According to him, while the number of asylum seekers in Ireland marked a decrease last year, mainly due to travel restrictions imposed by countries in order to halt the further spread of the virus, the number of applications in November was the highest since 2015, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

Based on the report of the Irish Times, last month, a total of 333 people filed an application for international protection in the State, up from 44 compared to 2020 figures.

The same shows just 60 people per month sought asylum in 2020. From July to this year, the average is 241 per month, returning towards the pre-pandemic average of a total of 320 per month.

“It’s a big increase on 2020, which was significantly down, but even in terms of 2019, which was a significant year, there’s a significant increase,” O’Gorman pointed out.

He said that as a result of the greater openness on international travel and transport, it seems more people can access the State and seek asylum.

According to O’Gorman, such numbers create a challenge in terms of accommodation.

“We’re hoping in January to undertake a significant new tendering process to provide better accommodation in terms of allowing us to move away from the types of emergency reception centres that have been used since 2019, but also allow for the accommodation of additional people seeking international protection,” he pointed out, stressing that the focus will be on obtaining “own door or own room accommodation” for international protection applicants.

The Irish Legal News previously announced that people seeking international protection and waiting for over two years to have their filed application processed would be granted permission to remain in Ireland under the new scheme.

The same report stressed that, according to Justice Minister Helen McEntee, Irish Ministers approved such a scheme in order to help undocumented migrants and their families who are remaining in the country.

Earlier this month, Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTE) reported that since August, the Irish government granted 510 Afghans with visas or visa waivers to travel to Ireland following Ireland’s Refugee Protection Programme.

The same showed that the government launched five visas as well as 505 visa waivers, with a total of 394 people arriving as part of the scheme.

Recently, the European statistics provider Eurostat stressed that the number of people applying for international protection in European countries is increasing.

Based on the figures provided by Eurostat, the number of people who filed an application for international protection for the first time increased by 21 per cent during September, accounting for 60 800 applications filed for asylum in the EU Member States.

Such figures mean that over 10,600 more first-time applications for international protection were filed in September compared to the previous month when 50,200 applications were filed.

Source: https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/number-of-asylum-seekers-in-ireland-marks-significant-increase/

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 A boy at an unofficial camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images

Close to 900,000 asylum seekers in the EU are waiting to have their claims processed, according to figures from the European statistics office.

Women, men, and unaccompanied children are living for years in uncertainty, with numbers of pending applications for international protection almost unchanged from two years ago when 1.1 million migrants were “stuck” in the continent.

“Living in limbo is now the norm for those seeking protection,” said Karl Kopp of Pro Asyl, Germany’s largest pro-immigration advocacy organization. “Limbo means living in the miserable Greek EU hotspots or being trapped and pushed back at the borders. It means living in the desperate search for protection and human dignity.”

Eurostat figures have revealed a backlog of 878,600 requests at the end of 2018, with Germany having the largest share of pending requests (44%), ahead of Italy (12%). The figure comes despite the number of migrant arrivals in Europe practically halving in the last two years.

Factors leading to the continuing backlog include new laws from right-leaning governments and an increase in the number of rejections, leading to lengthy appeals processes.

“The vision of governments on the migration crisis has changed and more and more countries are rejecting an increasing number of requests for asylum,” said Fulvio Vassallo, an expert on asylum law from the University of Palermo.

The rejection rate for asylum requests in Europe has almost doubled in three years, from 37% in 2016 to 64% in 2019. In Italy, rejections were at 80% at the start of 2019, up from 60% the previous year as the populist government also removed key forms of protection.

The German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) has in 2019 rejected three-quarters of family reunification requests from Greece, where migrants live in the overcrowded camps of Athens and Lesbos.

“If a migrant has his asylum request rejected, in any case, he is entitled to have recourse to appeal, which, however, lengthens the time waiting in limbo by up to four years,” said Vassallo. “There are migrants who arrived in 2015 and had their asylum requests denied. At that point, they presented an appeal to a court and are still waiting for an answer on their future.”

Experts point out how some governments in recent years, especially in Italy and Germany, have accelerated evaluation procedures for asylum requests, which appears to have caused an increase in rejections because high-speed procedures are not carried out with as much thoughtful evaluation.

“The agenda of the rightwing extremists is now the agenda of the mainstream and all that matters is high speed, few or no rights in the procedure, highest possible rejection rates and increasing the deportation figures,” said Kopp. “Many rejected asylum seekers receive protection only through legal action but years of waiting for the court decision extend the limbo situation in an intolerable way.”

According to Eurostat, since 2014 there have been 3.6m requests for asylum in EU countries, only 1.8m of which have resulted in legal protection. Those who stay after rejection are at risk of suddenly becoming illegal immigrants. “This is the worrying part of this phenomenon, with thousands of people exposed to the risk of a difficult life, at the mercy of labor exploitation,” said Carlotta Sami, a spokeswoman for UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, in Italy.

According to Eurostat, Germany reported the highest number of illegal migrants in 2018, with 134,100. France was second with 105,900. But Italy, where hardline measures are likely to keep increasing the number of illegal immigrants, could soon far exceed them. Matteo Villa, a research fellow for the Italian thinktank the Institute for International Political Studies, said that based on analysis of figures from the interior ministry, “there could be more than 700,000 asylum seekers who will find themselves living irregularly in Italy by 2020”.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/25/asylum-seekers-limbo-eu-countries

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janissary procession through the Brandenburg Gate on Türkischen Tag (Turkish Day), Berlin, photo via Wikimedia Commons

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 993, November 1, 2018

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Turkey, which hosts some 3.5 million refugees, is generally considered a transit or bulwark country in the ongoing refugee crisis. What is less known is that Turkey is also generating refugees of its own.

According to data from the Greek Asylum Service, over the past two years, the number of asylum applicants from Turkey has grown from 189 in 2016 to 2,463 in August 2018. This represents an increase of approximately 1,300%. Moreover, according to Eurostat, approximately 25,000 Turkish citizens applied for asylum in European countries between 2016 and 2017.

The most popular destination is Germany because there is already a substantial Turkish minority there. Between 2016 and 2017, more than 14,000 Turkish citizens applied for asylum in Germany alone. Compared to the number of applicants from countries such as Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, these numbers appear unimpressive. However, if we consider the alarming rate at which the number is increasing, and that Turkey is a relatively stable and somewhat democratic country, the refugee flows from the country are a cause for concern. Their causes and potential impact on the EU warrant examination.

Turkish refugee flows were caused, for the most part, by a combination of the abortive coup attempt in 2016 and the ongoing economic crisis. After the failed coup, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan embarked on a “crusade” to weed out all those suspected of being affiliated in any way with exiled religious leader Fethullah Gülen, whom Erdoğan believes was the coup’s mastermind. For the past two years, Erdoğan has persecuted soldiers, academics, teachers, journalists, and other citizens on suspicion that they are part of the Gülen network. Approximately 150,000 civil servants have lost their jobs and the Turkish police have made over 50,000 arrests.

The second major stimulant of Turkish refugee flows is the ongoing economic crisis. The country’s economy is in a shambles. After years of growth, low-interest rates, and massive, government-backed construction projects, the economy is now in freefall, and the consequences for Turkey’s stability are not yet known.

Since the beginning of 2018, the Turkish lira has lost 42% of its value against the dollar. Inflation rose from 7.2% in January 2015 to 15.9% in July 2018.Ankara also has a high level of debt due for repayment. According to the estimates of the Fitch credit rating agency for 2018, Turkey’s total financing needs will be almost $230 billion.

Despite the bleak economic situation, Erdoğan appears reluctant to implement tighter monetary and fiscal policies out of fear that he will lose the support of his political base. Instead, he has adopted inflammatory, conspiratorial rhetoric against the global financial markets, which he accuses of “waging a secret war against Turkey.” The country’s precarious economic situation is exacerbated by its strained relationship with the US.

These factors have provoked fears among the Turkish population of persecution, unemployment, and restrictions on travel due to the revocation of passports. In response to these fears, some Turkish citizens are attempting to migrate to the EU. The most common route is to cross the Greek border via the Evros River and then, with the help of smugglers, continue on to Europe.

According to data from the Migration Policy Institute, in 2016, the number of Turkish citizens who were granted protection status was 900. In 2017, that figure reached 5,555. This represents an increase of over 300%. These data represent the share of first-instance positive asylum decisions relative to all decisions made in each country. Positive decisions include refugee protection, subsidiary protection, and humanitarian protection. In 2017, the average rate of recognition of asylum applications from Turkish citizens in Europe was 36.0%. This means that in one out three cases, Turkish asylum seekers were granted refugee status.

(Of course, recognition rates vary significantly among European countries. Norway holds the highest rate of recognition with 89.7%. By contrast, Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria have yet to reach a positive decision. Greece has a rate of recognition of 54.5%.)

This substantial increase is striking for two reasons. First, it reflects the speed at which the total number of asylum applications from Turkish citizens has risen. Second, it shows that European asylum services recognize that Turkish citizens are being persecuted.

The first major complication when dealing with Turkish refugees stems from the fact that the EU signed an agreement with Ankara in an effort to curb the flows of Syrian refugees. Under the agreement, all Syrians who reached the Greek islands after March 20, 2016, would be returned to Turkey. For each refugee returned to Turkey, one refugee from Greece would be accepted into the EU. Hence, under the agreement, Turkey is considered a “safe third country” that can accept incoming refugee flows.

But this no longer makes sense. European countries now grant refugee protection status to Turkish citizens, meaning they acknowledge that they are suffering persecution in their home country. How, then, can the EU continue to justify the characterization of Turkey as a “safe third country?”

The issue of Turkish refugee flows could be the final nail in the coffin of the agreement, which has been extensively criticized by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as well as by non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders. The criticisms revolve around the fact that Turkey cannot be considered safe as it denies refugee status to non-Europeans and is unable to provide effective protection under international law. While some analysts view the agreement as “too big to fail,” it is uncertain whether Turkish refugee flows will allow the agreement to be maintained as is. Even if the EU chooses to uphold it, it cannot deny that Turkey is itself now a generator of refugees.

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Nikolaos Lampas is an Adjunct Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Piraeus, Greece. He is also a Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Peloponnisos, Greece.

BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family

Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/turkey-refugee-crisis/

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Refugees seeking reunification in Germany announce hunger strike during a protest opposite the parliament building in Athens © Alkis Konstantinidis / Reuters

Living conditions, mostly food distribution, in refugee camps in crisis-affected regions had deteriorated dramatically before the European migrant crisis struck in 2015, David Beasley, the executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP) told German newspaper Die Zeit.

Only 3% of 2.2mn migrants who entered Europe since 2015 sent home – Pew Research

“We paid a heavy price for this mistake and I’m afraid we’re about to make it once again,” Beasley believes. According to the UN food chief, while many asylum seekers wanted to stay in their home region, the lack of food has driven them away. “If they don’t have enough food, they will leave. And many of them would go to Europe,”Beasley said.

While the UN has been seemingly making progress in fighting world hunger over the last 10 years, the number of people suffering hunger worldwide has now dramatically increased again, Beasley said, adding that the food crisis is caused mainly by wars and climate change. Yemen is threatened by famine because Saudi Arabia is blocking the country’s ports, preventing aid deliveries, Beasley said, urging Gulf countries not to stand aside but instead join the food aid program for crisis-stricken regions.

A WFP report from March says that some 108 million people across the globe faced “crisis food insecurity or worse,” a dramatic increase from 2015 when the figure was 80 million. The document says that major food crises were fueled by “conflict, record-high food prices and abnormal weather patterns.”

The number of asylum seekers in the EU during the second quarter of 2017 reached 149,000, according to statistical data from Eurostat. The applications mainly came from Syria, Nigeria and Afghanistan. Germany, Italy, France, Greece and the UK account for almost 80 percent of all first-time applicants in the union, the data shows.

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Source: https://www.rt.com/news/410080-second-refugee-crisis-europe

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