French who aid migrants are targeted

It wasn’t yet 8 a.m. when police knocked on Monique Pouille’s door, searched her home and took her away -- all because she recharged cellphones for illegal migrants.

The 59-year-old volunteer with groups in the Calais region of northern France was put behind bars and interrogated for three hours before being freed.

The French government forbids helping illegal migrants, and has set quotas for arrests of those who do as it tries to control growing clandestine immigration. This year’s target: 5,000 arrests.

Authorities contend the policy is aimed at those who profit financially from those in France illegally. However, the Pouille episode exemplifies what humanitarian associations and others contend is a concerted effort to harass volunteers who provide a lifeline, or a simple kindness, to migrants.

“I think the idea is to send out a strong message, ‘Watch out, danger,’ and that is scandalous,” said Pouille’s lawyer, Bruno Dubout, noting other cases in which volunteers have been questioned by police and sometimes charged.

Humanitarian associations held demonstrations in major cities Wednesday to protest what they say is the “crime of solidarity.”

The groups cite an article in the code governing foreigners’ right to remain in France that forbids anyone from facilitating or trying to facilitate “the entry, movement or irregular [illegal] stay of a foreigner in France.” Doing so is punishable by up to five years in prison and a $40,000 fine. But few, if any, activists like Pouille are charged with a crime or spend significant time in prison.

An addendum on immigration in the 2009 Finance Law sets a quota for arrests of those who “assist” illegal migrants: 5,000 in 2009, 5,500 in 2011.

The Immigration Ministry, created when President Nicolas Sarkozy took office in 2007, proudly makes public its yearly expulsion quota -- the 2008 goal of 26,000 expulsions was surpassed, reaching 29,796 -- but, until now, there had been no talk of quotas for those who help illegal immigrants.

Immigration Minister Eric Besson says the article is “indispensable” for combating smugglers who profit from migrants.

“Is patriotism something you like only when it is brandished by Barack Obama?” Besson asked opposition lawmakers last month in the lower house as Socialists prepared a measure to modify the wording of the article on assistance. It is to be debated April 30.

“In France today there is a real climate of intimidation against those who help” illegal migrants, Catherine Coutelle, a Socialist lawmaker behind the bid to modify the law, said.

She said the move to change the law was partly inspired by a movie out this month “Welcome,” the story of a Calais swimming instructor who teaches an illegal immigrant how to swim so he can cross the English Channel to Britain.

As many as 1,800 migrants hoping to sneak into Britain in trucks can be found at any given time in Calais, gathered in makeshift camps since the leveling of a Red Cross shelter in Sangatte in 2002. Volunteers try to ease their suffering.

“We feel that volunteers are being surveyed, tracked . . . for insignificant reasons” to discourage working with illegal migrants, said the Rev. Jean-Pierre Boutoille, who has long helped migrants in Calais.

Police paid a visit to Pouille’s house Feb. 25. She told the association she works with, Land of Roaming, that “they knew a lot about me and the association.” No charges were filed. She could not be reached for an interview.

Jean-Claude Lenoir, a middle school teacher in Calais and vice president of the association Salam, was arrested in November as police, with dogs and a helicopter, rounded up migrants. He appeared in court Feb. 25 for alleged verbal abuse of police, which he denies. The proceedings were postponed until June.

Last month, a young woman driving two migrants to a hospital, wearing a vest identifying her as a Salam volunteer, was detained for four hours, Lenoir said, adding that “there is pressure, harassment.”

In southern France, in the port city of Marseille, police descended on an Emmaus Community facility on Feb. 17 in search of illegal migrants, a day after the arrest of a man without papers who had been given lodging there. An official from the group was held six hours for questioning, Emmaus said. No charges were filed.

Teddy Roudaut, communications officer for Emmaus France, said there is no legal definition for someone who assists those without papers, so the law can be applied “to someone who serves soup or . . . gives lodging to someone.”

He said that Emmaus, an international group, does not defend smugglers, “but the law is so fuzzy it can apply to us.”

There is no global count of the number of volunteers who have been detained by police.

But Roudaut said, “We’re obviously afraid that we’re becoming a reservoir for [the Immigration Ministry’s] quota.”