AYS Daily Digest 08/09/2021: Amid the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, Europe makes sure “2015 won’t happen again”
By: Are You Syrious
Tags: Digest, Afghanistan, Europe, Moria, Refugees

AYS Daily Digest 08/09/2021: Amid the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, Europe makes sure “2015 won’t happen again”

Protest against new plans for EURODAC // Report on political economy of the border industrial complex published // Greece one year after the fire in Moria // Complaint filed against Samos authorities for pushback // New deportation and return bill implemented in Greece, despite criticism // Updates from the Sea // New outrageous anti-migrant law in Denmark Are You Syrious? Follow Sep 9 · 10 min read

One year ago today, Moria camp burned down. See below. Copyright: Sea Watch

FEATURE: Border enforcement amid humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan

Just one day after Kabul fell to the Taliban, German chancellor hopeful Laschet claimed “2015 cannot be repeated”. What happened in 2015 has been interpreted in various ways. However, what happened afterwards is more important. While, in the late summer of 2015, we witnessed a brief moment of actually existing legal entrance routes for people trying to apply for asylum in Europe, the access to these routes from autumn on became more restricted every day. First only specific nationalities where allowed to pass, then the number of individuals who could pass was reduced each day — until finally around 13,000 people were stranded in Idomeni in Northern Greece in a massive, chaotic camp in March 2016. The borders were sealed, Fortress Europe re-erected, all legal routes denied. Since then, the EU has not only not provided any legal entrance routes, but has enforced borders and surveillance and criminalized irregular migration in order to make it impossible for people to succeed in overcoming the system.

Now, with a new humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, there won’t be another 2015, because the EU and Frontex are far better prepared than they were in 2015. In an interview given to Reuters, Frontex CEO Leggeri said that the agency is closely surveilling what is going on not only in Afghanistan but also in neighbouring countries. He said the EU is much better now at returning people as well as assessing the nationality of people who might claim to be Afghans.

Meanwhile, human rights activists are following the rhetoric of the EU towards the Taliban regime with great concern. Instead of the EU providing safe and legal entrance routes, many fear that it is only a question of time before the issue of deportations to Afghanistan will be on the table again. In the last decade, 70,000 people were deported from the EU to Afghanistan.

Nick Buxton, a researcher at the Transnational Institute has said:

“Whether it is member states pushing to continue deporting Afghans or EU statements about working with the Taliban to prevent migration flows, the EU perpetuates its policies of denying safe legal routes to desperate people, knowing that this will lead to many lost lives.”

Border fences are a normality again in Europe — although invisible for people with European passports. According to this article, 13 EU member states have erected fences along their borders, also between neighbouring member states.

However, it is not only the borders of EU country through which the EU tries to deny people access to the asylum system. A huge part of the border work is done by other countries, financed by EU money and framed as state-building, development, or humanitarian action. This article speaks about border externalisation to West Africa.

EURODAC to be turned into a tool of mass surveillance, NGOs fear

Meanwhile, 31 NGOs send an open letter to members of the European Parliament working on new rules for the Eurodac database. The database was established in 2000 and collects the finger prints of people who are apprehended in the context of irregular border crossings. The database forms the backbone of the Dublin system, as matches in Eurodac are used as evidence for determining which country is responsible to lodge the asylum process under the ‘first entry rule’ of the Dublin regulation.

According to the plans, new types of data will be collected in Eurodac, including facial images and biometric data, as well as data about children who are six year’s of age and older. Also the group of people from which data will be collected is to be expanded and should now include irregular migrants, people disembarked following search and rescue operations and people eligible for resettlement within the EU. The letter send to the MEPs calls upon them to implement a delay in the legislative process in order to give time for the consideration of the implications for fundamental rights .

For more info, see:

and here:

Who is profiting from Fortress Europe?

The ‘Advancing Alternative Migration Governance’ project published a report that looks into which private and commercial actors are involved in the implementation of current border control systems and how, through their assumed expertise, they shape and influence policies on what border control systems looks like.