Regularisation of illegal immigrants makes slow progress

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In November 2001, it emerged that a Luxembourg government campaign - involving the social partners - to regularise the position of illegal immigrants through a work permit scheme has met with only modest success. This is largely because of a reluctance on the part of employers to hire people whose profiles do not match their needs.

After a parliamentary debate on illegal immigrants - people 'without documents' ('sans papiers') - on 14 March 2001, during which deputies voted on a motion calling on the executive power to 'regularise' their situation, the Luxembourg government decided to make a gesture in favour of such people by giving them a two-month deadline in which to regularise their situation. Certain categories of foreigner living in Luxembourg illegally had an opportunity to place themselves in conformity with current legislation, under a regularisation campaign that the public authorities ran between 15 May and 13 July 2001.

This regularisation exercise was Luxembourg's third, following an earlier exercise for unauthorised Portuguese and Spanish workers in 1985, and another one for Bosnian refugees in 1995.

Regularisation through work

The government opted for a programme of regularisation on the grounds of work or for humanitarian reasons. The main concern was to put a halt to the clandestine employment that often accompanies the presence of unauthorised immigrants, and to integrate such people into a fast-growing economy where workers are a rare commodity in certain sectors.

The following categories of people in possession of a valid passport were able to apply for regularisation:

• people who had lived uninterruptedly in Luxembourg since 1 July 1998;

• people who had lived and worked in Luxembourg since 1 January 2000, whether or not registered with social security, and were in stable employment earning pay equivalent to the minimum wage or the guaranteed minimum income; and

• people suffering from a serious illness, or with family members holding Luxembourg identity papers, and meeting certain specific criteria.

People who were considered to have breached public order through their behaviour or had presented false papers were excluded from the exercise.

A special unit with responsibility for processing files, with 14 staff, was set up under the authority of a civil servant in the Ministry of Labour.

Those who met the criteria had to put together a file of papers, including an application form that could be obtained from three ministries, local authority administrations, the Employment Administration (Administration de l'Emploi), the two main trade unions and certain non-governmental organisations. Three employers' associations - the Federation of Craft Workers (Fédération des artisans), the Chamber of Agriculture (Chambre d'agriculture) and Horesca (representing hotels, catering and cafés) - were also closely involved in the regularisation exercise. The crafts, agriculture and catering sectors face serious labour shortages, and the public authorities thereby hoped to integrate foreign nationals seeking legal recognition through work.

Obstacles to regularisation

An initial review of the regularisation exercise was drawn up by the Minister of Labour on 8 November 2001. A total of 1,554 regularisation application files relating to 2,850 people had been presented, and 521 had been processed, and it was understood that the remaining two-thirds would be analysed by the end of April 2002.

Regularisation by securing employment proved to be more difficult than expected, and the expectation that the Luxembourg labour market would easily absorb people without documents turned out to be a serious error, mainly for reasons related to issues of skills and language. However, 291 Yugoslav, Cape Verdian and Albanian people without documents were able to qualify for a work permit, thereby regularising the situation of 504 people. The number of Yugoslavs was to grow, as 365 of them were still waiting for passports that the Belgrade authorities were unwilling to issue.

The construction, hotels-restaurants-cafés and cleaning enterprise sectors employed most of the work permit-holders. The great disappointment was agriculture, where the public authorities thought more jobs would materialise, but the various crises that had shaken the farming community appeared to have dampened enthusiasm.

Overall, the labour market in general, despite registering impressive growth, only accepted tiny numbers of people without documents.

According to the Federation of Craft Workers, the profiles of people without documents did not match employers' skill needs. Part of the phenomenon was also explained by language problems, and a desire on the part of employers already employing people from eastern Europe not to reproduce a 'Balkan powder-keg' in their enterprises.

These obstacles were complemented by difficulties such as the distance between workers' homes and work, and the fact that some employers thought they had found a way of creating a degree of flexibility in their workforces: they hoped that they could recruit people on fixed-term contracts, but this was not allowed under the regularisation procedure.

To mitigate some of these difficulties, the Ministry of Labour is now drawing up training programmes designed to improve the flow of people without documents into employment.

Reactions of organisations involved

The Foreign Workers' Support Association (Association Soutien aux Travailleurs Étrangers, ASTI), CARITAS, the Foreigners' Action Liaison Committee (Comité de Liaison et d'Action des Étrangers, CLAE), the Inter-Community Socio-Pastoral Service (Service Socio-Pastoral Intercommunautaire, SESOPI) and the Luxembourg Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (Onofhängege Gewerkschafts-Bond Lëtzebuerg, OGB-L) are members of a 'platform' for the regularisation of people without documents. The platform reacted to the presentation of the Minister of Labour's intermediate review of the regularisation exercise by producing their own interpretation of the review, and denouncing some of the blockages that had occurred in the procedure.

In the platform's view, the obstinacy of government officials in demanding a valid passport from those seeking regularisation was 'unreasonable and certain to cause inextricable blockages'. Passports were difficult for some nationals to obtain, and when they succeeded, the document was often stopped by the police at Luxembourg airport for weeks while its authenticity was checked. A large number of applicants met all the conditions to be regularised except the passport, and in the absence of a work permit, were unable to start jobs that they had found. As these employers do not keep jobs open indefinitely, the platform called on the government to issue 'regularisable' people with temporary leave-to-stay papers and work permits.

Another factor in the delay, according to the platform, took the form of 'demands linked to proof of stay in Luxemburg, and the failure to take testimonial statements into consideration'. The platform suggested that the public authorities should carry out an investigation if there were serious doubt about claims, rather than simply rejecting them.

Commentary

The government's approach involving the regularisation of illegal immigrants through work is new, previous regularisations having been carried out in the spirit of 'leave to stay'.

Calls to legalise people without documents living in Luxemburg are regularly formulated by certain associations and trade unions (LU9905105N and LU9906109N). The various associations and unions have always argued that the Luxembourg economy badly needs extra workers, and that people living in the country illegally form a potential pool of labour. The way that the matter is developing appears to suggest quite the opposite. (Marc Feyereisen)