Foreword

1. Definition of the returnee and categories:

According to the definition recommended by the United Nations, return migrants or returnees are “Persons returning to their country of citizenship after having been international migrants (whether short-term or long-term) in another country and who are intending to stay in their own country for at least a year.”

The return patterns that are analysed in the context of the MIREM project draw on this definition and pertain exclusively to the act of returning to the country of origin. However, this definition does not take into account the factors that motivated the return journey, nor does it consider the duration of the migration experience lived abroad. Since the 1960s onwards, both elements have been subject to various scholarly approaches, from various disciplines. Among others, they allow two categories of returnees to be distinguished:

1. the migrants who were formerly residing abroad and who decided to return individually to their country of origin ;
2. the migrants who had to return to their country of origin as a result of specific factors and circumstances.

Both categories differ from one another in terms of:

• Return motivations ;
• The duration of the experiences of migration lived abroad ;
• Type of experience of migration ;
• Level of preparedness and return project ;
• Place of return (urban, rural);
• Reintegration process in the country of origin ;
• Links and networks with the country of immigration.

In this section related to the presentation and analysis of the statistical data related to returnees to the Maghreb (i.e., Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia), the two abovementioned categories of returnees have been taken into account, as well as their inherent heterogeneity. The statistical sources do not provide a comprehensive and precise vision regarding the socio-demographic characteristics of the returnees. Nor do they allow the return migration phenomenon and the link between return migration and development in migrants’ countries of origin to be properly understood and analysed. Moreover, owing to the fragmentary nature of the data, the used sources do not sufficiently inform us about return migration insofar as they do not take into consideration :

• The motivations, factors and circumstances which led migrants to return their country of origin ;
• Migrants’ resources and patterns of reintegration in their country of origin, as well as their respective impact on the local and domestic economy.

2. The National Sources in the Maghreb Countries:

The main sources stem from the national censuses in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, which were carried out in 1998, 1994, and 2004 respectively. The following variables were used :

• Sex;
• Geographical are (urban/rural);
• The wilaya/governorate of residence;
• The place of birth;
• The country of former residence;
• Civil status;
• Level of education;
• Professional occupation;
• Occupation rate;
• The sector of activity;
• The professional situation of the returnee

The data regarding Moroccan returnees allow the return migration phenomenon to be assessed, while taking into consideration the former-residence criterion. Actually, a returnee is viewed as a person who declared, when the census operations were carried out, that he/she was residing in another country before being resident in his/her country of origin. The notion of residence which was adopted in the context of the Moroccan census presupposes that the person stays or intends to stay for at least six months.

The statistical census data which were collected in Algeria and Morocco allow the regional distribution of the Moroccan and Algerian returnees to be studied, while taking into account the area of settlement (urban/rural), the former immigration country, age, sex, civil status and professional occupation. Various tables and graphs combine these variables together.

In Tunisia, the Institut National de la Statistique (INS) used a rather similar definition to the one adopted in Morocco, in the context of its 2004 population census. According to INS, a person is part of the “return population” (i.e., population de retour) when he/she resides in Tunisia during the census operations and when he/she declares a residence in a foreign country before 1999. Various variables have been crossed together, such as the former country of immigration, sex, age, the level of education, the current governorate of residence, the professional situation and the sector of activity of the returnee. Moreover, various categories of returnees could be identified.

However, as mentioned above, these macro data related to return migration do not explain the factors, circumstances and patterns of reintegration of the returnees in their country of origin. The statistical reports and studies written by the MIREM partners further elaborate on these preliminary observations.

3. The CIREFI data:

The decision to create the Centre for Information, Discussion and Exchange on the Crossing of Frontiers and Immigration (CIREFI) was taken in 1992 by the Ministers responsible for immigration matters. One of its main activities is to collate data and information on legal and illegal migration, document forgery and the removal policies adopted by all the Member States of the European Union (EU).

The CIREFI statistical data deal exclusively with the return of illegally staying third-country nationals who were addressed either a return decision issued by a Member State’s judicial or administrative body, or a removal order to implement their effective removal.

Consequently, the return notion used by CIREFI draws on the framework of action delimited by the April 2002 Green Paper on a community return policy on illegal residents, and on the September 2005 draft directive on common standards and procedures in Member States for returning illegally staying third-country nationals.

It is important to stress that the CIREFI data have to be taken with caution, not only because the EU Member States’ legislation and procedures for removing illegally staying third-country nationals differ substantially from one another, but also because there is no definition in Community law pertaining to forced returns and removals.

According to CIREFI, removed aliens are “persons other than those entitled under Community law who, having entered the country illegally, having resided in the country illegally or for other reasons, are returned to a third country.” The reference to this definition is necessary to understand that the CIREFI data:

• Inform about the number of persons who were effectively removed from each EU Member State. However, they do not show how many of them were removed to their country of origin or to a third country;
• Do not make a distinction between the number of rejected asylum-seekers who were removed to a third country and the number of undocumented and irregular migrants;
• Include the number of persons who were removed from the territory of a Member State for “other reasons”. This unclear category seems to consist of cases which are not related to migratory situations and may include non-EU persons who are convicted for criminal offences.

These preliminary remarks are important to stress that it is difficult to estimate precisely, on the basis of the CIREFI data, the number of illegal non-EU nationals who were effectively removed to their country of origin.[1] This shortcoming stems from the fact the CIREFI data take into consideration the (documented or assumed) citizenship of the person subject to a removal order. In other words, the data are not classified by third countries of destination for removed aliens.

The analytical interest of the CIREFI data lies in the possibility to give an overview of the main EU Member States concerned by forced return. They also allow general trends to be analysed, with specific reference to the citizenship of removed aliens.

To give an example, the nationals of the three Maghreb countries studied by the MIREM project, i.e., Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, are mostly removed from a rather limited number of EU Member States (i.e., France, Spain and Italy).

EU Member States (plus Iceland, Norway, acceding countries and Turkey) from which Maghrebi nationals are mostly removed (2004).

As shown on the table above, illegally staying Algerian nationals are mostly removed from France and, to a lesser extent, from Spain and the United Kingdom.

Regarding France, the CIREFI data show a substantial increase in the number of removed Algerian nationals which went from 2350 to 3582 cases, from 2002 to 2004 respectively. This sharp increase may be explained by the adoption of tightened policies regarding the fight against illegal migration, following the adoption of law 2003-1119, dated 26 November 2003. Actually, from a more general point of view, the total number of removed aliens from France, including those of Algerian citizenship, has increased substantially since 2003.

Similarly, the application of the bilateral agreement of cooperation on security matters and the fight against organized crime, which was signed by France and Algeria on 25 October 2003, may also account for the abovementioned increase. This bilateral agreement foresees, among others, a strengthened “operational and technical cooperation” in the field of domestic security, including the fight against illegal migration.

This cause-and-effect relationship needs to be further developed. Nonetheless, the French case-study shows that the CIREFI data reflect trends that cannot be understood or properly grasped without referring to a much larger analytical framework including the migration and asylum policies of the EU member States, their readmission policy and procedures, and their relations with migrants’ countries of origin and transit.

Many graphs and tables have been created by the MIREM team to facilitate the reading of the collected data on Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian returnees. A series of synchronic and diachronic comparisons allows the current trends to be studied, in various national settings, and the time variations pertaining to each EU Member State to be observed.