The economic crisis and xenophobic speeches from the media and political parties—mostly linked to the opposition—have spurred anti-immigration sentiment in Turkey. So, with the municipal elections next March in mind, in which control of important cities such as Istanbul and Ankara will be resolved, the new Executive of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has tightened immigration controls and has carried out mass arrests in which Tens of thousands of foreigners have been captured and deported. These operations, according to lawyers and activists, violate the most basic rights.
“We are scared. Many of us stay stuck at home, but to pay the rent you have to go out there and fight for it. The problem is that, if you leave home, you don’t know if you are going to return,” says a Nigerian pastor, who asks to hide his name due to the sensitivity of the situation. Most of his compatriots in Turkey, he explains, are dedicated to purchasing consumer items that they send to their country for resale, but every time they go to the markets they risk being stopped at the new mobile police checkpoints deployed as part of the plan against irregular immigration of the new Minister of the Interior, Ali Yerlikaya, initiated this summer in Istanbul and which is being extended to other large cities in Turkey. “There are controls in the markets, at bus stops, on the subway. And the arrests are massive. There are many Nigerians in deportation camps. Many of them had a residence permit, but they could not renew it or it was not approved,” says the pastor.
According to Interior data, since mid-June more than 112,000 foreigners without papers have been detained, of which some 48,000 have already been deported. Lawyers and activists consulted emphasize that among those detained there are also asylum seekers, people in the process of renewing their residence permits and even people with proper documentation. In addition to those deported, a large number of foreigners have left Turkey in recent months in the face of increasing obstacles to renewing papers. “As a result of our exhaustive controls, and this is very good news, 120,531 foreigners whose visa or residence permit had expired have left our country knowing that we were going to arrest them,” Yerlikaya congratulated himself on October 12.
“These operations to combat irregular migration focus on an effective capture in the country and the establishment of an efficient and agile deportation mechanism,” a source from the Turkish Ministry of the Interior explains to this newspaper. The objective, he says, is to “reduce the pressure of irregular migration” and “create a deterrent effect.”
There are 1.13 million foreigners with a residence permit living in Turkey, that is, 225,000 fewer than at the beginning of the year, according to official statistics. The number of people under international protection (Iraqis, Afghans, Ukrainians) has also decreased by almost 20,000 people to 287,000, and the number of Syrian refugees – who have a special status – has gone from 3.74 million to 3.25 in just year and a half.
“What has happened to these half a million Syrians who have disappeared?” asks Syrian-Turkish activist Taha Elgazi. The answer, he affirms, is that some are still in the country, but without papers, others have emigrated irregularly to Europe and others have returned to Syria “forced by circumstances” and “pressures from the Government”, such as the ban on that settle in certain neighborhoods or provinces. “In recent times, discrimination and racism has increased greatly, especially against Syrians. There have also been violent attacks and people have begun to be afraid,” he denounces.
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More than 50 Latin Americans detained or deported
“It’s crazy,” complains a Latin American diplomat. According to data collected by this newspaper through diplomatic sources, there are more than fifty citizens of Latin American countries who have been detained and deported—or are in the process of being deported—including several Venezuelan students on scholarships from the Turkish Ministry of Education. who were expelled despite their embassy’s attempts to prevent it. “Recently, the father-in-law of one of our citizens was arrested and deported. In the end he decided to leave the country because he was afraid that they would also arrest him,” explains another diplomat. The most famous case has been that of two Moroccan tourists who were legally in Turkey and, after being arrested last August, were deported to a area of northern Syria because the Turkish authorities believed they were from that country.
“The Turkish Minister of the Interior has clearly indicated that his intention is for Turkey to stop being a transit country [para los migrantes] because that also makes it a country of destination,” explains the ambassador of the European Union in Ankara, Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut, in an interview with EL PAÍS during which he explains that contacts are being maintained with the Turkish authorities to “update” the 2016 anti-immigration agreement.
This pact, which made Ankara the guardian of the EU’s southeastern border, caused the arrivals of migrants and refugees to European territory from this country to be reduced, and the routes to be diverted towards the central Mediterranean. It also made Turkey the country in the world that hosts the largest number of refugees (3.5 million), although the number of foreigners barely exceeds 7% of the country’s population, even taking into account a estimated two million migrants in an irregular situation.
Even so, migration has taken up much of the public debate in Turkey in recent years, in an environment of growing xenophobia, fueled in the press with articles that blame foreigners for economic problems, the increase in online scams or that the price of housing has skyrocketed (despite the fact that foreigners only make up between 3% and 4% of buyers, compared to more than 15% in Spain).
Rosa Martínez and her boyfriend, Adrián Cuadrado, had their documentation in order. Both – whose names have been changed for fear of reprisals – arrived in Turkey four years ago from Cuba wanting to “work and have a quiet and comfortable family.” “We went into debt to leave Cuba and here we work in aesthetic clinics [la floreciente industria turca de los injertos capilares y otras cirugías plásticas emplea a numerosos trabajadores migrantes como traductores]. After three years of working and paying off our debts, when we began to live, problems began for migrants,” Martínez laments.
In February, she says, they moved to a new apartment, but the owner began to harass Martínez and, faced with her repeated rejections, she reported the boyfriend to the police. “He locked us in the house until the agents arrived. Even though we proved that the complaint was false, they took my boyfriend away. The issue here is that they are giving any reason to take foreigners to a detention center,” Martínez argues. Ebru Bese, an expert immigration lawyer, confirms that she has found numerous cases in which any excuse, such as unproven allegations or complaints, is used to detain foreigners and reverse their resident status.
For the next two and a half weeks, Adrián Cuadrado “disappeared.” Nobody knew where he was, nobody could communicate with him, the authorities gave no information. When the Cuban managed to contact his partner, he had passed through two detention centers: one near Istanbul and another in Kayseri, 780 kilometers away.
“There are people who we don’t know where they are,” explains Irfan Güler, a lawyer specialized in this type of case: “They usually take them to Tuzla [un municipio en el extrarradio de Estambul] and from there to cities in the east of the country such as Erzurum or Agri [a más de 1.200 kilómetros]. It is a policy determined to hinder the work of lawyers and prevent us from appealing in time against deportation decisions.”
EU-funded centers
In Turkey there are 28 deportation centers spread throughout the country, 14 of them built and another seven renovated with EU money transferred in exchange for the 2016 anti-migration agreement. They are prison-based institutions where foreigners are interned while awaiting their expulsion from the country, and where inmates “have fewer rights than a common criminal,” says lawyer Gülden Sönmez: “If a Turkish citizen has committed a crime, he can be kept in police custody for a maximum of 48 hours and then must appear. before a judge. But if you are a foreigner and have not committed any crime, you can remain locked up for months, without access to translators or lawyers.”
“They have not killed or robbed and they are in a prison where they are mistreated, beaten and humiliated like dogs, they are spit on, they are made to sleep next to feces. My partner was in a cell with more than 15 prisoners, two per mattress, all lying on the floor and with only one toilet for everyone in the cell,” says Rosa Martínez. Lawyer Ebru Bese confirms that the Ankara Bar Association, to which she belongs, has received complaints about poor conditions in deportation centers, including mistreatment, torture, rape and suicide. “But we have not been allowed access to investigate it, there is a lot of opacity,” she alleges.
The EU ambassador acknowledges being aware of the complaints about detention centers, but defends himself by claiming that “the EU has financed training courses for training in the management of migration and asylum processing so that they are compatible with international law and human rights” and that “the centers are run by the Turkish authorities.” The Interior source, for its part, denies that these abuses occur and maintains that, in the centers, “irregular immigrants are housed with human dignity” and “their basic needs are met.” “Our main objective to reduce the length of stay of irregular immigrants in the center is to guarantee quick deportation procedures,” he adds.
After four months locked up—during which his residence permit expired without being able to do anything to renew it—and seeing that neither the actions of the lawyers nor the interventions of the Cuban consulate had any effect, Adrián Cuadrado decided to sign the voluntary deportation document, since In mid-October he was transferred to the Istanbul airport to board a flight to his country (which had to be paid for by his partner). The lawyers and activists consulted consider that, in fact, the prolonged confinement to which detained foreigners are subjected and the treatment they receive is a strategy aimed at making them sign deportation documents. “They are forced to sign voluntary deportation forms, and those who refuse are subjected to mistreatment,” says Bese.
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