Crackdown fills illegal immigrants with fear

This week's Operation Hyphen, when gardaí started rounding up illegal immigrants, was the first of its kind, and will be repeated…

This week's Operation Hyphen, when gardaí started rounding up illegal immigrants, was the first of its kind, and will be repeated in the months ahead. Nuala Haughey, Social and Racial Affairs Correspondent, reports

'Eva" and "Donat", who do not want their real names used, vividly remember how nervous they were when they landed in Ireland last November posing as tourists on a one-week visa.

The couple from Eastern Europe had already determined to remain here to work illegally but their plan to pass themselves off as fleeting visitors included packing only a week's clothes.

"We were very careful that we shouldn't show any signs," said Eva candidly, speaking through an interpreter.

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"We were a smiling happy couple coming in as tourists."

Donat continued: "At the immigration desk the officer was very strict with us and was obviously suspicious. We had to fill in a form explaining where we were going to stay and why we came here. Many times he repeated to us: Only one week. Only one week." The couple, who are in their late 20s, decided on Ireland because Eva spoke a little English and they had heard that England was very restrictive.

"We know very many young people who've been sent back from England," said Donat. "We heard in Ireland that the economy was developing and that it's English-speaking. Other than that we had no information about it apart from what we read in guidebooks or the Internet."

Gardaí this week turned their attention to the thousands of clandestine immigrants who, like Eva and Donat, have been lured to Ireland by its buoyant economy and make a living in the thriving illegal economy.

In a series of early-morning searches on more than 100 addresses throughout Dublin, some 200 gardaí arrested more than 40 people. Similar operations will take place in other parts of the State in the months ahead. Those arrested also included some failed asylum-seekers with deportation orders against them.

The high-profile Operation Hyphen, the first of its kind targeting illegal immigrants, had all the hallmarks of a major drugs operation or criminal sting. It was strongly criticised by refugee and immigrant groups for unnecessarily stoking fears and stigmatising all immigrants as undesirables.

For the thousands of Irish people who have worked illegally in the US, the initiative must have been reminiscent of raids in America on our own "illegals".

For Eva and Donat, the operation has heightened their sense of vulnerability. "We know in our own country that it used to be that a policeman could stop anyone on the street for an ID check and that isn't the case here," said Donat.

"But if an accident happens and we want to try to help someone, we can't give our real names or identities."

"It's very difficult because we aren't used to being dishonest. We just want to improve our lives," added Eva.

Mr Jean-Pierre Ayanga from a refugee and immigrant support network, Integrating Ireland, said the Garda operation created "a lot of confusion, stress, humiliation and fear".

"We are not living in a terror state. We are in a civilised state where there should be transparency. This doesn't mean the gardaí shouldn't do their job but they should do it in a transparent way and such a dramatic change in practice should have been publicly signalled in advance," he added.

The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, strongly defended Operation Hyphen this week, saying some 80 per cent of economic migrants posing as refugees were diverting resources from genuine asylum applicants. "Those people who, for profit, exploit people who are would-be economic migrants and try to persuade them that Ireland is a place you can come pretending to be a refugee, when you are in fact an economic migrant and have the distinction between the two ignored, those people are cheating people in those countries," he said.

While asylum-seekers and illegal workers are two separate categories of immigrant, the line between the two groups is indeed often blurred.

To qualify for permanent protection here as refugees, asylum-seekers must show they are fleeing persecution. The fact that an applicant for refugee status is fleeing grinding poverty and a bleak future is not a factor. International and domestic law obliges the authorities to admit asylum-seekers to the Republic while their claims to remain as refugees are processed. Once they have gained entry, many people vanish into the illegal economy, often taking on new identities as workers with forged EU documents. Some 40 per cent of applicants for refugee status fail to show up for interview or withdraw from the process.

Critics of State policy say it is the very lack of sufficiently clear and efficient procedure for workers to enter Ireland that forces some people into the asylum process in an effort to gain a foothold in the country.

Eva and Donat, who are educated to third level, did not claim asylum here. They say they made inquiries in the Irish embassy in their country about how to enter Ireland legally for work.

Their experience highlights one of the deficiencies of the work permit regime, under which all but the most skilled non-EU immigrant workers come here. Workers must first find an employer to sponsor their entry and are in turn effectively tied to that employer.

"Since we didn't speak English we knew it would be impossible to get an employer to sponsor us," said Eva.

Nevertheless, the couple found work within days and now earn €8 per hour in a city pub/restaurant. They say they hate being here illegally, but know of no way to rectify the situation.

Mr Piaras MacÉinrí, director of the Irish Centre for Migration Studies, said for most non-EU workers the State has effectively privatised the work permit regime, with a "totally unregulated recruitment process, a system which ties the worker to a particular employer, and few rights and entitlements of any kind.

"The State's effective abdication of its own responsibilities has left the field wide open for all kinds of exploitation, both pre-and post-arrival. It has also created a system where migrant workers live in a twilight world, invisible and unsupported."

Government officials reject criticism that the work permit regime is a form of tied labour and point out that of some 20,000 permits issued this year, 8,000 involved employees changing employers.

The Government is also committed to reforming and streamlining the immigration system. But in the meantime, Eva and Donat will continue their stressful existence, isolated by their clandestine status and lack of language skills and painfully conscious that they are seen as inferior because they are just another couple of illegal Eastern Europeans. "We want to save enough money to open a little shop back home and start a family," says Donat.