Having no, or precarious, residence status often increases a person’s risk of experiencing abuse or exploitation. At the same time, it means having fewer options to get support and protection. Through our members and partners, over the last months we got in touch and spoke with people who have experienced mistreatment while being undocumented. They told us what they went through, how they reacted, and what safety means to them. You can watch the first video here.

Everyone’s experience is different. But all agree that protection and safety are not a reality for all yet. The people we spoke to know that law enforcement authorities are likely to report them to immigration enforcement if they come forward, because of how irregular stay is criminalised or regarded with suspicion. Institutional racism, in particular in the criminal justice system, is another factor that keeps many black and brown undocumented people away from law enforcement. Social support services may also be unavailable to people without residence permits.

Barriers to safety are many, but there are solutions. The people we talked to spoke about regularisation, specialised and inclusive support for those who are victims of domestic violence, and the possibility of filing complaints without facing deportation. Most of all, they spoke of equality.

At PICUM, we recognise that many things are needed to ensure everyone is safe and protected. When it comes to risks linked to immigration enforcement, “safe reporting” refers to a holistic set of measures that prioritise the safety and rights of all victims above the enforcement of immigration rules. You can find out more here.

According to media reports, the European Anti-Fraud Office OLAF found that three senior officials at the EU border agency Frontex actively facilitated and concealed illegal pushbacks of migrants carried out by Greek officials in the Eastern Mediterranean. Observers believe that Frontex Director Leggeri is likely among the three people accused of concealing the pushbacks. Media reports that OLAF has recommended that the agency's management board take disciplinary action against them. The European Parliament urged Frontex to publish the full OLAF report.

On March 15, the Home Office presented changes to the UK’s Immigration Rules that will facilitate access to secure residence permits for non-British children and young people living in the country. Under the new changes, which will take effect as of 20 June 2022, undocumented children born in the UK can apply for indefinite leave to remain after seven years of continuous stay in the country, and apply for citizenship after their tenth birthday. Young undocumented people aged 18 to 24 who have lived in the UK for at least half of their lives will be able to enter a five-year procedure to apply to get permanent residence status (previously the procedure lasted ten years). The applicants will get temporary residence status for the duration of the procedure. These changes are the result of long-time advocacy by youth-led organisation We Belong and PICUM members.

The municipality of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, signed an agreement with the city's universities to improve access to colleges and universities for undocumented young people. The universities will proactively facilitate access to study visas and vocational training, while the municipality will look into financial assistance for undocumented students who have spent most of their childhood in the Netherlands. Both the municipality and the universities will advocate together to make study visas easier to obtain, for instance by removing the requirement of a long-stay visa.   

PICUM recently published a report about the main human rights reasons for which people who do not qualify for asylum cannot be deported, as well as the external circumstances that can make deportation or return impossible. The report highlights situations where people who are not returned can neither access protection nor be returned, because of human rights or practical reasons, which forces people to live in irregularity. The report provides an overview of existing alternative residence permits and looks at key elements to make such permits and statuses meaningfully accessible, and then focused on rights and protection.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has condemned Belgium for the detention of migrant children in closed centres. Although the practice was abandoned years ago and the current government pledged not to detain any child, a clear ban on detaining children is not yet enshrined in Belgian law. In a joint press release, the Platform Minors in Exile, Défense des Enfants International Belgique, Move (a coalition between CIRÉ, JRS Belgium, Caritas International, Vluchtelingenwerk Vlaanderen), and other associations demand an urgent change in law to clarify that children can never be locked up. Belgian civil society has been campaigning against the detention of children since 2019.

A recent report from the Centre for Peace Studies and the Welcome Initiative documents the systematic pushbacks and police violence against migrants in Croatia between 2020 and 2021. The report recommends that Croatian authorities urgently end the illegal pushbacks, establish independent and effective monitoring mechanisms, carry out effective investigations into human rights violations against migrants, and provide effective legal remedies.

A report by the Border Violence Monitoring Network documents increased police brutality, structural and racist violence targeting migrants in Greece. The report analyses physical violence in state-run detention centres, police brutality around the port of Patras, and structural forms of violence caused by the Greek migration and asylum policies. The report collects 44 testimonies of cases of violence, involving a total of 91 victims.

On 15 March, the Spanish Ombudsman called on the authorities to allow over 500 cross-border Moroccan workers stuck in Ceuta to renew their work permits. The workers have been stuck in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta since March 2020, when international borders closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They held a work permit that prevented them from being in the enclave outside working hours and from moving to other Spanish territories. As the border remains closed, these workers find themselves stuck in forced irregularity, with expired work permits and no access to unemployment subsidies.

The Spanish government announced a blanket regularisation of Ukrainian nationals living irregularly in Spain before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This regularisation will be a national extension of the application of the EU Temporary Protection Directive, under which Ukrainians already living in Spain will be able to have temporary status on the same terms as Ukrainians arriving in Spain after the outbreak of the war. Spain is also extending the scope of the Temporary Protection Directive to non-Ukrainians who are fleeing Ukraine and were living there regularly, regardless of the duration of their residence permit.