Tag: Finnish Immigration Service

Asylum seeker in detention cell 406: Administrative court halts deportation order temporarily

Posted on by Migrant Tales

After a nerve-racking week, The Administrative Court has stopped temporarily deportation proceedings of Iraqi asylum seeker in detention cell 406 in Joutseno*, Finland.

“I was relieved when I heard the news from the lawyer (Friday),” he said. “This has given me hope and I almost gave up hope and didn’t mind if I died.”

Even if the deportation was stopped it doesn’t mean that the asylum seeker is out of the woods.

 

“On my second application for asylum I got a rejection from Migri (The Finnish Immigration Service),” he continued. “I don’t know how long it will take for the administrative court to decide but it may take as much as 3-6 months.”

The Iraqi asylum seeker said that he would like to be freed from detention but that the authorities are skeptical because he traveled to Germany, where he was deported back to Finland.

“I have told the police that I will not go anywhere or leave the country if I’m freed from detention,” he continued. “This detention center is a horrible place. There are human smugglers and murderers. What am I doing in such a place?”

* The asylum seeker who was locked up in this cell thought he was in Lappeenranta but in fact he was at the Joutseno immigration removal center located 20km away.

Iraqi asylum seeker in detention cell 406: “Migri doesn’t believe I’m a Christian”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Just like the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) proclaims violent countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia to be “safe” for such nationals but not for Finns, they don’t have any problems about deporting you back to such countries if you are a Christian. If what Iraqi asylum seeker in detention cell 406 in Joutseno* states is correct, his life is in danger if deported as a Christian back to his former home country. 

The document below, provided by the asylum seeker is an interview with a grand mufti, an authority that interprets and spells out Islamic law. Grand Mufti Mahdi Ben Ahmed Al-Sumldei states quite clearly in the document that any Muslim that changes religion should suffer death.

“The death of such a person is based on an order by the prophet Muhammed: a person who changes his religion must die,” the document states citing a book.

The asylum seeker in detention cell 406 alleges that his father was killed in Iraq in 2010 for being a Christian.

 

“They warned that if my father converted to Christianity he and his family would be killed,” the asylum seeker said. “We escaped to Syria [after he was killed] and didn’t want to return [to Iraq] because we feared for our lives.”

“I didn’t mention this in the first interview with Migri because fear hit me,” he added. “I was afraid to tell anyone this fact about my family. I fear for my life in Iraq.”

* The asylum seeker who was locked up in this cell thought he was in Lappeenranta but in fact he was at the Joutseno immigration removal center located 20km away.

 

A Cameroonian’s rendezvous with near-deportation in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

After publishing the detention of an Iraqi asylum seeker in Lappeenranta on Tuesday, another asylum seeker contacted us on the same day. The asylum seeker was in police custody in the city of Vaasa. Contrary to the Iraqi asylum seeker, the Cameroonian was married to a Finn who is was expecting a child. 

His Finnish wife wrote a letter in case the authorities went through with her husband’s deportation.

“What am I thinking? I can’t think straight. I feel empty inside…They detained my beloved husband on the same day we heard about his rejection for asylum…What will I tell my unborn child the day he will ask where his father is and why he is not by our side?”

Matters looked bleak on Friday for the Cameroonian asylum seeker, who was transferred from Vaasa to the Metsälä immigration removal center in Helsinki. At 2 pm, however, he got a call from his wife who told him the good news: “The lawyer called and said your deportation was canceled.”

While the asylum seeker was relieved by the news, he was released at 5:11 pm. He wasn’t offered any compensation from the police to travel back to Vaasa from Helsinki.

The asylum seeker does not understand why he had to endure this ordeal and detention.

“Even if I feel relieved,” the asylum seeker said. “This has been a horrible experience.”

The asylum seeker applied for a residence permit after he got married in 2016, but it was turned down.

“It’s clear that they [Migri] doesn’t want me here,” he added.

Despite all that happened, an unanswered question remains: How can Migri deport an asylum seeker who is married to a Finn that is expecting a child?

A lawyer who works with asylum seekers told Migrant Tales that the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) deports even married people because they believe it would be in the best interest of the child.

“Migri is especially suspicious of Africans and non-Europeans who get married to Finns,” said another activist who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Email from the Cameroonian who got sent to the immigration removal center of Metsälä in Helsinki.

Continue reading “A Cameroonian’s rendezvous with near-deportation in Finland”

UPDATE: How Migri and Finland play down the plight and suffering of asylum seekers

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I heard on Wednesday that a nineteen-year-old Afghan resident who came as an asylum seeker to Finland took his life this week. A fellow Afghan who knew him said: “What happened is very sad. He wasn’t very social and liked to be by himself.” 

UPDATE (10:13 pm): According to his friend, the young man wanted to see his sister in Iran who had died this year but couldn’t because he had a one-year residence permit and this made him sad. Migrant Tales cannot confirm if a person with a one-year residence permit can travel abroad.

The Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) said in a statement last year that there have been 15-20 suicide attempts of which five resulted in deaths.

Migri said in a YLE story that there were 60 suicide attempts in 2016, of which 40 happened in August-September of that year. All in all, there were nearly 70 suicide attempts during 2016-2017, but these have fallen by “less than ten times” this year, according to YLE, which cites a Migri source.

“This year no one had lost his or her life due to a suicide attempt,” said Migri’s Olli Snellman was quoted as saying in Helsingin Sanomat. “Last year there were one or two [deaths]. It’s a really small amount considering that there were 40,000 asylum seekers [in the country].”

Like a lot of news about asylum seekers, the narrative is the same: Play down their situation, fuel suspicion and mistrust. These aren’t “real” refugees anyway.

Like the young Afghan who took his life, it would be interesting to know how many commit suicide after they get their residence permit.

The person in the picture below is one such case.

The young nineteen-year-old Afghan who took his life this week.

 

Migrant Tales insight: Swedish Daily News published an article on legal alternatives for negative asylum decisions in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Anyone who has had a refusal to emigrate from Finland has the problem of not organizing his or her defense at the appeal stage of the Finnish courts. Unfortunately, many are getting their applications for asylum rejected by the court. It is important to obtain support and information on the closure of the asylum case in Finland after all stages of the judicial appeal are exhausted.

There is more than meets the eye on this issue. We at Migrant Tales claim:
– Lawyers representing asylum seekers: Very few of them care to check the asylum seeker’s interview, read between the lines and highlight the important points. Instead, they just present the case to the court and make  easy money;
– Lack of trust as asylum seekers rightly feel that their lawyers would care less about their case. They do not ask clients the right questions that would strengthen their cases.
– Lawyers have a huge number of clients and therefore have no time to study each case effectively and represent the asylum seeker in need;
– Poor interpreters that do their job inefficiently and that fail to convey the right idea. Many asylum seekers told us that the interpreter twisted their statements and told the opposite of what they were saying.
Read the full story (in Arabic) here.
 
To clarify what is the role of a lawyer, we highlight the different appeal stages:

Finnish Interior Minister Paula Risikko vacationing in a war zone

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Sira Moksi has made quite a name for herself by drawing cartoons that newspapers wouldn’t publish. In the one below, we see Interior Minister Paula Risikko vacationing in a “safe” country like Iraq or Afghanistan. Where would Interior Minister Permanent Secretary Päivi Nerg vacation? What about the director general of the Finnish Immigration Service, Jaana Vuori? What about Prime Minister Juha Sipilä? President Sauli Niinistö? Finance Minister Petteri Orpo?

Let’s challenge all of them to visit those countries they deem as safe and where asylum seekers are being deported, even entire families and children.

Interior Minister Risikko outdid herself again right after the Turku stabbings by suggesting, among other things, that there are plans to pass a new law that would criminalize helping undocumented migrants in Finland.

And now, without further ado, Moksi gives us Interior Minister Risikko enjoying a vacation in a war zone.

In Arabic: ???? ???????? ???????? ????? ?????? ???? ???? ?? ????? ???

 

Zaki Husseini returns to Finland after being deported and staying 47 days in Kabul, Afghanistan

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Zaki Husseini, 19, became the first asylum seeker that came in 2015 to return to Finland after being deported. He got in touch with Migrant Tales  a day after he was deported to Kabul. Thanks to Hussain Kazemian, we were able to get a glimpse of his ordeal and bad luck. A day after he was forced to return to Afghanistan on July 4 with 11 other asylum seekers, the supreme district court ruled against his deportation. 

Below is the interview Kazemian did of Husseini on July 4:

Read the full story here.

Contrary to those grim days in Kabul, Husseini not only returned to his new home country but got a work permit.

“I am glad to come back to Finland again,” he said.  “I spoke Finnish at Finnish Embassy of Kabul and mentioned to them my life, friends, job and education I had in Finland. I knew and believed that I’d return back to Finland.” 

Continue reading “Zaki Husseini returns to Finland after being deported and staying 47 days in Kabul, Afghanistan”

After detention for 27 days in Finland, Iraqi asylum seeker gets rejection for work permit after half-a-year wait

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Remember an Iraqi asylum seeker called Hayder Al-Hatemi who was detained for 27 days from January 6-February 2 pending a deportation order? He applied for a work permit on February 6 shortly after his release and had learned at the beginning of August that it had been turned down. 

Al-Hatemi said that the bakery where he is employed had opened another branch and needs workers.

“The reason why I got [my work permit] turned down is that they state that Finns can do my job and because there is unemployment in Southern Finland,” he said. “The owner of the bakery put ads in the paper but no Finn applied. At work, we’re 17 employees from countries like Iran, Iraq, Estonia, Russia  and only two Finns.”

Despite the treatment that Al-Hatemi has received from the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri), he said that he’d still come to Finland and apply for asylum.

“I would come to this country again because the Finns I have met are nice,” he continued. “The people are friendly, but it’s another story if we talk about Migri and the government.”

Read the full story here.

Al-Hatemi already has four rejections for asylum and one for a work permit.

“I probably have the world record in Finland for the most rejections,” he said with a pinch of humor.

Continue reading “After detention for 27 days in Finland, Iraqi asylum seeker gets rejection for work permit after half-a-year wait”

The Finnish Immigration Service’s way of saying “this country isn’t your home”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I got a call Friday from a Migrant Tales longtime reader who came to Finland as a child and is in his mid-30s today. “Could you tell me what this message (by the Finnish Immigration Service or Migri) means?!” he asked. “If they send me back to my country I won’t know what to do. I’ll kill myself [before being deported].”

The slip that the longtime reader received from Migri reads:

The bearer of this document can reside lawfully in Finland until a legal decision is made to renew (his residence permit) or deport the person from the country.*

How is it possible that a person who grew up most of his life and lived his adult life in Finland received such a statement by Migri? And then our policy-makers wonder why people are marginalized and excluded from society.

Finland in general and Migri, in particular, should stop their hostile stand on cultural diversity and take a few courses on how customer service.

The first important policy decision that officials should make is to help people feel at home in this country instead of like eternal outsiders. It shouldn’t be code for “this country isn’t your home.”

In the so-called “good old days” of the 1980s, migrants were not only given temporary residence permits but had at one time to apply for a work permit for each employer.  Source: piknu.com.

* Todistuksen haltija voi oleskella laillisesti Suomessa asiankäsittelyn ajan kunnes asia on lainvoimaisesti ratkaistu tai on tehty täytäntöönpanokelpoinen päätös hakijan maasta poistamiseksi.

 

 

Zaki and Baran are still in a state of shock after they were deported to Afghanistan on Tuesday

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales got an unexpected friend request on Facebook late Tuesday evening. It was Zaki, one of the Afghan asylum seekers who was deported to Kabul on Tuesday with eleven other people. 

Helsingin Sanomat published an extensive article about Zaki’s ordeal.

What makes Zaki’s case so frustrating is that the supreme district court overruled his deportation ruling by the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) on Wednesday, a day after he was deported and escorted by 3-4 police officers to Kabul.

Hussein Kazemian interviewed Zaki by phone today. He said that both Zaki and his friend, Baran, who was also deported, are in shock and full of fear. For their long journey to Finland and months of uncertainty, they were given 200 US dollars*  by the police on the flight for their worries.

Kazemian: What are you thoughts at this moment?

Zaki: I feel threatened and cannot go outside the IOM guest houses. I believe that those people who threatened me are looking for me. I hope I can find a way to return [to Finland].

Kazemian: What do you think about Migri’s decision to deport you?

Zaki: It’s unfair. I had a job [in Finland] and was living with a Finnish family.

Continue reading “Zaki and Baran are still in a state of shock after they were deported to Afghanistan on Tuesday”