Reuniting with your family – how hard can that be? 

This month, to illustrate parts of the administrative kafkaesque nightmare faced by migrants going through the asylum procedures in Greece, we would like to talk about family reunification in Greece. 

To do so, let us look at the cases of Samuel and Jamal (name changed) two recognised refugees and clients of the Legal Centre Lesvos, who – due to the failure of the administration – remain separated from their loved ones for years and deprived of their right to family life in Greece. 

Any recognised refugee in the European Union may apply to be rejoined by their close family members, a process which, in theory, is straightforward: in short, the refugee must supply officially translated and certified documents proving the identity of, and family ties with his or her relatives; the responsible authorities analyse these documents and the family members hold an interview with diplomatic authorities in the country where they reside to obtain a travel visa and be reunited. In Greece, however, this process is mission impossible: riddled with so many hurdles that exercising this right to a family life becomes illusionary. 

In the case of Jamal’s family, shortly before the current war on Gaza, Jamal received refugee status in Greece. As violence escalated in his home country, he applied to be reunited with his pregnant wife and three minor children who were still there – which is his right under Greek law. Difficulties started with one of his children not having a passport yet and not being able to obtain one. Despite the increased bombardment of the Israeli forces and the closure of all administrative services in Gaza, Jamal and his relatives managed to obtain the passport for their youngest child, to gather all of the documents requested by the Greek Asylum Service, and to proceed with their certified translation to Greek. 

Nevertheless, even if they met all requirements and respected the timeline imposed, Jamal’s family has been waiting for more than seven months for his application to move forward. During that time, Jamal missed the birth of his youngest child, he missed birthdays and celebrations, and his family continues to live under Israeli siege and bombardment. 

In order to move the process forward, Jamal’s legal representative at the Legal Centre Lesvos contacted the Greek Embassy of Cairo and the Greek Consulate in Jerusalem which are responsible for the evacuation of Palestinians of Gaza. The lawyer did not receive more information, apart from general answers taking note of the request. No further actions were taken by the Greek authorities to facilitate the reunification of the family. Faced with this inaction, the lawyer also  filed a complaint before the Greek Ombudsperson for the family which is currently pending.  Together with 14 civil society organisations, the Legal Centre Lesvos addressed the Greek Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Migration and Asylum, and Interior, about the systematic issues and obstacles faced by applicants to family reunification in Greece, and in particular by Palestinians from Gaza. To this day this statement remains unanswered and no significant steps have been taken to change this situation. 

You might ask yourself: could Greece do better? The answer is YES. Other European Union Member States, such as Belgium, have long shown the way and put in place measures in order to facilitate and promote the reunification of protected Palestinian families. 

Is this Greece’s duty to take similar measures? The answer is once more YES. EU law and rulings by the Court of Justice of the EU all provide that Member States should facilitate rather than block the processing of family reunification applications. 

Is Jamal’s family case blocked because of the ongoing genocide? The answer is NO. Similar problems and obstacles are unfortunately common in nearly all family reunification cases in Greece. These are mostly due to the strict and inflexible requirements imposed by the Greek Asylum Services and diplomatic administrations to process applications, leaving people in dead-end situations without any alternatives.

Another client of ours from Sierra Leone, Samuel, was met with a similar fate as Jamal. His wife and children all have passports but he ran into the problem of obtaining a certified copy of these documents. Certification can only be done by the responsible Greek embassy. No luck, there is no Greek Embassy in Sierra Leone and it is the Greek Embassy in Nigeria – situated over 3,000 kilometers away – which is responsible for their application. For an unknown reason however, in their case, the Greek Embassy in Nigeria declared that they were unable to certify their documents. Other Greek embassies and consulates that were contacted in the region also claimed that they are not responsible and refused to certify the documents. 

The struggle is not over. At the beginning of the year, Samuel went to the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Athens to certify the documents but the Ministry requested another document from the Asylum Service stating that Samuel was in the process of family reunification and that he needed to certify those documents. Following several requests from Samuel and his legal representative at the Legal Centre Lesvos, the Greek Asylum Service sent back this document for Samuel and, after an additional six months, he was finally able to receive the certified copies of the travel documents..  With this, Samuel is now able to proceed to the next step being reunited with his family. Hopefully, the Greek authorities will cooperate in facilitating the reunification instead of hindering it. After all, the family is already waiting for nearly two years to be reunited, a time separated from their loved ones which they will never be able to catch up with. 

This unnecessarily prolonged separation is another way the Greek government makes people coming here suffer and deters them from staying. Rights that cannot be exercised are nothing but empty promises. 

What do we do about it? Join us to keep on demanding that the Greek government stops this nonsense and guarantees refugees’ rights to a private and family life. 

• The right to family life is a fundamental right every person should have. 
• It is Greece’s obligation to facilitate the reunification of refugees with their loved ones. 
• It is also in Greece’s interest to promote the reunification of families so people can start rebuilding their lives.