[ALBSA-Info] Greece-Migrants: Fear, ignorance and lack of proof hound legalisation

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Fear, ignorance and lack of proof hound legalisation

Fewer than half of the estimated 500,000 undocumented migrants living 
inGreece have so far registered with their municipality.  Undocumented 
migrants have until August 2 to apply for a residence permit 


BY KATHY TZILIVAKIS  

TIME is fast running out for undocumented foreigners applying for residency 
in Greece. They have until August 2 by which to submit applications to their 
local authority in the ongoing legalisation procedure. 

Between June 2, when the legalisation process began, and July 17, an 
estimated 205,000 foreigners handed in applications to municipalities around 
the country. The government expected a much bigger turnout. Interior Minister 
Vasso Papandreou had expressed confidence that this second mass legalisation 
drive would open the door to some half a million undocumented migrants in 
Greece. 

As the deadline approaches, it remains uncertain whether an estimated 300,000 
foreigners who have still not submitted their papers will be able to do so in 
time. For this reason, migrant community representatives are calling for an 
extension of the deadline. 

In the municipality of Athens, where more than 150,000 undocumented migrants 
live and work, only some 35,000 foreigners had submitted their applications 
for permits by July 17. "We expect to receive another 20,000 applications by 
August 2," Evangelos Tsibos, an Athens municipal official overseeing the 
legalisation procedure, told the Athens News. "We really do not know why so 
few foreigners have applied since initial figures indicated there were over 
100,000 migrants here [in the Athens municipality]." 

According to migrant group representatives and human rights advocates, many 
foreigners have hit obstacles in their race to secure residency. They say 
that the chief application requirement - proof of having lived in Greece 
since at least June 2, 2000 - has proven to be the most difficult to meet. 

Many foreigners say that their applications have been rejected by municipal 
employees who tell them that they do not possess the necessary proof (such as 
a stamp of entry on their passport, at least nine electricity, telephone or 
water bills, their children's school records or at least nine monthly public 
transport passes). 
Fearing that they will lose their chance to gain legal status, many of them 
have chosen the last-resort option, namely purchasing 250 days' worth of 
social insurance stamps (ensima) to retroactively cover the 12-month period 
between June 2, 2000 and June 2, 2001. This costs between 100,000 and almost 
a half a million drachmas. There are others, however, who cannot afford this, 
rather costly, alternative and are now frantically trying to find other ways 
to convince municipal staff that they have been living here for more than a 
year. 
"We are still trying to grapple with different problems," Joe Valencia, 
president of Kasapi-Hellas (Unity of Filipino Migrant Workers in Greece), 
told the Athens News. "There are many who have not been allowed to apply for 
silly reasons. One member of Kasapi had a White Card [a temporary residence 
permit issued by the Organisation for the Employment of Human Resources in 
1998 and valid for 12 months], but a municipal employee would not accept it. 
Can you believe they asked her if she had bus passes! Another Filipino has 
proof that he has been here since 1999 but one employee told him he had to 
submit proof that he was in Greece on June 2, 2000. It is obvious that they 
[municipal employees] are not well informed about the legalisation procedure. 
This makes migrants feel helpless." 

Meanwhile, the interior ministry's citizens' service helpline (telephone 
1464, which operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week), that offers 
information concerning the legalisation in nine different languages 
(Albanian, Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Polish, Turkish, English, French 
and Serbian), has been flooded with calls from foreigners. More than 250,000 
people have called since June requesting information about the legalisation 
procedure. The majority of questions concern the requirement of proof of 
having lived in Greece for at least 12 months. 

A 15-member team of troubleshooters whose purpose is to provide undocumented 
migrants with one-on-one assistance to overcome problems in the application 
procedure, has been working overtime. Over 200 foreigners have sought advice 
and help from the group since the interior ministry set it up on July 5. 
According to ministry officials, the majority of cases dealt with by this new 
team concern documents proving the duration of the applicants' residence in 
Greece. There have also been a number of instances where migrants had their 
applications for a permit rejected because their passports had expired, even 
though immigration law does not specifically state that this document must be 
valid when applying for a permit. There is also a significant number of 
undocumented migrants who cannot afford to take time off work to submit their 
application and instead hire a lawyer to hand in their papers. Staff at many 
municipalities, however, do not accept power of attorney and say that the 
migrant must apply in person. Again, the law does not specify that a migrant 
must personally hand in his application. 

"The new team was created by the interior ministry because we found that 
employees at many municipalities were not doing their job properly," the 
manager of the citizens' helpline, Tassos Georgiadis, told the Athens News. 
"Now, foreigners who are facing difficulties can contact this team for 
assistance. It will work to solve the problem. If necessary they will even 
take the case directly to the mayor in the migrant's locality." 

Migrant group representatives have welcomed the establishment of the 
problem-solving team, but some argue that it is too little, too late. Many 
say there are thousands who will miss out on the opportunity for legality 
because ill-informed municipal employees have refused applications. 

"It is the interior ministry's responsibility to examine the reasons why only 
200,000 people have applied for residence permits," leading human rights 
activist Costas Argaliotis, from the Social Support Network for Migrants and 
Refugees, told the Athens News. "It could be that there are not as many 
migrants as some would like the public to believe, or that many have been 
deported, or even that migrants have not been well informed on the process or 
do not trust the government and are too scared to come forward. There are 
also other reasons, such as the fact that some employers will not give them 
time off work to submit their applications. The ministry must look into this. 
And it should extend the deadline so that as many migrants as possible are 
able to apply." 
Papandreou, however, told a packed migrant conference in early July that 
there will be no extension of the deadline.