Not a chance at asylum

Thursday at 8.10:XNUMX: It's April 29 and I'm in the middle of breakfast when the phone rings. It is from the Police Immigration Unit in Oslo.

- Now there is an asylum seeker here ready for registration. He is from Romania. We start at 8.30, if you are interested, says Thor Thomsen.

Thomsen is the head of the registration section of the Police Immigration Unit. I say yes and throw myself in a cab to reach Christian Krohgs gate 32 before the 48 hour procedure begins.

Ny Tid will in fact follow up on an asylum seeker who is being treated according to the new 48-hour scheme that the government introduced on 1 January this year. The point, the authorities say, is to prevent large resources from being tied up in the work with unfounded asylum applications. Within a maximum of 48 hours, therefore, the applications for residence and any appeal are processed and decided by the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI).

Then it is in express speed straight out of the country immediately if – or rather when – there will be a rejection. But that does not mean that the rule of law has not been safeguarded, the authorities say.

Now I will be a fly on the wall to see how this new procedure works from A to Z – with the consent of the police and the UDI.

The asylum seeker who is waiting for me today is from Romania, one of 50 countries in the world that the Norwegian authorities consider safe.

Thursday at 8.30:XNUMX: Police officer Torbjørn Evensen fetches the Romanian asylum seeker on duty at the Police Immigration Unit. Here, all asylum seekers who find their way to Norway, whether they first land on Gardermoen, arrive by Danish ferry to Larvik or cross the Grense-Jakobselv river in Finnmark.

The difference is that those who are to be treated after the 48-hour procedure are picked out immediately to register. So too with the Romanian asylum seeker, who at half past nine is taken down to the registration section where the office windows face the Akerselva river. And with that, the procedure clock is set in motion; within 48 hours his fate is sealed.

On the way to Evensen's office, the interpreter is picked up, a Romanian woman living in Norway. The event introduces me to the woman, who is obviously prepared for a journalist to fly on the wall today.

But before the interrogation begins, we stop in a room where modern fingerprint equipment is lined up and centimeters are marked on the white brick wall.

As far as I can tell, the asylum seeker is 180 centimeters tall. But fingerprints have to wait – the equipment is busy.

- We will now make you aware of your rights, police officer Evensen begins when we have sat down in his office, whereupon the interpreter begins to read aloud from a letter to the Romanian asylum seeker.

The office is decorated with a world map on one of the walls, a calendar on another. While the rights are being read, Evensen flips through the asylum seeker's passport. Unlike many other asylum seekers, the Romanian has both passports and tickets showing who he is and how he came to Norway.

- My name is Marian Florea and I come from a small place called Unirea in Braila municipality, the asylum seeker answers through his interpreter when he is asked to provide his personal details.

Florea is 33 years old. Ethnic Romanians. No other citizenship. Orthodox Christian. Then some small fragments come from his life: When he was five years old, his parents divorced. The mother left with his brother while Marian stayed with his father. Three years later, his father was killed in a traffic accident.

- Do you have any contact with your mother and brother now, Evensen asks.

- No. I do not know where they are. I grew up in an orphanage for orphans, Florea answers.

Also, when asked if he has any address in Unirea, the answer is negative. Evens then wants to know if Florea has applied for asylum elsewhere in the past. Florea replies that he had previously thought of seeking asylum in both Germany and France, but that he was told that there was no point in trying once, because in those countries, Romanians were not granted leave. Instead, he was recommended to try Norway.

Then the police officer evens the conversation over how Florea came to Norway. Already we have been told that he was stopped by customs officers at Svinesund yesterday, before the police took care of him and eventually transported him to the Police Immigration Unit late last night. Here he got a bed to sleep in.

Florida's asylum journey from Romania began on April 23. And before he arrived in Svinesund he had been to Hungary, Germany, France, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden. The whole time the drug was bus.

There will be several questions and answers back and forth before the details of the journey are ready. Along the way, Florea gets to name what kind of life he has lived in the last decade.

- I have not had a place to live, so I have slept on the street and at the station in the city, Florea says.

In between questions, Evensen submits an unfilled form which he asks Florea to sign.

- This is in case you later have an ID card. We take your passport while the procedure is in progress. I will fill in the rest of the form for you afterwards, Evensen explains through the interpreter, and wants to know how the asylum seeker's health is.

- I have tuberculosis. They found out when I was examined by a doctor three years ago. But I have not received any treatment, I could not afford it, Florea answers, and tells again about life on the street, about nights at the station, about the cold.

- Have you been punished before, the police officer asks.

- No.

Registration is over. Evence prints Florea's explanation. It is read to him by the interpreter. Then Florea signs at the bottom of the sheet.

Thursday at 9.10:XNUMX: The equipment for taking fingerprints is available now, and police officer Evensen makes everything ready to get started. While Marian Florea is waiting for a ride, another cop comes by and offers Florea a snack and a drink.

It is not like in the old days when Florea gives out her fingerprints: Each finger on both hands is scanned separately, then it is the entire left hand separately and the whole right hand separately, and then both thumbs at the same time.

All the time, we see fingerprints coming up on the screen, while Evence obviously does his searching.

- We are now checking whether he has been convicted in other countries or whether he has applied for asylum elsewhere, Evensen says to me.

As far as I understand, there are no warning lights lit by Florida's fingerprints.

- Then we have finished our job. Now it is the UDI that takes over, says police officer Evensen, and guides Florea into a waiting room where the doors can not be opened from the inside.

Thursday at 9.30:XNUMX: – It is not easy to find interpreters who speak Romanian. Most people do the interpretation alongside other work, and therefore have a bad time, says Inge Lang-aard.

He is the UDI's man on duty at the Police Immigration Unit in Christian Krohgs gate this morning. Now he is striving to find a new interpreter who can translate during the asylum interview itself, as the interpreter during the registration with the police had no opportunity to work during the day.

Langaard's office is located in the same corridor as the police officer Evensen's office. In the middle of the offices is the waiting room in which Marian Florea now sits locked.

While Langaard is waiting for some of the UDI-approved interpreters he has left a message to hear, he says that so far this year 125 people, including children, have come to Norway who have been treated after 48 -timersprosedyren. Everyone has been to the Police Immigration Unit for registration and asylum interview, which Langaard and five others from the UDI in turn take care of.

- I do not make any assessments during the asylum interview, I ask the questions to get their story out. And then I help them with a lawyer and arrange an interpreter for the asylum interview and the conversation with a lawyer, Langaard explains.

Lately, there hasn't been much to do; the flow of baseless asylum seekers has slowed somewhat, according to Langaard. Only a few of the asylum seekers who are treated after the 48-hour procedure have been transferred to normal asylum treatment. The rest have been denied the applications and been sent straight out of the country again.

- The last time we received one in the 48-hour procedure was last week, on April 23, Langaard says.

Thursday at 10.05:XNUMX: I stand with my legs in the crack in the door so that the door will not lock behind me in the waiting room where Marian Florea is sitting. Ny Tid's photographer has also managed to get to Christian Krohgs gate now.

Because even though Florea herself cannot open the door from the inside, it is clearly perfectly fine for the police and the UDI that Ny Tid is standing in the doorway and talking to him.

The asylum seeker and I have discovered that we have a common language that is easy to communicate in, namely German – even though neither he nor I can boast of the grammar and vocabulary. But I get to explain to Florea why he's waiting; that the UDI has problems finding an interpreter for him.

And I tell him that Romania last night beat Germany 5-1 in a football match. It gets the smile from Florea, though he is quite categorical in his judgment of the lack of qualities that the Romanian national team currently has.

- All the good Romanian players play abroad. In Romania, there is no money anymore, says Florea.

Thursday at 11.30:XNUMX: – No, we can not let you in during the asylum interview, says information adviser Are Martin Sauren in the UDI to me.

I stand with Inge Langaard at the reception in the UDI headquarters in Hausmannsgate 21 and discuss why the UDI will not let me be a fly on the wall. It was okay for the police during the registration, as Marian Florea has given her consent, I try to argue with.

- But we have a principle of not letting anyone from the press be present during the interview. This is about privacy, and in the final analysis, information can emerge that is based on national security, says Sauren.

- So there are no ways to move mountains in this situation, I ask, and get a friendly but firm no answer.

I accept the defeat and go out into the street with Langaard. He will return to the Police Immigration Unit, via the UDI's premises in Storgata where he will collect food for Florea.

For Florea is still locked in the waiting room, and there he must sit for a while yet.

- The interpreter I got could only come at 20.00 tonight. Asylum seekers usually do not have to wait that long. But as I said, it is not so easy to get hold of Romanian interpreters. I myself go off duty at 16.00 She who takes over after me will conduct the asylum interview, says Langaard.

For my part, I go back to Ny Tid's offices to get a car and call the lawyer that Florea will meet tomorrow, Sverre O. Simonsen.

Thursday at 18.00:XNUMX: – The 48-hour procedure applies from the registration of the asylum seeker starts until the notification of the UDI's first decision. Then we stop at. The fact that the asylum seeker may appeal a negative decision and apply for deferred implementation of deportation is not included in the 48 hours, says Hege Bøler.

She has taken over as UDI's guardian at the Police Immigration Unit after Inge Lang-aard, and will soon conduct the asylum interview with Marian Florea.

Bøler presents a procedure plan she has prepared for the asylum seeker from Romania. The plan shows what action is to take place at what date and time while he is going through the procedure, and any remarks. The latter shows "interpreter access" to the asylum interview at 19.00 tonight. The interpreter who was originally to take the interview at At 20.00:XNUMX, li-kevel canceled, and a new interpreter had to be brought in.

In the early morning, two hours have been set aside for discussion between the asylum seeker from Romania and the lawyer.

- This is a minimum requirement. If they need more time, they get it. But often the lawyer and client spend less time than scheduled, so it does not seem like too little time has been set aside, says Bøler.

She believes that those who criticize the 48-hour rule forget that the big difference is simply that the wait for those treated under this procedure has been eliminated, but that the treatment itself is as thorough as for the other asylum seekers.

- Then all asylum seekers can probably be driven according to the 48-hour procedure, including those from Iraq, for example, I ask.

- It is clear that the Iraq cases are complicated, we spend more time on them, Bøler answers, and tells more about how the actual asylum interview takes place:

- I do not make any assessments myself, I just write down what I ask about and what the asylum seeker answers. After I have finished writing the report from the interview, the interpreter and the applicant go through word for word, before the applicant signs and receives a copy of the report. It is not the case that we trick them into inventing things, Bøler explains.

Since she started working on these cases from the New Year, she has only experienced that one of "her" asylum seekers has been taken out of the 48-hour procedure to receive treatment as a "regular" asylum seeker.

- For example, it does not help that gypsies have a hard time in a country like Romania. Our assessment is that the authorities of the home country can provide them with the necessary protection. The solution may be that they move internally in the country. It does not hold to say that everyone is against me, that I feel so terrible. We never see the most resource-poor, those who are most sorry, come here, says Bøler, and points out that the time has now come for the interview with Mari-Florea.

Thursday at 19.00:XNUMX: The Romanian asylum seeker has been locked in the waiting room since half past ten this morning when he is picked up by Hege Bøler for the asylum interview. That is, for nine and a half hours.

The only break in the wait has been that Marian Florea a couple of hours ago was shown an information film on a big screen – also in the waiting room.

The film is made by the Norwegian Organization for Asylum Seekers (NOAS) and has been translated into 14 languages, including Romanian. It informs the asylum seeker how the time is in the 48-hour procedure, including that the applicant will be driven to the Lierskogen transit reception after the asylum interview is completed.

Thursday at 22.05:XNUMX: The remote controlled and video monitored gate to the Lierskogen transit reception is opened so that the minibus hired from Bislett Limousine can drive into the square in front of the main building with Marian Floreas.

His asylum interview in Oslo lasted just under two hours. At 21.15 the car from Bislett Limousine was ready to transport the Romanian asylum seeker to the Lierskogen transit reception, which lies between Asker and Drammen.

The rental car company has the contract to transport asylum seekers between the various stops in the round dance to obtain asylum; between everything from the police station and asylum reception to transit camp and airport.

Floreas is awaiting Lierskogen transit reception. As soon as we park, he is picked up at the reception, and then shown his room in a neighboring building. Floreas is tired after a long day and obviously wants to get back to bed quickly. On the way from Oslo to Lierskogen, Flo-rea has had severe cough attacks.

The next morning the conversation with the lawyer awaits.

Friday at 8.30:XNUMX: – This place is suitable for asylum seekers who are treated after the 48-hour procedure. It is an enclosed area that protects them from the outside world. We have good control and can follow them from hour to hour, says manager at Lierskogen tramsott reception, Harald Nesset.

He sits at a table outside the main building when I arrive at reception after a night at home. It's half an hour for Marian Florea to meet her lawyer. Actually, Sverre O. Simonsen should have had a lawyer at the reception today. But on the phone from Alta he told me yesterday that he could not come, and that he had sent an agent in his place.

- It has become even calmer here now than when you were here a couple of years ago, says Nes-set, and finally shows Ny Tid was here and did a report from the conditions in the camp which at that time was so full that you had to house many of the asylum seekers in tents.

- At that time, there were a number of problems with some of the asylum seekers snooping in the shops nearby. But now the discussion in the local community is completely gone, and the police say they do not notice that there is a reception here. The only episode we have had lately is an asylum seeker who snuck a pair of underpants for 29 kroner and 50 øre, says Nesset.

He explains the improved situation, among other things, by planting flowers and doing well at the reception together with the residents. And that sometimes they get rewards in the form of getting some ice and soda.

- This probably has a calming effect. We practice zero tolerance in a soft way. You do not have to be Carl I. Hagen to run a reception that works, Nesset states.

The difference between the asylum seekers who are in the 48-hour procedure and the others at the reception center – mainly from Eastern Europe and the Middle East – is the restrictions on the former group.

- He on the 48-hour procedure that you came with can not leave the reception. He has signed that he is in our custody. If he escapes from here, he loses his status and is wanted, says reception manager Nesset.

Friday at 9.15:XNUMX: The two security guards can tell of a few such cases where asylum seekers have escaped. However, the security is largely peaceful, the watchmen say.

I talk to them outside the UDI's offices, which are located in a house a few hundred meters below the Lierskogen transit reception.

At nine o'clock, Marian Florea drove the little road stump from reception down to the UDI's house to meet her lawyer.

The young female clerk, who sent lawyer Simonsen in his place, had heard nothing about me coming, and was not interested in having me fly on the wall. Whether Florea consented didn't matter.

The explanation was both that the clerk had had poor experience with the media in the past, and that she was new to the game in relation to this type of case.

So now Florea is sitting with an interpreter and going through the asylum interview from last night to see if any of his history is wrong or has not come up.

Friday at 10.00:XNUMX: It was relatively quick to go through the case with the attorney general. A quarter of an hour ago, Marian Florea was driven back to the transit reception before I sighed.

I myself take the legs the few hundred meters up, after the attorney has also rejected my request to be allowed to be present when Florea gets to know the UDI's decision on his asylum application – according to the procedure plan stipulated to take place at. 13.00.

It finally gives me time to have a proper conversation with Florea while waiting for the verdict. I find Florea outside the bar where he has been given room. He stands with a couple of Chechen refugees and talks in Russian. For Florea, both German and Russian taught at school when he lived in orphanages.

- My life is a book, but look how thin the report is. I talked a lot, but they have not included everything, says Florea, and shows me the report from the asylum interview, the situation the UDI would not let me watch.

The report is written in Norwegian, so I read through the few pages quickly. Florea cannot understand that his life has been so short on paper.

There will be a long conversation with the Romanian asylum seeker who could easily fill many articles. But the nerve of his asylum application, as he himself explains it, is the fear of life on the streets of Romania.

As mentioned, he grew up in orphanages, where employees who beat children with cane were a common part of the upbringing. As a 16-year-old, he worked at a paper mill, where he worked for seven years. At 18, he moved from the orphanage and rented a one-bedroom apartment. For several years he looked in vain for his mother and brother.

The accident occurred in earnest when he lost his job at the factory in 1993. Since then, the 33-year-old has been unemployed. Eventually he lost his house and ended up on the street, which has been his home for the last nine years. By selling scrap iron from garbage dumps and occasionally getting a rubbish to carry in a warehouse, he has so far managed to survive.

- We who live on the streets do not have a chance. Wherever we are, the police come and hit and kick us and chase us. They want to remove us from the street scene, says Florea and pushes the shade hat a little to the side.

There is a big scar on his forehead. He got that when police released him with baton to chase him off the street earlier this year.

- If I am sent back to Romania, I fear life on the streets, the violence from the police, the unbearable cold at night in the winter, says Florea, and coughs again so that my body shakes.

Then he turns his pockets and counts money: 71 kroner and 50 kroner. That's all he owns and has left after selling the patch he inherited from his grandmother.

- I got 600 euros for the sale. I spent 500 euros on clothes and the trip here to Norway. I had to pay 100 euros to the police to get out of the country. In Romania it is not possible to do anything without bribes. Under communism we did not have democracy, but no one was starving. Now people are starving on the streets, even though there is a lot of food in the shop. It is difficult to sit and think that the UDI is now sitting and assessing my case. I do not know what to do if they say no, if they send me back, life is over.

Friday at 13.00:XNUMX: – Can you tell him that it is now very important that he does not leave the reception. We do not know what he has, and the health authorities are at the top now, says one of the employees at Lierskogen transit reception to me.

I pass on the message to Marian Florea. The thing is that just over an hour ago he was driven to Tanum transit reception in Sandvika for medical check, which happens to all asylum seekers.

But somehow, Florea is strictly told not to make any attempt to leave the reception. I think about his hosting and that yesterday morning he told the police that three years ago he was diagnosed with tuberculosis.

Friday at 13.35:XNUMX: – Usually I do not smoke much. But now I am very stressed, says Marian Florea, and takes another puff of the cigarette. He has been given time for food in the canteen. Now only the verdict from the UDI remains, which should have come half an hour ago.

We sit in his room at the reception. From the little he has of material values ​​he pulls out a prayer card. On one side of the card is a painting of the Virgin Mary, on the other side one of the Virgin Mary and a guardian angel.

- Every night I take out the card before I go to bed and pray to the guardian angel. The prayer card is my family, my grandmother. Everyone has a guardian angel. If the UDI says yes to me being able to stay in Norway, then the guardian angel has won. And then I will learn Norwegian and try to get a job and work all I can and thank Norway. If God wills, I can have a family and children, and live in this country. Now I have no family, I have no job and no place to live.

Friday at 14.25:XNUMX: We are at the reception at the Lierskogen transit reception. The hour has come. Now Marian Florea will know how his asylum application went, one of the employees will call down to the UDI's office so he can get the lawyer on the wire.

A few seconds later, Florea stands and receives the verdict conveyed by an interpreter via mobile phone. I immediately see in the posture that it is not good news. He bows his head and repeats mumbling over and over in Romanian; negative, negative…

The message he received five minutes ago – and which gave him such hope – no longer matters. Then the health nurse at the reception said that they would transfer him to Løren transit reception in Oslo.

The health service will do further examinations of him at Ullevål hospital over the weekend. The tests taken at Tanum Transit Reception today suggested that Florea may have tuberculosis.

But this was as blown from memory as he had his cellphone in his hand. Exactly 16 hours and 55 minutes after police officer Torbjørn Evensen retrieved Marian Florea for registration at the Police Immigration Unit in Oslo, the UDI had found that the Romanian asylum seeker does not need protection in Norway, that his asylum application is unfounded, and that he therefore will be sent back to Romania.

- They said that I do not have a chance to stay in Norway because I have not been tortured or imprisoned for political reasons in Romania, says a desperate Florea, and repeats again and again:

- Now it's just a life on the street, now it's just a street…

I send a message to Florea from one of the staff that he gets 10 minutes to pack his cases and meet up outside. He will immediately be transported to Løren transit reception in Oslo.

Friday at 15.50:XNUMX: There is a certain amount of confusion in the reception at Løren transit reception. This is the first time they have received an asylum seeker who is being treated according to the 48-hour procedure, and Ny Tid's presence is not according to plan.

But before I have to leave the hospital, I have to confirm that samples will be taken by Marian Florea at Ullevål Hospital over the weekend, and that until the results are available, he is removed from the 48-hour procedure. If he has tuberculosis he will be treated here in Norway before being sent back to Romania. It can take months.

If he is healthy, however, it is on his head straight out right away. He might get the answer next week.

However, the unexpected postponement of the deportation does not seem to help Florida's state of mind. Coughing, he repeats time and time again that he no longer has a chance. All the money he had is gone, the only life he knows about in his home country is with the tarmac as a pillow, and he no longer has the right to seek asylum in other Schengen countries.

Marian Florea took the chance on Norway, but lost.