The Hindu : International : Fate of illegal immigrants' children hangs in balance

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Aug 13, 2006

International

International

Fate of illegal immigrants' children hangs in balance

Vaiju Naravane

Paris: An estimated 30,000 illegal immigrant families who have school-going children in France have filed papers before the Sunday deadline in a desperate bid to regularise their immigrant status.

The French Interior Ministry indicated that only 5,000-6,000 of them will be given permanent resident papers, causing anger amongst human rights associations which claim almost all who have applied meet the Ministry's criteria for regularisation.

The network of associations, which goes under the name of Education Without Borders (Reseau Education sans Frontiers or RESF) is crying foul, saying every applicant will not receive equal treatment and that the Ministry would give out permits arbitrarily.

A Ministry source, however, said many applications did not meet the basic criteria set out by the Government. "The associations have encouraged even those who do not fulfil the conditions to apply. These dossiers will inevitably be rejected."

The French Government was obliged to make concessions after several teachers and parents objected to police forcibly entering schools to take away children of illegal immigrants who were to be expelled with their parents. They said police snatched children from school as a means of flushing out their parents from their hiding places. The outcry was such that Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy said he would allow those parents who had children enrolled in French schools to stay on "on humanitarian grounds".

The parents had to prove that their child's mother tongue was French and that the family was able to support itself and was "well integrated" into French society.

RSEF says the regularisation applications are being dealt with in an arbitrary manner and that officials have already denied permits to families which did not come to France directly but entered French territory after having first landed in another European country.

"Mr. Sarkozy is not prepared to face the consequences of his decision which has given rise to tremendous hope amongst the foreigners in our midst," the association said in a communiqué.

The French Communist Party has called for the regularisation of all illegal immigrants present in France. Criticising the Government it said, "It is possible to have a coherent immigration policy. Italy has just regularised 350,000 immigrants contrary to the repressive policies adopted by the Right wing Government in this country".

The socialists are more nuanced over what is a very sensitive issue. They have called for more time for a proper examination of all applications.

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