A Moroccan Foreign Ministry official refuses to decriminalize irregular immigration

Conclusively, an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccans Residing Abroad refused to discuss the issue of decriminalizing irregular migration in Morocco, considering that the criminalization decision “did not come out of nowhere,” and that the laws of all European countries criminalize the act of irregular migration.

The head of the Social Inclusion Department in the sector of Moroccans residing abroad, affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mohamed Al-Makouti, said in response to the call of human rights activist Sarah Sogar to decriminalize irregular migration, during a meeting organized by the National Council for Human Rights on the issue of foreigners and discrimination: “Since 2013 (date Morocco has begun to regularize the status of irregular migrants. I can no longer bear to discuss this topic, because the fifty thousand migrants whose legal status was regularized were residing illegally.

The same speaker considered that criminalizing irregular immigration “is not a legal basis adopted by the Kingdom of Morocco in a vacuum; There is a set of laws adopted by advanced European countries that criminalize irregular immigration, because the state’s territory is linked to the concept of sovereignty, and therefore entry into or exit from any country must be legal.”

He continued, saying: “One of the goals of the Global Compact for Safe and Orderly Migration is to reduce irregular mobility to regular mobility, and this poses a challenge, because coordination mechanisms at the European Union level are not available at the African Union level, due to a set of difficulties.”

The second reason that the official at the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs said requires not decriminalizing irregular migration is the great challenge posed by Morocco’s strategic location, where thousands of displaced migrants from countries experiencing conflicts, political crises, or climate-related problems flock to it, illegally, with the aim of Crossing to Europe.

The spokesman pointed out that Morocco has developed a program to manage migrant flows and combat human trafficking according to a humanitarian approach.

The number of asylum applications received by the Moroccan authorities between the years 2013 and 2014 reached a total of 800 applications, according to data provided by the head of the Social Integration Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccans Residing Abroad, pointing out that this increase in asylum applications prompted the authorities to reopen the refugee office. They are stateless, and instructions were given to regularize their status.

He explained that the Office of Refugees and Asylum-less Persons receives asylum seekers in Morocco who are subject to international protection, where they are heard and their administrative status is settled, pointing out that the purpose of settling their administrative status and protecting their legal identity is to enable them to facilitate their access to public services.

Regarding the accusations directed at the Moroccan authorities regarding the “forced transfer” of irregular migrants, the official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs defended this approach, considering that “the accumulation of a group of people in an irregular situation and in an unsafe place requires the intervention of public authorities in order to establish security and maintain security.” Public order and the preservation of health and tranquility,” he said.

He went on to say: “If there is an event like this, the public authorities try to ascertain the identity of those involved. Are they irregular immigrants, asylum seekers, or immigrants whose legal status has been settled and who have fallen into an illegal situation?” This happened with a number of people whose status was regularized,” pointing out that when the state took upon itself to settle the legal status of irregular immigrants, it allocated 83 offices for this purpose and a staff of three thousand employees.

Al-Makouti highlighted that Moroccan legal texts “give sufficient guarantees to pregnant women, children, and asylum seekers, so that they will not be deported or deported,” adding that “this systematic shift in national governmental policy, in implementation of constitutional principles, reflects the consecration of respect for human rights, whether Moroccan.” Or a foreigner, and this is one of the established principles that we have begun to see even in national legislation.”