On each trip, the same ball in the stomach. When the train drops Iliana* on the station platform of a small town in the east of France – whose name she prefers not to mention – and where she has found a job as a housekeeper paid on the black market, the thirty-year-old “ pray to God” so as not to be arrested. Same reaction when a police car parks near her on the sidewalk, or when she meets an officer’s gaze in the streets of Mulhouse, where she lives. “Every time, I flinch. I swear to you that sometimes my legs even tremble,” she breathes. Because if a member of the police decides to carry out an unexpected check, this 36-year-old Burkinabè will have no papers in order to present to him. In the eyes of the administration, she is not supposed to be on the territory. In 2019, following a divorce from her French husband due to domestic violence, Iliana was notified by the prefecture of an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF) within thirty days. “But I couldn’t go back to my country. There is nothing for me there”, she sums up modestly. The young woman then decides to stay on the territory, illegally.
For several months, she says she “wandered from right to left”, before landing in Mulhouse. Accompanied by the association for aid to refugees La Cimade, she fits in as well as possible in her new city, works as a volunteer for the organization, even finds a regular “odd job” as a babysitter in a Burkinabè family in Mulhouse, through the employment service check. In 2021, on the strength of these experiences and after five years spent on French territory, she filed a new request for regularization with the prefecture. This will be refused. “They justified this decision by saying that I had no children, no family ties on French soil, and that I was not yet sufficiently integrated”, explains Iliana, in almost perfect French. At the same time, it receives a second OQTF, without delay. Concretely, this means that the young woman only has 48 hours to contest this decision. Beyond this period, the appeal will not be admissible by the court. “I was so shocked that I almost got hit by a car when I heard about it. I tried to appeal, but I quickly understood that everything was going to become very complicated”. A few days later, she learns that the decision of the prefecture has been validated by the administrative judge. “So I appealed, and I have been patient since June to finally be fixed on my fate. In the meantime, I live in fear”.
Like Iliana, nearly one million foreigners in an irregular situation have been notified of an OQTF since 2011. Constantly increasing for ten years, the number of these procedures has exploded in the space of a decade: 107,488 OQTFs were pronounced in 2020, compared to 59,998 in 2011, according to an information report produced by Senator François-Noël Buffet and published on May 10, 2022. But the rate of execution of these OQTFs is decreasing from year to year: from 16.7% in 2011, it fell to 6.9% in 2020. In the first half of 2021 – latest published figures – 61,781 OQTFs had already been pronounced… For only 3,501 expulsions, i.e. a meager execution rate of 5.7%. In the meantime, the thousands of illegal immigrants targeted each year by these unimplemented measures live in a “grey zone”. “They are not expelled, but have no right on French territory, except to receive state medical aid [AME]”, specifies Marie-Françoise Forget, volunteer at La Cimade for 13 years. “They are on hold. And in the meantime, they no longer dare to go out, try to work on the black market, live in overcrowded homes or with relatives, waiting to be able to file a new application for regularization”, she says. “And above all, they are terrified at the idea of being arrested”.
“This is unheard of”
Especially since on November 17, Gérald Darmanin decided to tighten the screw on the issue of OQTFs. Three weeks before the presentation of his bill on immigration to the Assembly, the Minister of the Interior urged the prefects, via a circular, to apply these procedures more firmly to “all foreigners in an irregular situation ”, and no longer only to “delinquent foreigners”. To do this, he calls in particular to issue these measures “following an arrest or a refusal of a residence permit”, and to exercise “a real ‘police of the residence’”. It also asks that people placed under OQTF be “systematically” assigned to residence, “to a reliable address” and not “of convenience” when they cannot be placed in an administrative detention center (CRA), while recalling its desire to make life “impossible” for the foreigners concerned by this measure – by ensuring, for example, that the latter see their social rights suspended. In addition to the reminder of the law already applicable, Gérald Darmanin finally requests the “systematic” registration of people placed under OQTF in the File of wanted persons (RPF), in order to “count all foreigners under OQTF leaving the national territory”, which would allow to better assess the rate of execution of these procedures.
Strict instructions, deemed “worrying” by many migrant aid associations, including La Cimade, which is alarmed by a systematization of OQTF procedures “without a personalized examination of situations”, as well as a standardization of entry bans on French territory (IRTF). “These measures are part of a generalized policy of expulsion at all costs and the banishment of foreigners, which contributes to precariousness and marginalization of the target public”, regrets Mélanie Louis, responsible for expulsion issues within the ‘association. for several months, and a fortiori since the publication of the circular, the volunteers have also insisted on the “very concrete” increase in the number of OQTFs, especially for procedures without a voluntary departure period – for which the appeal must be made within 48 hours. “It does not stop, there is a massive influx of files… I would say that at the moment, we receive a hundred people a day”, testifies Alexandre François, volunteer at La Cimade and speaker on the legal permanence “Asile , stay and removal” in Paris. “Often it’s people who get off the train and are randomly checked. They come to see us completely lost, and do not know how to react”.
Lawyer at the Paris Bar and specialist in asylum law, Elodie Journeau can only confirm: last weekend, she indicates that she received no less than “three files” concerning OQTFs without delay. “Usually they come in a trickle, and only concern clients I know. There, I am obliged to take charge of all comers, within extremely short deadlines”, she explains. For the past few weeks, La Cimade has also specified that it has observed several formal notices to leave French territory, notified to foreigners already placed under OQTF following a new arrest. The document thus threatens “to apply the legislative provisions by prosecuting in the criminal case in the event of maintenance on the territory”, explains Marie-Françoise Forget. In thirteen years at La Cimade, the volunteer claims to have only been confronted with this type of procedure once. “But just last week, there were two in a district of Paris. It’s unheard of,” she confided to L’Express.
The feeling of “discouragement” of administrative judges
“It’s accelerating. Every day, I have undocumented comrades who are arrested. Some are even beginning to fear going to ask for the AME, for fear of being caught,” says Anthioumane, a 32-year-old Malian placed under OQTF and IRTF. Well aware of Gérald Darmanin’s desire to crack down on the issue, he expressed his dismay. “Today, I work on the black market, under an alias. My employers do not know that I am under OQTF: if I tell them, they cannot do anything, and I could lose my job. Just by coming here, I risk a control, and perhaps an expulsion”, he explains, pointing to the Parisian premises of La Cimade. “In fact, you feel like you’re in danger all the time. Honestly, our life is already impossible”, underlines Mireille* from a public garden in the East of France. “At the same time as I call you, I am looking around to be sure that there are no random checks. The stress is constant”.
Originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mireille has long hoped for regularization. When she arrived in France, she worked for several months as a carer, while offering her help as a volunteer and translator at La Cimade. Despite the support of the association and his employer, his asylum application was not accepted. At the end of 2021, the 30-year-old was placed under OQTF, with house arrest. “People then have a perimeter to respect, must report regularly to the police station or the gendarmerie. Some can no longer accompany their children to school, nor go for treatment if the care center is outside the perimeter of assignment. “, deciphers Mélanie Louis. Mireille, she tried to challenge this decision. “But it did not work”, she laments. “I appealed, and I have now been waiting for months that we decide on my fate”.
Overwhelmed by the number of cases of this type, the administrative judges do not hide their weariness. “We have the feeling that we are running on empty, since the administrative judges rule on prefectural decisions which are only rarely executed afterwards. People placed under OQTF are arrested again two or three years later, with a different or identical situation… There is a feeling of discouragement”, testifies Gabrielle Maubon, vice-president of the Syndicate of administrative jurisdiction, who deplores in passing “a complexification of the law and litigation of foreigners”. “We sometimes have a feeling of loss of meaning: rather than increasing the number of OQTFs, we should perhaps ensure that those which have already been taken are carried out, and worry about monitoring the people concerned. This requires in particular an increase in the resources of the prefectures”, adds his colleague from the Union of Administrative Magistrates, Emmanuel Laforêt. In 2021, litigation involving foreigners represented 42% of new cases registered in the administrative courts. Of these, “about half were OQTF files,” he points out.
* Some first names have been changed.