FLATLINE
The peculiar trend of asylum seeking unaccompanied minors in France
By Saoirse Aherne and Federica Ballardini
Since 2015 6,572,620 people have sought asylum in the European Union.
Member states’ capacity to absorb requests and to efficiently manage the
influx of people in terms of housing, labor, education and integration
has been put to the test. With Italy, Greece and Spain being “first
entry countries” and most people trying to reach countries like Germany
and Sweden, the question of how to equally distribute the number of
migrant asylum applications has been central to the debate. Initially,
attempts to implement a unified strategy across the continent were made.
But this collaborative effort to distribute the ‘burden’ of the
migration crisis has quickly descended into a series of increasingly
defensive national border policies.
Among these, the practice of "pushbacks" are infamous. Pushbacks are
expedited readmission practices that don't actually allow for
individuals' rights to request asylum at every border, as established by
the 1951 Geneva convention.
The pushbacks from France formally occur at the higher border, an
unassuming section of road overlooking the sea. On one side of the
invisible line lies a French border police and temporary detention
center; at most 100 meters away, the Italian station can be found. Each
day, police wait in the Garavan train station and along mountain paths
to intercept those crossing the border.
On a largely arbitrary and
racialized basis, authorities will ask people coming from Italy for
papers or identification. If the necessary documents cannot be provided,
police will take the concerned individuals to the French border police
station. Here, French police carry out an expedited refusal of entry
procedure which ends with the issuing of a "refus d'entrée".
Though
harsh border policy may mitigate the number of asylum applicants in
France, it certainly does not succeed in ‘keeping people out’ overall.
Nonetheless, the French mandate to push people back at the
Franco-Italian border may result in the unjustified expulsion of
unaccompanied minors from French territory. Observing these legal
changes has warranted a deeper analysis of minors' asylum claims in
France. Do they match other countries' trends? Are unaccompanied minors'
rights recognised at the Franco-Italian border?
Scroll to begin the exploration⇣