Foreigners in an irregular situation have suffered confinement “abusive», «disproportionate” and “indiscriminatelyin French administrative detention centers (CRA) in 2021, denounced Thursday March 17 in their annual report the associations which come to their aid.
Read alsoGironde: a detention center is controversial
“Many people were placed in administrative detention centers in 2021 without the essential discernment that must necessarily intervene before deciding on a measure of deprivation of liberty“Wrote the five associations that work within the CRAs. These associations, including La Cimade or France Terre d’Asile, have also made the “acknowledgment of too often abusive and disproportionate confinement“.
In 2021, France, the leading European country in terms of issuing deportation measures (OQTF, obligation to leave French territory), detained 42,353 people in an irregular situation pending their deportation, including 26,485 for the CRA alone. from Mayotte. The average length of confinement reached 22 days in metropolitan France, up 32%. But migrant advocates have denounced the “uselessnessof these measures, in the context of the closure of many borders in 2021 due to the pandemic, which has made many removals unfeasible. This increase, they say, did not lead to more deportations, without providing figures.
Read alsoUkraine: the first refugees arrive in France
SEE ALSO – Immigration: Macron lax?
“Lock up at all costs”
For the year 2021, the Ministry of the Interior has also not made public the rate of execution of the OQTFs, a sensitive subject which puts the government in difficulty, whose opposition regularly denounces the laxity in this matter. This desire tolock up at all costsalso led tothe appearance of many clustersof Covid-19 contamination in these closed centers, denounced the associations, again without counting them. “The logic of confinement prevailing over strict respect for barrier measures“, they commented.
Another reason for concern: the increase in the number of people placed in CRA immediately after their release from prison. They represented 23.54% of those entering detention centres. A “double jeopardy“, Still lamented the associations. Among these people, the report lists many convicted of “deportation offense“, after refusing to submit to the Covid tests necessary for their expulsion. Last year, 10,091 people were forcibly removed from French territory, according to statistics from the Ministry of the Interior.
SEE ALSO – Recidivism: should prisoners be made to work?