I Just Wanted to Save My Family
Page 10
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Just before Christmas the civil servant who hands Zena the stamped forms tells her that her family will not need to come back to Toulouse anymore.
“Hungary hasn’t replied within the allotted time frame, so we can transfer your files to the prefectural office for the Tarn region in Albi. You need to go there in two weeks’ time, I’ll set up a meeting for you.”
In the car on the way home, Zena and her family are all euphoric: Hungary hasn’t made a move and that means they can stay in France! I don’t say anything, I don’t want to rain on their parade, but I certainly don’t share their high spirits. In 2015, the prefecture in Tarn is reputed to be harsh in all its decision-making, and there are many stories on social media about its anti-immigrant stance: I’m still very worried about how this will all turn out.
In early January 2016 Zena and her family come home perplexed after their first meeting at the prefectural office in Albi.
“The people in Toulouse didn’t send over our files yet, so we’ve been given another appointment.”
Luckily, it wasn’t a two-hour round trip this time.
In the meantime, Mayada has gone back to see Dr. R.: She still has terrible abdominal pains, has barely any appetite, and is losing more and more weight. She also recently started having inexplicable bouts of vomiting. The doctor decides to run a full set of diagnostic tests and the results are incontrovertible: Mimo has pancreatitis, a serious inflammation of the pancreas. By the time her diagnosis comes through, her life is in danger because at any moment she could be struck by necrosis of the pancreas, a hemorrhage, or septicemia. She is therefore given emergency surgery, but she will need five further operations before the doctors deem her to be out of danger. And there are side effects: For the rest of her life, Mayada will be dependent on heavy medication and will have to follow a draconian diet with no fats and no salt.
In mid-January Zena takes her family back to the prefectural office in Albi, and that’s the day the sky falls in on them. Without a word of explanation, they are handed a letter addressed to Saif and his family, saying that the prefect for Tarn “plans to have them readmitted to Hungary”—in other words, deported, driven out of France—and giving them a week to make their case. A week! With no legal support or translation services offered. As soon as she is home with them, Zena calls me in tears. A week. How can anyone believe they’re being given a proper chance to contest the decision to deport them? How do refugees cope if they have less support than Zena’s family does? It’s scandalous, a parody of correct procedure. I want to roar with anger, but I know it won’t do any good. We must counterattack, and quickly. Zena specializes in penal law and I’m an expert in labor laws: Legal practitioners we may be, but we know nothing of European law. Never mind that, formulating a reply to fend off their deportation becomes an obsession from the moment we first see that letter, and we throw ourselves body and soul into the relevant texts to find our arguments. We focus frantically on one article in the Dublin III Regulation. The prefect is indeed in a position to deport dublinned asylum seekers because the regulation leaves this option open, even when the country in which they were dublinned has not come forward (and this is precisely the situation threatening Zena’s family), but, according to article 17 of the same regulation, the prefect can also accept a request for asylum, even from people who have been dublinned. In a nutshell, Dublin III allows for a prefect to override Dublin III by deciding, without appeal, to consider applications for asylum from absolutely anyone in the world. But the prefect must want to do this…so we need to put forward some solid arguments.
We also look for a lawyer with expertise in this sort of case; it goes without saying that we don’t know any ourselves, and we’re soon disheartened when we type “lawyer specializing in refugees” into a search engine. Zena then thinks of turning to Terry Hugot, and it is Terry who puts us in touch with Mr. Brel in Toulouse. When Zena first gives me his name I do some research and find that he has already represented Syrian asylum seekers and has quite a high media profile—perfect. But from the very first phone call he tells us that he can make no direct contribution at this stage in the proceedings. All the same, he gives me some valuable advice to help us with our research, targeting specific articles in the Dublin III Regulation that have proved useful to him with other cases, and he tells me he would be prepared to contest the decision should it go against us.
Zena makes as much headway as she can during the day, and then after the evening meal she and I go through whatever information she has found that may help our case. But on the third evening, as soon as we’re alone to work on the file she takes my hand.
“Stéphan,” she says, “I did a test this morning. I’m pregnant.”
I put down my pen, lost for words, and it takes me a moment to assimilate the news. Zena’s pregnant! I’m overjoyed, throw my arms around her, and lift her off the floor, and she bursts out laughing.
“That’s wonderful news, but…are you really sure?”
“Well, the result was clear enough, but I’ll have a blood test next time we’re at the clinic.”
“It’s a sign, don’t you think? We must do everything we can to keep your parents here. This baby’s come now to give us strength!”
“That’s exactly what I thought, I was worried you’d think I’ve gone a little crazy…”
“Not at all, I mean, it’s obvious. Are you feeling tired?”
“No, I’m fine! In fact, I found some interesting stuff about my father’s health, I’ll show you. I’ll have to go see Dr. R., and I’m sure she’ll agree to write a statement for us.”
We go back to work, filled with new energy but still with pitifully few certainties. I’m devastated by Wafaa and Saif’s optimism when they realize that Zena and I will be drafting their response. They know of their daughter’s legal talents and have blind faith in me. We can’t possibly let them down—we must succeed.
Zena and I eventually come up with a letter several pages long, signed by her father and supported by some fifty pages of documentation, including a statement from Dr. R. to confirm the diagnosis of my father-in-law’s diabetes, a letter from the principal of Anas’s school, a statement from the social worker about Zena’s parents’ finances, Zena’s and Manal’s birth certificates to prove their family relationships, our marriage certificate for the words “married to a Frenchman”…I send a copy of our letter and all the appended documents to Mr. Brel.
On the appointed day, Zena and I accompany Saif, Wafaa, Mimo, and Anas to the prefectural office where we have a meeting with the head of the Immigration and Integration Department. He has salt-and-pepper hair above a perfectly inexpressive face and a pair of fine-framed rectangular glasses. His tall, gray figure communicates only a chilly inflexibility. As he reaches toward the file that I’ve put before him on the desk, I preempt his gesture by opening it myself and launching into a detailed presentation of our letter and all the documents enclosed with it. His face tenses but he has no choice: He will listen to me, to the very end.
It goes without saying that the first “observation” we make in our reply is that my father-in-law had no intention of asking for asylum in Hungary and didn’t even know that technically he had done so. He cannot contemplate returning to that country where he has no ties and where he and his family were beaten, brutalized, and arbitrarily incarcerated with no food or water. Hungary has in fact been the subject of European Commission investigations since December 2015 for procedural violations: Brussels is concerned that migrants whose right to asylum in Hungary is dismissed have great difficulty exercising their right to appeal or being heard by an impartial court.
Our letter also highlights Saif’s state of health. His serious diabetes means he needs daily doses of insulin, and, financially, he is entirely dependent on Zena and me. One of the articles in the Dublin III Regulation anticipates precisely this sort of case:
Zena is married to a Frenchman, has the appropriate residence permit, and her sister Manal was granted political refugee status by OFPRA in February 2015. The director’s face remains perfectly impassive during my whole presentation, and it’s abundantly clear that there would be no point in asking for his opinion or any indication of the possible outcome. He simply brings the meeting to an end with a bland, “We’ll study your file and get back to you very soon.”
To my great surprise he calls me the same afternoon.
“Is your father-in-law’s diabetes type I or type II? The doctor’s letter doesn’t specify.”
Zena races off to the clinic to discuss this with Dr. R.
“Your father actually has type II diabetes,” the doctor says, frowning. “Nonspecialists sometimes consider it benign in comparison with type I because of mistaken assumptions like, for example, type II diabetics aren’t insulin-dependent. Don’t worry, I’ll write you a solid statement.”
Zena leaves with a letter stating that “Mr. Al Khatib suffers from severe diabetes equivalent to type I, and needs daily insulin treatments.” I scan the letter so that it’s ready for the director the next morning.
A few days after our meeting, Saif receives a letter summoning him to the prefectural office on February 11. I can’t join them, but it’s the department director himself who sees Zena and her family again.
With a subtle smile playing on his lips, he tells Saif, “The prefect has reached his decision and I will give you a copy in writing. You are to be deported with your wife and two children.”
At this point Zena tries to interject but he raises an imperious hand and continues, still smiling, “Unfortunately, I can’t provide you with plane tickets immediately today but, believe me, it will be quick. In the meantime, you and the three other family members affected by this ruling will be under house arrest.”
Zena calls me moments later and tells me she couldn’t hold back her emotions: She burst into tears at the sheer cruelty of this man who clearly took pleasure in telling a whole family he was sending them to hell. I can hear all the others crying behind her. I, meanwhile, am savagely angry.
A few hours later I read the letter that the director handed to my father-in-law. Yes, these are the facts: The prefect of the Tarn region makes no allowances for the factors we set out for him and has drafted a prefectural decree in which he “entrusts Mr. Al Khatib to the Hungarian authorities who are responsible for considering his application for asylum.” And, therefore, to deport the whole family to Hungary. Even worse, the decision is coupled with house arrest, as if they were common terrorists, and the family must “clock in” at the police precinct twice a week.
Two people nearing their sixties and in fragile health, a high school boy, and a very sick young woman between two vital surgeries: That’s the gang of terrible criminals posing such a threat to French national security that each and every one of them needs to be under house arrest. It makes me so angry and ashamed, ashamed of my country, ashamed of individuals who claim to serve the state by turning away desperate people whose only ambition is to survive. What on earth does this prefect think the Al Khatibs are doing here? Sightseeing? Does he really believe they’ve chosen France after “benchmarking” social aid across Europe, to use the words of I-don’t-remember-which politician whom I don’t want to pay the respect of naming? I wish I could send all these heartless monsters to Syria for a month so they could understand. Understand that no human being would put him or herself through a journey as harrowing as the one my parents-in-law undertook out of notional “greed.” What would they possibly stand to gain? All the Syrians I know had flourishing careers in their own country: engineers, doctors, specialized craftsmen, lawyers…they had a comfortable standard of living, owned at least one house, had cars and paid for their children’s private educations. And it’s because they had the means that they could finance their journey to France. By leaving Syria they lost everything, and they did it to save the single most important thing: their own skins. Here, to their total despair, they’re mostly out of work. They’re haunted by the shame of having to live off benefits, and they fight to avoid being reduced to this. But very few of them succeed in having their professional qualifications recognized, and if they do, their years of experience in Syria are never taken into account.
So now my father-in-law is under house arrest with his box of insulin. But it gets worse. This absurd ruling automatically reduces the time that Zena’s family has to challenge the new decision…to just two days. Forty-eight hours to decide the lives of an entire family. But we planned ahead and have been in touch with the relevant lawyer for nearly a month: the tall, athletic thirtysomething Mr. Brel agrees to see us right away.
He confirms that the file Zena and I put together is perfectly on track, and decides to take on the administrative tribunal. He continues to rely on our arguments but also puts before the tribunal official reports of how badly asylum seekers are treated in Hungary, alongside the fact that Zena’s other sister, Mirvat, who stayed in Syria, has just obtained a visa for France with a view to asking for asylum. In a ruling made on February 16, the court revokes the decision to deport the family and instructs the Tarn prefect to reexamine the file.
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The threat has been avoided, but the administrative tribunal has set no time limit on the Tarn prefect. Weeks and months go by, Zena’s stomach grows bigger, but her family’s applications make no headway. We haven’t heard a word from the Tarn prefecture since the ruling from the administrative tribunal. To be blunt, they’ve ground to a halt.
My mother-in-law grows restless and starts fretting about how guilty she feels again.
“We’ve invaded your house for so long now,” she tells Zena, “it’s not right!”
My father-in-law is bored, he can’t bear having no purpose and nothing to do, he feels useless. I sometimes catch him standing at a window with his hands behind his back, his eyes blank. He lost everything when he left Syria, and he can’t find where he really belongs in France. Does he regret coming? Meanwhile, Mayada shuts herself in her bedroom, coming out only if Julia calls her, and spends hours on the phone with friends who stayed in Damascus. She too gave up part of her life, and it’s hard, particularly with her health problems.
My parents-in-law often call their daughter in Orléans, and Manal talks more and more about them going back to live with her. She has done some research and is convinced that the prefecture in the Loiret region looks far more favorably on refugees, so they would be granted asylum and even given housing. If they moved and had their file transferred, it could be a real opportunity for them: Every prefecture has its own policies for applying the directives and legislation concerning refugees.
Saif broaches the subject for the first time over dinner one evening, but Zena refuses even to listen.
“We’re a long way through the process with the prefecture in Albi, I’m sure it’ll get through. And there’s plenty of space for you here, you know it would be very different at Manal’s place.”
This is hard for Zena; I know she’s always dreamed of having her family here, near her. But Saif raises the subject again in private with me a few days later, and I can understand his distress—this absurd waiting game has dragged on for nearly nine months now.
I try my best to talk to my wife and the topic crops up repeatedly in other conversations…and Zena gradually comes to understand that she can’t keep them here by force. We sit down and discuss the idea again, and reach an agreement: We must let them go.
*1 “Allocation temporaire d’attente,” a temporary allowance that was discontinued in 2017
*2 The French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons
12.
New lives
We’re shell-shocked when the four of them leave in May, but we’re also happy and relieved for their sakes: There was no future for them in Tarn…perhaps there is in Loiret. And they also need to be more autonomous in their day-to-day lives. So long as they were here they all relied too heavily on Zena who, truth be told, wanted to be there for them every minute of the day. So she would drive Anas all over the place, convinced he wouldn’t manage otherwise. When he arrives at Manal’s house he immediately demonstrates that he’s perfectly capable of catching a bus to go wherever he wants.