“Academy” paid to prepare for his asylum request interview, pseudo-jurist advice to obtain or renew a residence permit: scams aimed at foreigners, lost in their administrative procedures to regularize their situation, prosper without being worried.
In the heart of the summer, a long line of people from Algeria, Cameroon or Salvador stretches in front of the Bus of the Solidarity of the Paris Bar, parked in the popular 18th arrondissement. Inside, four lawyers offer free consultations there.
Ahmad, a Tunisian with mediocre French, hopes for information to get out of hiding, holding in his holding hands his pay sheets, evidence of years of work in the construction industry.
The fifties, referred by an association, is wary after a previous experience with “a lawyer”. Anyone who presented himself as a “law professional” noted 700 euros without Hmad knowing if he met the criteria to be regularized, which does not seem to be the case.
“Each time I came to see him he asked me for a new paper and made me pay 90 euros,” he explains to AFP. The worker did not dare protest, fear of being expelled.
Situations like his, the Antanak association which helps people in difficulty with IT, sees “more and more, with the complexification of approaches”. Whether it is errors in the files committed by “unscrupulous lawyers, beginners and little to the right of foreigners” or on the part of “dishonest” methods that take advantage of the “distress” of migrants, lists Isabelle Carrère, founder of the association.
– Mysterious card –
“Migrants are often in an emergency, panicked, because they have no response from the prefecture on their file or have received an OQTF (obligation to leave French territory)”, notes Sandra Morin, secretary general of the CGT of Bobigny, on the front line to defend the regularization of undocumented workers.
The dematerialization of the procedure, accompanied by an explosion of appeals for five years several times pinned down by the defender of rights, and the tightening of the regularization criteria create a fertile ground for “unscrupulous scams”, denounce the two women.
Appeared a year ago in the metro, on municipal panels or social networks, the advertisements of a brand offering to support undocumented migrants in their “French steps”, were not long in causing new victims.
“Making a simplified approach to obtain an appointment in the prefecture is free, however with this organization it costs several hundred euros,” deplores Ms. Morin, who received a man relieved of 2,000 euros from the CGT.
Balance of justice attached to the name of the organization, blue-white-red color code, photos “of specialist experts” promising support from A to Z in fast deadlines: “Everything is done to reassure them”, notes the trade unionist.
On Tiktok, another organization with more than 23,000 followers offers the advice of “Coach Hervé K”. The man, with the appearance of a guru, promises in particular the issuance of a mysterious map allowing people in an irregular situation to “circulate freely without fear of being expelled”.
– “Form of fatality” –
To those who contact this organization by phone, it is immediately proposed to subscribe to a subscription for “aid to the process”, billed 365 euros. To encourage to pay without delay, it is specified that this price will increase to 495 euros the next day.
If the applicant’s situation does not meet the criteria to be regularized by work, the interlocutor still encourages the subscription, in order to build an asylum application, AFP noted.
In a WhatsApp group bringing together people interested in these services, training is also offered to become a nanny or home help, “even without a residence permit”, for 800 to 1,200 euros. For 1,299 euros, you can reach an “Academy asylum”. The sum includes “writing and correction of history”, this life story on which OFPRA agents, runs to flush out false declarations, found their decisions to grant the status of refugee.
In the discussion group with 600 members, certificates of banking transfers are increasing and the rare questions about the rates evacuated unremary: “Take it that suits you (…) avoid saturating the group.”
“Often shameful” to have been fooled, the victims of these “scams”, “who have already been had in their migratory journey, react with a form of fatality as if they deserved it”, laments Ms. Morin, pointing “their extreme vulnerability”.
Posted on August 18 at 8:01 a.m., AFP