Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/444527
IT requires patience, a strong will, and also timing. As dawn breaks every Friday morning, the identity card office at the Evans Building in Valletta sends out its guard to meet some 150 migrants – of various African nationalities, some Middle East- ern – who have been queuing up all night to get into the office and ap- ply for an e-residence card. As the automatic gate opens to let in the first employees at around 6am, the guard comes up to the mi- grants assembled outside. Many of them have slept rough, coming as early as 10pm on Thursday night to put down their name on a list han- dled by one of the migrants. But the guard has bad news: the ID office is only going to take in 40 clients. A murmur of discontent and then chaos. Infighting breaks out, as two- thirds of the people waiting for their e-residence card are going to brave another night next Friday. "I have to renew my ID card and I only have one day to do that, which is Friday, and there are a lot of peo- ple here. Without it, you cannot re- new your working permit. "I'm working here paying taxes, to go to work. It is not fair. Once we are working, paying taxes, we should be able to renew our document free and fair like the others. I have come and sleep in this weather just to be able to work to support my family," Stephen Morphy, a Liberian mi- grant who has been in Malta since 2003, complains. Morphy stands out as a living example of the failure of a system that is actually pushing him into il- legality: here he is braving the cold January night trying to secure a le- gal status so that he can continue working, but instead he is treated as a second-class citizen by having just one day in which he can have his e- residence card renewed. Once migrants qualify for protec- tion the first thing they have to do is to apply for an e-residence card. Without it they cannot access pub- lic services such as benefits, work permits, or even open a bank ac- count. I passed through this same night- mare years ago upon getting refugee protection. I was shocked to realise that migrants have to sleep over- night on Thursday so as to access the service on Friday morning – while the office is open to the public Monday to Friday. I left home on Thursday at 9:30pm to see the situation for myself. Along the way down to Evans Building, on Merchants' Street I encountered a Gambian national on the street. Kante Yamadou, in Malta since 2007, told me that many migrants had already convened outside Evans Building but that they had been dis- persed by the police. The police probably don't know that many of those migrants will not access the service in the morn- ing and that will prevent them from getting a work permit. By 11pm, many of the migrants had returned to Evans Building, now getting ready for the long cold night ahead of them. They organised themselves and started to write a list of the mi- grants, one after the other, in order to create an ordered queu- ing system. By the time we wrote down the list of names, the queue totalled 68 at 1:30am. It was hard for them to open up with me. Many of the migrants come from countries where de- mocracy and free speech are non- existent, and they fear they will be in trouble if they speak out publicly. Omar Siz Ahmed, from So- malia, arrived in Malta in 2006. "It's very cold. We have no choice… because we can only come here on Friday. You have to sleep here all time. If we had three days in the week, we could have some choice. But when it's only Friday, it's too little time for so many people needing the service." Like him, Morphy finds it frustrat- ing that he is facing this situation after living in Malta for 12 years, in a place he now calls home. By 2am, the place resembles a ref- ugee camp, with mats and blankets thrown onto the pavement. More migrants were coming, having walked from Msida and Gzira. Chaos erupted at five in the morn- ing when the guards came to work and told them that the office was only going to see 40 people that day. Even the migrant women who were afraid of speaking out earlier in the night got involved in the scuff le, in the hopes of accessing a spot. This was truly survival of the fittest at its best, with migrants fighting it out among themselves to secure them a limited number of tickets for the right to work. There is no doubt that the system here has failed these members of the community who justifiably feel they are being robbed of equal ac- cess to the service, by being granted just one day to renew their e-ID. Questioned by MaltaToday, the new home affairs minister, Car- melo Abela, has dubbed the situ- ation "inhumane" after having as- sessed the matter personally. "The decision to allow migrants to apply on a particular day of the week was taken long before Identity Malta was established. In 2014 Identity Malta organised an outreach programme to accept residence applications from the premises of the Refugee Commis- sion and the Agency for the Welfare of Asylum Seekers (AWAS). Since then, the number of migrants ap- plying at AWAS decreased signifi- cantly and eventually the service stopped being offered from their office. The service offered from the Refugee Commission is still ongoing," he said. "Lately, for a number of reasons, there was an increase in the ap- plications at the Department for Citizenship and Expatriate Af- fairs in Valletta," Abela said, since expired documents were all be- ing issued on the same date and therefore had to be renewed on the same date. Abela said that in a bid to reduce queues, Identity Malta will be opening an office close to the Hal Far open centre, on a more regular basis. Whether this could make the system more efficient, or indeed exacerbate its ghettoization is yet to be seen. Additional reporting by Matthew Vella maltatoday, SUNDAY, 11 JANUARY 2015 News Migrants sleep rough as they try to access 'inhumane' public service Farah Abdi grant who has been in Malta since the service on Friday morning – It was hard for them to open up with me. Many of the migrants come from countries where de- mocracy and free speech are non- existent, and they fear they will be in trouble if they speak out publicly. Omar Siz Ahmed, from So- malia, arrived in Malta in 2006. "It's very cold. We have no choice… because we can only come here on Friday. You have to sleep here all time. If we had three days in the week, we could have some choice. But when it's only Friday, it's too little time for so many people needing the service." Like him, Morphy finds it frustrat- Migrants seeking renewal of e-residence document to continue working are effectively pushed into illegal work because they can only access the ID card office in Valletta on a Friday. Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela says the system is 'inhumane' • WATCH THE VIDEO ONLINE AT MALTATODAY.COM.MT Migrants sleep outside Evans Building in Valletta on a Thursday night waiting for the identity card office to open. Stephen Morphy (top right) has been in Malta since 2003 and has to renew his e-residence card so that he can have his work permit. He has to wait outside and put his name on a list (bottom right). But not all the 100-odd migrants are allowed into the ID office at 6am and they are left to fight it out between themselves (bottom centre)