The Coordination des sans-papiers will hold a national demonstration in Brussels on Sunday 26 February to demand a “dignified, accessible, fair and non-discriminatory” asylum and migration policy.
The network of collectives is calling for the regularisation of undocumented migrants, an end to the use of closed centres and a halt to expulsions.
The organisation deplores the lack of decision on the integration of undocumented migrants in Belgium since 2014, despite the succession of different government majorities.
“Although it gave a benevolent welcome to Ukrainian refugees in 2022, Alexander De Croo’s government has lacked inspiration and initiative on asylum and migration,” it adds. “Its programme has been to have no programme about undocumented people.”
With the demonstration on 26 February, which will cross Brussels from the North Station to the Albertine Square, the Coordination des Sans-Papiers invites civil society and citizens to mobilise to urge the government to put in place a “humane and just” asylum policy.
It also deplores the fact that the government does not take into account citizens’ mobilisations and initiatives, such as the ‘In My Name’ platform, which has drafted a bill for a “more transparent” asylum policy.
“It refuses the need to carry out deep, careful reflections, to open a concerted dialogue between the different actors on the ground, in order to find sustainable and definitive solutions to the situation of undocumented migrants and asylum seekers,” the Coordination charged.” The government has deliberately chosen to let people suffer and die,” it added.
