for migrants without regular status who have been in Germany for at least 5 years and can demonstrate financial autonomy and proficiency in German. | On Thursday, the European Court of Human Rights found that Greek Coast Guard officers had caused a deadly 2014 shipwreck off the Aegean island of Farmakosi by maneuvering dangerously near an asylum seeker vessel they were trying to repel, upholding the vacation of a prior conviction against a Syrian refugee piloting the dinghy and ordering reparations paid to bereaved families. On the same day, IOM, UNHCR, and UNICEF issued an advocacy brief imploring EU states to cease detaining migrant children, detailing the harms of detention on developmental health and proposing more protective and cost-effective alternatives (see the full brief here). | On Friday, Interior Minister Agne Bilotaite defended Lithuania’s forceful response to asylum seeker arrivals from via Belarus against the previous week’s unfavorable European Court of Justice ruling, arguing that Lithuanian authorities faced an unprecedented attack and had no choice but to adapt their policies—which she now wishes the EU will converge toward, rather than draw her back from.
European migration (mis)management
Last Tuesday, police in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK carried out joint raids targeting smuggling groups helping asylum seekers cross the English Channel irregularly, arresting 130 suspected smugglers. | On Wednesday, the lifeless body of an asylum seeker youth, who had likely hoped to irregularly enter Italy, was found in a truck container in Greece’s Adriatic port of Igoumenitsa. On the same day, local authorities signaled that Berlin is desperately low on asylum seeker accommodation, with less than 900 remaining spaces out of a total of nearly 26.000. | On Thursday, French and UK officials leaked that they were nearing agreement on a £50 million renewal package to continue collaborating on deterring irregular maritime migration across the English Channel, believing their current collaboration has allowed French police to interdict ~50% of attempted crossings, and that interdicting ~75% would make smuggling unecononomical and drastically reduce crossings. On the same day, community organization Vlucteligenwerk Nederland issued an ultimatum to Dutch authorities, compelling it to resolve the Netherlands’ ongoing crisis of asylum seeker accommodation by August 1 or face litigation. Also on Thursday, Belgian authorities announced that the national military would adapt barracks to create 750 accommodation places for asylum seekers currently sleeping rough in the streets of Brussels due to shortages in reception capacity. | On Saturday, Italian authorities relocated 600 asylum seekers to Sicily to alleviate overcrowding in Lampedusa—which was hosting ~2.100 people in a reception center with capacity for only 200. On the same day, police in North Macedonia intercepted a truck carrying 87 asylum seekers in its container hold just north of the border with Greece.
Displacement within and beyond Ukraine
Last Tuesday, provincial governor Pavlo Kyrylenko urged the ~350.000 inhabitants of Ukrainian-controlled Donestk to evacuate in anticipation of likely Russian advances, to facilitate defensive operations and minimize risk to civilians. | On Friday, deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk urged civilians living in occupied provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia to evacuate ahead of an imminent Ukrainian counteroffensive to retake occupied soil. | This Monday, Latvian authorities announced that, amid a shortfall in state funding, they could no long receive Ukrainian refugees newly arriving in Latvia’s cities, and would be curtailing support offered to those already arrived. On the same day, Estonian authorities disclosed they expect to receive no more than €9 million in EU funding to support its reception and provision for Ukrainian refugees, against the €243 million it has allocated to this end. Also on Monday, Scottish authorities announced a 3-month pause in its Ukrainian refugee sponsorship scheme, amid concerns that, once all ~22.600 sponsored refugees are all settled, suitable housing would be scarce and refugees would need to be hosted in temporary accommodation.
Dystopia at the Home Office
Last Tuesday, Women for Refugee Women revealed that an asylum seeking woman and victim of trafficking has been issued a notice of intent indicating she was being considered for deportation to Rwanda—which had hereto then only been issued to single men. | On Wednesday, the UK Supreme Court ruled that foreign diplomats were not covered by the principle of diplomatic immunity when facing litigation by domestic workers alleging and demanding compensation for modern enslavement. | On Saturday, the Observer revealed increasing dissatisfaction among high command with the Home Office’s delegation of immigration enforcement in the English Channel to the Royal Navy, signaling that the deployment is mismatched to needs and motivated solely by Whitehall’s desire to appear tough, with defense officials privately voicing their desire to terminate the deployment.
Sources: euobserver, ECCHR, AP, Balkan Insight, InfoMigrants, Defli, deutsche-welle, eKathimerini, the Telegraph, NL Times, al Jazeera, the Guardian, News.am, ERR.
The Americas
U.S. migration policymaking
Last Tuesday, the Biden Administration released new monthly refugee resettlement figures, revealing that thus far this fiscal year, ~15.000 refugees have been resettled to U.S. soil, with officials predicting ~25.000 arrivals by the end of the fiscal year—far short of the Administration’s ceiling of 125.000 resettlement arrivals. | On Wednesday, The Texas Tribune revealed that the Department of Justice has opened civil rights investigations into Operation Lone Star, Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s year-old deployment of Texas National Guard to perform legally questionable immigration enforcement tasks along the Texas-Mexico border. | On Thursday, Governor Abbott issued an order authorizing state officials and National Guard officers to detain irregular migrants and return them to border crossings, challenging the Biden Administration yet again by seizing on immigration control powers reserved to federal authorities. | On Friday, CBP issued an internal investigation into the use of force by horse-mounded agents against Haitian asylum seekers in Del Rio last September, admonishing inappropriate use of force by individual agents and poor command and control leading to an unnecessary and counterproductive deployment (see the full report here).
Irregular migration in Latin America
Last Monday, al Jazeera highlighted severe gaps in access to education facing displaced Venezuelan children in Perú, where more than a quarter are not enrolled in school, and eslewhere across Latin America. On the same day, Guatemalan police apprehended 20 asylum seekers who had crossed irregularly into Guatemala. | On Wednesday, Cuban authorities repatriated 178 Haitian asylum seekers who had arrived autonomously over the preceding few days to Cuba’s north-central province of Villa Clara. On the same day, authorities in the Dominican Republic detained ~450 Haitian nationals in the far western coastal province of Bávaro. Also on Wednesday, Guatemalan police apprehended 15 asylum seekers who had crossed irregularly into Guatemala. | On Thursday, authorities in the Dominican Republic disclosed they had detained another 213 Haitian asylum seekers in the northern and northwestern provinces of La Vega, Valverde, Montecristi, and Dajabón. | On Friday, Cuban authorities received 98 returning asylum seekers, 24 of whom had been repatriated from Mexico, and another 74 from the U.S. | On Saturday, Guatemalan authorities announced they had intercepted 49 asylum seekers in the southeastern region of Chiquimila, detaining them after verifying their unauthorized entry into Guatemala. On Sunday, the U.S. Coast Guard repatriated another 64 asylum seekers, intercepted in 4 operations off the coast of Florida over the week prior, to Cuba.
Sources: Axios, The Texas Tribune, CBS News, al Jazeera, AGN, deutsche-welle, Diario Libre, elCaribe, Cubadebate, CiberCuba.
Oceania
Flood-borne displacement and migration management in Australia’s
Last Tuesday, torrential rains continued falling over New South Wales, causing extensive flooding in Sydney’s suburbs prompting evacuation orders or warnings to be issued to ~50.000 people. | On Wednesday, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre revealed that, since last week, it has been urging Australian authorities to evacuate the 112 asylum seekers remaining in offshore detention in Nauru—some of whom have been in detention for upwards of a decade—as COVID-19 infections spike in Nauru, cutting detained asylum seekers off from basic services and provisioning. | This Monday, newly-elected Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese deplored the backlog in visa applications he inherited upon taking power, and called for an enlarged issuance of permanent immigration visas to better meet Australia’s labor needs.
Sources: Reuters, Sydney Morning Herald, SBS.
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