Asylum, Migration and Integration: African passage to Europe, two brothers, two paths, two struggles

Written on September 12th, 2014 in politics Comments Off

Published on YahooNews, by Zach Campbell, Sara Miller Llana, Sept 7, 2014 - (Recommended: 10 Immigration myths debunked, on Christian Science Monitor, by Amy Taxin, July 12, 2014).

Two brothers from Senegal sought a better life in Europe. Only one of them made it. But their experiences highlight the pressure on European governments to fairly tackle illegal immigration … //

… Today, Yalou is part of Spain’s undocumented migrant class, working as a street seller in Bilbao. Ndiaye also works as a street seller, but in a market on the outskirts of Tangier, Morocco. They haven’t seen each other in years.  

But they joke about being in the same situation on two different continents: Both are undocumented and, lacking the right to work, both survive by working in informal economies, sending whatever they can spare back to their family in Senegal.

But they joke about being in the same situation on two different continents: Both are undocumented and, lacking the right to work, both survive by working in informal economies, sending whatever they can spare back to their family in Senegal.

Between them, the brothers mark both ends of a passage into Europe that is traveled by tens of thousands of migrants every year, and in increasing numbers, as they flee poverty and war in the Middle East, Africa, and Afghanistan … //

… TRYING AGAIN:

In the meantime, the flows continue. Yalou says he was lucky in Melilla. He only lived in the CETI for a week before being placed on one of the government-organized flights to mainland Spain. Then, after two days in a police station, one month in an immigrant detention center, and a week in an immigrant shelter run by a nongovernmental organization, Yalou was free, but with no papers and nothing but bus fare to a city in the north of Spain and the clothes on his back.

This, migrants and activists say, is the Spanish government’s way of easing pressure on the whole system: Migrants are moved from the overcrowded CETIs to detention centers on the peninsula, and then are, in many cases, simply let go without any deportation procedure or any form of legal permission to stay. (The Spanish Interior Ministry did not respond to repeated requests for comment.)

Yalou was not discouraged: Spain has a clear path for undocumented migrants to sort their papers. Anybody living in Spain can register with the government as a resident, regardless of his or her immigration status. After three years of being registered and given a work contract, and having no problems with the police, Yalou can apply for regularization of his papers and the right to stay and work legally in Spain. And after 10 years with papers, he can obtain Spanish nationality, allowing him to live and work anywhere in the EU.

Still, Yalou says, slow Spanish bureaucracy and high unemployment make getting papers a long shot. And without papers, finding work is even more difficult. Yalou says he struggles just to survive here and often thinks about going back to Senegal.

Ndiaye, still living in a squalid building in the outskirts of Tangier, does not want to go back. Unfazed by the lack of work in Spain, he is determined to make it over, even though it’s a deadly gambit.

“If we don’t succeed, we come back and try again,” Ndiaye proclaims defiantly, “and if there’s no work in Spain, we’ll go somewhere else.”

(full long text and links to related stories).

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Yahoo News’ Photo Galleries and Slideshows;

A Two-Faced Friendship: Turkey Is Partner and Target for the NSA, on Spiegel Onine International, by Laura Poitras, Marcel Rosenbach, Michael Sontheimer and Holger Stark, Aug 31, 2014 (Photo Gallery): Documents from the archive of whistleblower Edward Snowden reveal wide-scale spying against Turkey by America’s NSA and Britain’s GCHQ. They also show the US worked closely with Ankara to battle Kurdish separatists …;

… and this:

Ofra Haza (Nov 9, 1957 – Feb 23, 2000):

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