FORMATO ESTÁNDAR

Alongside the changes in content described above, the target groups in the Belgian AVR programme also changed over time (see figure 3.1). At its start in 1984, the entry criteria were quite broad, covering anyone without a residence permit, irrespective of administrative antecedents, on the condition that “people with a temporary (asylum seekers) or permanent (recognized refugees) residence permit relinquish their status and residence permit prior to admission to the programme” (Fedasil, 2009a, p. 8). The programme’s main target groups were, however, defined as asylum seekers who abandoned their claim (category a), rejected asylum seekers (category b) and undocumented migrants who had not applied for asylum (category c) (Fedasil, 2009a). In the beginning, as well as persons with a residence permit, all citizens of EU countries and countries within the Schengen Zone were excluded. Later, exceptions were made, and entitlement to a flight ticket was also granted to nationals of the ten new member states when the EU enlarged in 2003 and also to the citizens of Romania and Bulgaria who became EU citizens in 2007.⁵ Undocumented migrants had to have resided for at least three months on Belgian territory, and a social report that demonstrated their destitution was required. This latter element indicates that it was mainly people’s needs that determined the entitlement to support, as “[a] voluntary return programme is designed, theoretically, for people who wish to leave a

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territory, but do not have the means to pay for this” (Fedasil, 2009a, p. 30). An analysis of participation in the AVR programme between 1994 and 2004 showed that after an initially low level of uptake, an increasing number of undocumented migrants returned through the AVR programme (Foblets & Vanbeselaere, 2006).

In 2004, the count of undocumented migrants exceeded the number of rejected asylum seekers for the first time (Foblets & Vanbeselaere, 2006; VWV, 2005). This tendency continued until 2010 (IOM, 2012b).

In 2006, the travel support was enhanced by reintegration support and any person who returned voluntarily and needed further reintegration assistance could apply for reintegration support to one of the reintegration partners, which decided on whether to grant it (EMN, 2010; Fedasil, 2009a). However, figures from 2008-9 show that the extra reintegration support was allocated to rejected asylum seekers twice as often as to undocumented migrants (Fedasil, 2010; IOM, 2009), a finding attributed to the greater availability of information about this type of reintegration support in the reception structures for asylum seekers (Rentmeester, 2008).

The implementation of the EU Return Fund enlarged the initial reintegration support to cover setting up a micro-business and particular vulnerable groups of returnees but did not introduce extra entry criteria for asylum seekers (category a) and rejected asylum seekers (category b). Nonetheless, a growing emphasis was put on the idea that AVR support consisted of a range of increasing layers of support (travel support; reintegration support; enlarged reintegration support), and therefore needed to relate to proportionally stricter admission criteria (EMN, 2011b; Fedasil, 2009b; Fedasil, 2011). While the entry criteria for (rejected) asylum seekers remained unchanged, the criteria for undocumented migrants were altered: a social report that determined their destitution was still required to entitle them to travel support, but their access to reintegration support was determined either by the time they had resided in Belgium or by receipt of an order to leave the territory.⁶ Concerning the first criterion, only migrants who had lived in Belgium for a minimum of 12 months could be given this reintegration support. A change that was introduced in the belief that it would help to avoid abuse (i.e. coming to Belgium with the goal of returning with reintegration support) and enable selection of those returnees most in need of reintegration support, having been away from their home country for a long time (Fedasil, 2009b; Rentmeester, 2008). In contrast, with the introduction of the other eligibility criterion, namely having an order to leave the territory, it were returnees’ residence documents that determined their access to additional reintegration support, instead of their needs, as was previously the case. Here, a dual focus emerges: reintegration support must help those returnees needing it, but must also convince those migrants whom the government wants to return.

93 In addition, from 2010 and onwards the scope of exclusion was extended to people from Balkan countries for whom the visa requirements to enter the EU disappeared,⁷ and to Brazilians, who were mainly undocumented migrants and of whom abuse of the programme was presumed: these migrants could only receive travel support and were totally excluded from reintegration support (Fedasil, 2011, 2012a; Kruispunt Migratie-Integratie, 2012). The latter also impacted on the figures, as figures from 2011 showed a decrease in the number of undocumented migrants in the AVR programme (IOM, 2012b). But the percentage of undocumented migrants who received reintegration support also decreased and was now exceeded by a growing number of asylum seekers and rejected asylum seekers receiving reintegration support (respectively 17, 54 and 61 per cent) (see figure 3.2). Yet, it should be noted that the organizations providing pre-departure counselling always had the discretionary space to make exceptions, based on the evaluation of an applicant’s needs. This enabled them to negotiate with Fedasil on refusing support to people who were in fact eligible and, at the same time, to allocate support to returnees who were – according to the criteria – not eligible (Fedasil, 2009b).

In May 2012, the entitlement criteria underwent new drastic changes. First, the entire package of reintegration support (both national and EU funded) was limited to asylum seekers whose procedure was still ongoing and to rejected asylum seekers who applied for return support within the 30-day time limit imposed by their order to leave the territory. Second, only rejected asylum seekers and undocumented migrants who decided to return through the programme within 12 months after receiving an order to leave the territory were entitled to receive the national reintegration support. Third, people who had never asked for asylum or received an order to leave the territory were only entitled to a flight ticket and were thus excluded from any reintegration support (Fedasil, 2013). These new criteria indicate that the level of reintegration support became strictly related to the administrative procedures of the applicant (i.e.

applications for asylum), and to the time frame within which the person decided to return: the faster you returned, the more support you could receive. These changes were immediately noticeable in the figures for beneficiaries of the AVR programme (see figure 3.2): in 2012, rejected asylum seekers again became the largest beneficiary group of the travel support, and, together with applicants who quit their asylum procedure (category a), they constituted two thirds of the AVR returnees (Fedasil, 2013, 2014). The absolute number of rejected asylum seekers in the programme also showed a remarkable increase in 2011. The figures for reintegration support revealed that in 2012 more than two-thirds of the (rejected) asylum seekers involved (categories a and b) received reintegration support on top of the travel support. In 2013, this percentage amounted to 85 per cent of the

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asylum seekers (category a), while for undocumented migrants this figure dropped to 14 percent (Fedasil, 2013, 2014).

Figure 3.2ⁱ Allocation of travel support and reintegration support in the AVR programme (2006–13)

Sources: Caritas International, 2008; IOM, 2009; IOM, 2010; Fedasil, 2013; Fedasil, 2014.

i TS= travel support; RS = reintegration support; ⁱⁱ No data are available regarding the distribution of reintegration support between the different categories of beneficiaries in 2006 and 2007; ⁱⁱⁱ category a= asylum seekers who abandoned their claim; category b=

rejected asylum seekers; category c= undocumented migrants who had not applied for asylum.