February 14-21, 2022 Mixed Migration—hebdo

This week we introduce the Fractured podcast, review another bad PR week for Greece's Ministry of Migration (& preview further discussion in the next Fractured)—before moving on to the week's updates.

Feb 21

Welcome to MMh! 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, & links to all the articles you need to dig deeper.

First things first, an exciting announcement: last week I began working with Sonia Nandzik and Doug Herman of ReFocus Media Labs on Fractured, a podcast where Sonia and I will reflect on migration issued and developments as we observe them from our respective perches. The first issue dropped last Thursday. For now, Fractured will drop every other week, but we’re also planning to experiment with the format over time and be responsive to feedback—so don’t be shy!

Spotlight

This was another rough PR week for the Hellenic Ministry of Migration, between last Thursday’s release of yet another meticulously detailed Lighthouse Reports investigation on asylum seeker pushbacks—now featuring the novel practice of throwing asylum seekers directly into the sea; Friday’s report that a dual French-Turkish national had filed suit in the ECtHR claiming she had pushed back across the Evros river; and today’s unusually terse UNHCR statement condemning pushbacks.

Greek Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi responded to the first and third of these reports, accusing Turkey of failing to contain irregular migration to Greece and of fooling the media with fabricated reports of border violence. I will engage with this a bit more in next week’s issue of Fractured—and, between now and then, allow the contrast between the reports above and the repetitive monotony of Mitarachi’s statements speak for itself.

Come for last week’s takes on Afghanistan and Ukraine, stay for next week’s issue on pushbacks and pushbacks.

Thank you for reading MMU. If you like what you’re reading, you can subscribe here. If you’ve already subscribed, please share. On to the news…

Asia

Post-occupation Afghanistan
Last Tuesday, Taliban leadership stated its ongoing opposition to further fencing of the Durand Line, which marks the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and which Pakistani authorities have been unilaterally fencing off in recent months despite Kabul’s protests. | On Thursday, the Defense Department’s Inspector General issued a report identifying 50 Afghan evacuees relocated to U.S. soil as presenting significant security concerns, leaving their prospects of completing resettlement highly uncertain. | On Friday, Afghan Ambassador to the U.S. Adela Raz announced that she would step down from her position, pursuant to a State Department notification that it would curtail its diplomatic engagement with Afghanistan to narrow activities and reduce the embassy’s permissible activities on U.S. soil. | On Sunday, UNICEF announced it would begin paying $100-month salaries to 200.000 Afghan teachers to sustain their livelihoods and preserve baseline education in Afghanistan.

Myanmar and its neighbors
Last Monday, local authorities reported that 67 of the 105 Rohingya refugees who arrived in Aceh last December had escaped the temporary camp where they were being held, and are believed to have been smuggled to Malaysia. On the same day, Voice of America relayed the concerns of Vietnamese refugees living in Thailand under UNHCR mandate, many of them holding ID cards close to expiration and struggling to make contact with local UNHCR offices to renew their status. | On Thursday, just over 1.650 Rohingya refugees were transferred to Bhasan Char, bringing the island’s population to just under 22.600. | On Friday, provincial governors in Thailand asked their constituents to look out for and report suspicious foreigners as COVID-19 transmission surges in Thailand, despite the fact that, of the more than 18.000 novel infections in the previous 24-hours, all but 168 originated locally. | This Monday, the International Court of Justice began holding renewed hearings on the genocide case brought forth by the Gambia on behalf of the Rohingya community, with the ruling junta taking the place of Myanmar’s overthrown democratic leadership. On the same day, Malaysian authorities disclosed that they have received nearly 112.000 requests for seasonal labor visas since opening an application portal one week prior, with a large majority of aspiring migrant laborers targeting the construction sector.

Sources: TOLOnews, ANN, VOA, the Business Standard, Thai PBS World, the Guardian, the Daily Star.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Ethiopia’s civil war
On Wednesday, Amnesty International released a report documenting widespread abuses by Tigrayan forces occupying northern Amhara State last year, including extrajudicial executions and sexual assault (see the full report here). On the same day, the WHO pleaded for fuel deliveries to Tigray so that medical aid airlifted to Mekelle last week can be distributed to health centers across the embattled region. | On Friday, UNHCR disclosed that ~20.000 Eritrean refugees had been displaced in the last 2 weeks from Bahrale camp by TPLF fighters advancing into Afar State.

Internal displacement in Nigeria
Last Thursday, local authorities in Nasarawa State, just east of Abuja, announced that they intended to return IDPs displaced since last December prior to the beginning of the rainy season in the spring. | On Friday, a fire broke out a the Muna Elbawawi IDP camp in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno State, killing one camp resident and destroying ~100 shelters.

Sources: al Jazeera, the NEWS, THISDAY, Vanguard.

Middle East and North Africa

Displacement to and from Syria
Last Wednesday, Syrians for Truth and Justice issued a report documenting several hundred coerced deportations of kimlik-holding Syrian refugees from Turkey, including refugees in proceedings to obtain Turkish citizenship. On the same day, a coalition of international human rights defenders filed suit in the ICC against the Syrian regime and its Iranian backers, asking that it investigate possible war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the crime of forced displacement. | On Thursday, Turkish Interior Minister announced a measure barring foreign nationals from establishing residency in neighborhoods whose Syrian population exceeds 25%, as authorities completed the relocation of just over 4.500 Syrians from the Altindag neighborhood in Ankara, where xenophobic riots flared up last August.

Yemen’s civil war
Last Tuesday, the UN announced that it had secured an agreement in principle from Ansar Allah to transfer oil stored in the decaying FSO Safer to another ship, as Yemen’s competing authorities continue disagreeing on how the oil or its proceeds should ultimately be used. | On Thursday, 40 civil society organizations issued a letter to the U.S. Congress pleading against the designation of Ansar Allah as a foreign terrorist organization, arguing that the designation would undermine U.S. diplomatic efforts and only lead to greater conflict and famine in Yemen (see the full letter here).

Sources: STJ, the Guardian, InfoMigrants, AP, Middle East Eye.

Maritime Migration Routes to & through Europe

Ruta Canaria
Last Saturday, Salvamento Marítimo rescued 104 asylum seekers, including 18 minors, from 2 vessels in waters of of Tenerife and Lanzarote. | On Sunday, Salvamento Marítimo rescued 33 asylum seekers, including 1 infant, from a vessel in waters ~80 kilometers northeast of Lanzarote.

Central and western Mediterranean
This Tuesday, InfoMigrants reported numerous rescues and arrivals to Italian shores over the weekend prior, including the spontaneous arrival of 12 boats carrying nearly 600 asylum seekers, the rescue of 122 asylum seekers from a distressed vessel by customs police, and the rescue of another 80 asylum seekers and tally of 3 missing persons from 2 vessels by the Coast Guard. | On Saturday, the Ocean Viking began disembarking in Pozzalo 247 asylum seekers it had rescued in the week prior, as the Sea-Watch 4 rescued 129 asylum seekers in 2 operations.

Sources: EFE, InfoMigrants.

Europe

Preparations for potential displacement from Ukraine
Last Tuesday, UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss announced that her government is preparing to provide humanitarian assistance to affected civilians in the event of an invasion of Ukraine, but declined to commit to receiving displaced Ukrainians in the UK. | On Wednesday, Chief of Staff to the Hungarian Prime Minister Gergely Gulyas announced that Hungary was prepared to receive displaced Ukrainians, and committed to the principle that first countries of arrival should remain responsible for providing asylum. | On Thursday, de-facto authorities in eastern Ukraine issued an unexpected announcement calling for the evacuation of ~700.000 civilians from the Donbas region into Russia proper.

Cross-Channel migration deterrence and interdiction
Last Tuesday, French investigators disclosed that the victims of a November shipwreck that claimed 27 lives in the English Channel had almost certainly contacted French authorities to demand to be rescued, contradicting French claims that they had not learned of the shipwreck until the following day. | On Thursday, the Home Office announced it had retained Alexander Downer, the architect of Australia’s ‘Pacific solution’ to deterring irregular arrivals, to lead a review of the Border Force’s maritime border control strategy and practices.

Baltics border brinksmanship
Last Wednesday, Belarussian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei disclosed that there remain 700 asylum seekers, including 270 children hosted at a logistics center in Bruzgi, who neither wish to return to their country of origin nor remain in Belarus, but whom no Western government has shown any interest in receiving. | On Thursday, al Jazeera revealed that Afghan evacuees in Denmark have been granted 2 -year temporary protection, rather than the indefinite refugee status most had been expecting, seeding concerns that Afghan in Denmark may face the same situation as Syrian refugees currently subject to repatriation.

Med5 migration (mis)management
Last Tuesday, Frontex issued a report documenting a sharp increase in irregular migration into Europe from last year to on, noting that this January’s 73.000 arrivals represent a 78% increase from January 2021, and that the increases are most prominent in the Ruta Canaria and Central Mediterranean Route (see the full report here). | On Wednesday, Frontex director Fabrice Leggeri declared that facilitating repatriations was a top priority to alleviate overcrowding in asylum seeker reception centers in Cyprus, and offered his agency’s resources to help transport foreign consular officers to Cyprus to identify rejected asylum seekers and approve their return. | On Thursday, Lighthouse Reports released a detailed investigation of the pushback of over 30 asylum seekers from Samos last September, 3 of whom were thrown directly into the sea, of whom just 1 reached Turkish shores alive. On the same day, 14 asylum seeking minors were relocated from Greece to Portugal, bringing the total number of UAMs relocated from Greece to just under 1.200. Also on Thursday, a Spanish court ruled that 14 UAMs, who arrived in Ceuta in May 2021 when Moroccan authorities temporarily withdrew border guards, had been improperly returned to Morocco and should be re-admitted to Spain to have their asylum cases re-examined. | On Friday, a French-Turkish dual national filed suit with the European Court of Human Rights, alleging that Greek border guards pushed her back to Turkey, where she was persecuted for supposed Gülenist links, despite her showing identification certifying her French citizenship. | This Monday, UNHCR issued a combative statement condemning EU states’ increasing reliance on unlawful pushbacks to preserve border control, disclosing its tally of 540 such incidents at Greece’s borders with Turkey since the beginning of 2020. On the same day, the European Commission signed an MoU with Cyprus paving the way for greater EU participation in managing irregular migration to the island.

Sources: Politico, Reuters, Forbes, RFI, the Independent, TASS, al Jazeera, AP, Lighthouse Reports, Ekathimerini, InfoMigrants, UNHCR.

The Americas

U.S. migration policymaking
Last Tuesday, state authorities confirmed that there were no more ICE detainees held in county jails in Illinois, pursuant to the Illinois Way Forward plan, signed into law by Governor J.B. Pritzker last August. | On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review lower court rulings adjudicating whether the Biden Administration has the authority to terminate the Migrant Protection Protocols, or whether it is compelled to continue implementing executive orders proclaimed by its predecessor Administration. On the same day, authorities in Ciudad Juárez received 32 asylum seekers returned from U.S. soil under the MPP, raising to just over 300 the total number of returnees since the Biden Administration was compelled to resume MPP last December. Also on Friday, a legislative committee in Québec’s regional government adopted a bill that would require all immigrants to the province, including asylum seekers and refugees, to interact with all public services in French, with narrow exceptions allowing the use of other languages in situations concerning health and public safety emergencies.

Irregular migration in Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean
Last Wednesday, Cuban officials blamed U.S. policymakers for the increase in irregular maritime migration, critiquing that prior to 2017, the issuance of 20.000 visas per year for Cuban emigrants and eligibility for permanent residence after 18 months in the U.S. disincentivized irregular migration, and that the suspension of these facilities has left aspiring emigrants with no other choice. On the same day, Mexican authorities repatriated just over 200 asylum seekers to Nicaragua and Honduras. | On Sunday, Mexican authorities disclosed that they had intercepted 5.000 irregular migrants across Mexico’s territory over the week prior. On the same day, Mexican authorities disclosed that they had repatriated 46 Cuban asylum seekers intercepted while seeking to reach U.S. soil, marking the third such repatriation thus far this year.

Migration and its drivers in South America
Last Thursday, Colombian Vice President Marta Lucía Ramírez stated before the OAS that Colombia cannot continue absorbing immigration from Venezuela, lamenting that most high-capacity Venezuelans had emigrated to North America and Spain, leaving Colombia to absorb less educated and capable immigrants. On the same day, authorities in Costa Rica announced they would begin requiring a visa from Venezuelan nationals starting this Monday, sealing all of Central America from visa-free arrival for Venezuelans. Also on Thursday, authorities in Cali launched a 3-day exercise to issue 25.000 Temporary Protection Permits to displaced Venezuelans, ~65.000 of whom live in Cali, and another ~25.000 in the surrounding region. | On Saturday, Colombian authorities announced they had issued ~611.000 temporary protection permits to displaced Venezuelans, and hoped to eventually extend this status to 1.8 million recipients, while also tallying 845.000 returns from Colombia to Venezuela. | This Monday, Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader announced that construction would soon begin on a wall lining 160 kilometers—just below half—of its border with Haiti.

Sources: Chicago Sun-Times, El Heraldo de Juárez, CBC, EFE, la Razón, el Comercio, Deutsche-Welle, infobae, el Tiempo, LaProvincia

Oceania

Refugee resettlement to Australia
Last Monday, advocates urged Australian Immigration Minister Alex Hawke to widen Australia’s issuance of humanitarian visas to at-risk Afghan civilians, deriding current to receive 15.000 refugees as part of Australia’s existing resettlement intake as insufficient. | On Wednesday, Australian and New Zealander negotiators announced they would conduct a final round of negotiations on a deal to relocate refugees held in Australia’s offshore detention system to New Zealand, pending resolution on final details concerning these refugees’ ability to transit back from New Zealand to Australia in detriment to Australian authorities’ threat that irregular arrivals would never be allowed on Australian soil.

Sources: the Guardian, Sydney Morning Herald

Mixed Migration—hebdo