REGINE Regularisations in Europe Final Report - European ...

Regularisation practices in individual countries and NGO recommendations
As has been shown above, NGOs generally criticise the absence of legal migration channels and the
restrictive nature of existing immigration legislation, which create the need for regularisation.
However, NGOs also see major deficiencies in the use of regularisation measures in individual
Member States. Thus, in Austria, NGOs generally criticise the very restrictive use of humanitarian
stay to regularise migrants. Similarly, the Czech NGOs lament the absence of any serious
regularisation mechanisms which implies that regularisation is only possible in very few individual
cases, by using general provisions in immigration legislation.
Box 5: Migrants Rights Centre Ireland – Bridging Visa
What is it? A temporary 6-month permission to remain
Target group: Migrants from outside the EU who have entered Ireland lawfully but have become undocumented
for reasons beyond their control (workplace exploitation, deception, or unexpected redundancy).
Needs
‣ Estimation of the eventual size of the target group
‣ Lack of official mechanism for temporary permission to remain dealing with the situation
‣ Dealing with bureaucratic procedures: some individuals have been able to petition the DJELR for a
temporary permission to remain and have received it, but this is slow and torturous and can take up
years or more. There are no defined criteria or transparency regarding decisions.
Expected results
The Bridging Visa will allow beneficiaries to
‣ Have a new work permit application processed;
‣ Access social benefits and services for which they have contributed;
‣ Feel free to come forward and report exploitation and abuse without fear of deportation;
‣ Have the opportunity to visit their families back in their home countries and
‣ Get back into the system and on course to living and contributing to Irish society
Source: Migrant Rights Centre Ireland, Leaflet and FAQs on the Bridging Visa campaign, online at:
http://www.mrci.ie/policy_work/IrregMigrant_UndocuMigrant.htm
Although Dutch NGOs which have responded to the questionnaire welcome the latest regularisation
programmes for rejected asylum seekers in the Netherlands, they note that the programme targeted
only a specific group of persons. In addition, they severely criticise the restrictive use of humanitarian
stay – the only permanent regularisation mechanisms in the Netherlands – which, they argue, leaves a
sizeable number of persons in an irregular situation: “The new regularization of ex-asylumseekers
(pardon) in our country is a very generous project, unfortunately it is only for a specific target group
(not 'general', as most non-asylumseekers complain). (2) We used to have a three-year rule, meaning
that when an admission-procedure took more than 3 years, the applicant was granted a stay permit:
unfortunately this rule has been abolished. No other regularization mechanism exists nowadays, apart
from the application 'on humanitarian grounds' which is only seldom granted.” 252 A Belgian NGO
complains that the new criteria on individual regularisations that were announced in the government
252 Stichting LOS (Landelijk Ongedocumenteerden Steunpunt), response, ICMPD NGO Questionnaire, 21 April
2008.
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