New French Immigration Policy Will Affect Children of Immigrants
In early July, the French Parliament passed legislation into law to overhaul immigration policy. Most of the new rules make obtaining a visa or a work permit much more difficult, and it abolished an old policy of granting legal status to illegal immigrants who could document ten years of residency. In a promise to deport at least 26,000 illegal immigrants this year, the French government did not make a specific policy announcement regarding the treatment of children of illegal immigrants. On the expiration of a moratorium preventing the detention and deportation of school-aged children on July 1, the French government announced it would be granting amnesty for thousands of children enrolled in French schools and their families.
In June, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy – the centre-right frontrunner for next year’s presidential election – told regional authorities to reconsider cases on the basis of new criteria, such as whether child has “strong ties” to France. The new requirements include showing that one of their children was born in France or arrived before the age of 13, has been at school in France for two years, or has no link with the country of his or her parents. The Education Without Borders Network (RESF), which has coordinated the protest campaign, estimates that between 50,000 and 100,000 children of illegal immigrant families are in the French school system. RESF has made statements indicating that the new requirements don’t go far enough, and that many other children and their families will be left out of the amnesty offer.
Excerpted from: France Announces Amnesty Plans for Thousands of Families, workpermit.com, 7 July 2006
