Keepers of the gate
"Today, everyone knows perfectly well that if Ukraine relaxes its border, there will be a negative impact on Europe," says Colonel Volodymyr Rudnytskyy, commander of the Ukrainian State Border Service's Chernihiv Detachment. Rudnytskyy has the stern look and stocky build of a man born to a guard's work. The problem of illegal migration for Ukraine began in 1994-1995, he continued. The State Border Service, with 50,000 employees, 8,000 of whom are civilians, represents the front line in stopping it. The border guards also deal with other problems like contraband, but financing, as almost everywhere else in the country, is seriously inadequate.
The West has provided some assistance. For example, the International Immigration Organization, which fights people-trafficking and assists in relocating refugees, donated 8 million euros to the border guards, allowing them to buy equipment like night-vision equipment, radios, computers and motorcycles. Nevertheless, taking care of the illegals they capture, most come from China, Vietnam and India, also gets expensive. "They eat up our national money," said Rudnytskyy.
The Chernihiv region is Ukraine's busiest for illegal entries because it borders Russia and Belarus. In 2003, border guards there detained 289 illegal migrants - down significantly from the 507 caught in 2002 and the 768 apprehended in 2001, according to official statistics. The decrease may be due to a decision taken in the late 1990s to transfer troops from the western border, which is already heavily guarded by new EU states, to the east. However, a total of 3,854 illegal migrants were caught by border-guard detachments nationwide during the first six months of this year; 8 percent more than the same period last year. The Chernihiv detachment has 10 outposts with between 30 and 50 men each, and covers a 408 kilometer-long segment of the frontier. Flat fields of rye and dense woods dotted with swamp dominate the landscape. The most salient geographical feature is the sky.
Russia's Role
Do the Russians do their part in helping stem the flow? "I think that it would be more effective if the government of Russia took care of the issue of visa invitations being given to certain foreigners," said Rudnytskyy, referring to the fact that illegal migrants enter Russia legally only to later cross the Ukrainian border with the help of smugglers. "Russia doesn't care about the problem," the commander mutters gloomily. Of the three eastern Slavic neighbors, "it is Ukraine that is the best equipped and manned," he said. On the same stretch of border, Belarus has three outposts manned by 40 troops and Russia has six stations and 180 people.
Illegal migration through Russia provides a steady stream of business for shady Moscow travel agencies, and the Kremlin has demonstrated a reluctance to divert money toward alleviating Europe's population problems. But Russian and Belarusian border guards have their own reasons for being averse to cross-border cooperation and often won't accept the return of illegal migrants who they themselves let slip into Ukraine. It's not uncommon for Russian border guards to insist that their Ukrainian counterparts show them the exact spot where the aliens crossed the border - to the point of arguing over footprints, according to Sr. Lt. Oleksandr Mikhaylivskyy, commander of the Gorsk outpost.
The Gorsk outpost is located within a few kilometers of the Russian and Belarusian borders and about an hour's drive from the regional center of Chernihiv. It is equipped with jeeps, horses and tracking dogs.
"[The Russians] don't want to do the paperwork or to feed" the illegals, added Major Oleksandr Dutko of the regional detachment headquarters. Moreover, by accepting the migrants back, the Russian border guards would also be tacitly admitting that they let them get by in the first place. All this is made more difficult by the fact that there is no demarcated border between the two countries: No signs or wire fences mark the boundary. Some of the country's border is monitored through the use of buried electronic sensors that can signal a border violator. None have been deployed along the frontier patrolled by the men at the Gorsk border post.
While the odds appear to be stacked against the border guards catching anyone at all, much less returning them, there is some help: Border patrol agencies in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia share intelligence. The Chernihiv region also has one investigator also gathers intelligence and works closely with local residents, who are not always allies. Organized criminal groups hire some locals, especially the unemployed and relatively young males, to serve as guides for the migrants.
But the border guards themselves live in the areas where they are stationed, giving the international game of cat and mouse a distinctly hometown flavor. "We know who they are and they know who we are," Dutko said.
The detained
Aliens apprehended with documents that prove they came through Russia or Belarus are returned, but smugglers almost always confiscate passports and any identifying documents. Detainees without documents are supposed to be turned over to police until they are identified and sent home by their embassies. But Mikhaylivskyy admits, "the police don't always take them." Others, once caught, ask for asylum. "None ask for refugee status," he insists.
The Chernihiv border guards wouldn't venture to guess how many illegal migrants get past them. "We do our best," Rudnytskyy said. If they aren't caught entering in the east, they can still be stopped leaving the country in the west. The favorite exit point is in the Transcarpathia region, where there is a choice of four European borders: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. Volyn and Lviv region also see their fair share, Rudnytskyy explained.
Of the 3,854 persons detained during the first six months of this year, 1,853 were deported, according to the State Border Service headquarters office in Kyiv. What happens to those who don't get deported and aren't returned to Russia or Belarus? The border guards say they don't know, because they turn the illegals over to the Interior Ministry, which is responsible for holding them at detention centers until their identities are determined.
The smugglers
The inhabitants of Ukrainian border regions who serve as guides for illegal migrants may be ordinary provincials looking for a way to earn a living, but the people they work for aren't.
"[The smugglers] have plenty of money," says Dutko. Indians pay up to $15,000 just to get to Ukraine. The organization and resources are significant and include foreign recruiters, people who arrange for visas in Russia, drivers and local thugs who make sure everything goes smoothly, but who don't get involved in the actual smuggling. All the same, it's the guides who take most of the risks, and when they're caught they do time. According to Dutko, four were caught last year and now face three years in prison. As for the lesser accomplices who operate safe houses, most are just fined.
On the other hand, the whole business of "Catch me if you can" is played without guns - at least as far as the homegrown guides and border guards are concerned. "They're not armed. There's no sense," Dutko said about his adversaries.
While gun battles never take place, the work is not without its colorful moments. "There was an incident a few years back when we caught the same group three times within a very short period of time," Mikhaylivskyy recalled. Another time, five sisters from Nigeria were detained on their way to Germany, where they hoped to be earn a living in the porno business. But the strangest border story of all, according to the men at the Gorsk outpost, was the apprehension of 10 Chinese dressed in military polar suits as they traversed the snow-blanketed plain on a sled pulled by a snowmobile.
"They (the Chinese) are the best dressed and bring their own medicine with them," said Mikhaylivskyy. The border guards suspect that some illegal immigration from China is even sponsored by the Chinese government. Also, unlike other illegals,
the Chinese (and Vietnamese) often find support among compatriots already living in Ukraine. Many find work at local markets in order to finance the remainder of the journey west or simply stick around until the opportunity is right to move on.
In the people-transit business, human cargo can be divided into two categories: trafficked, which means individuals are deceived or forced into providing sexual services, slave labor or organs for international clients; and smuggled, when the cargo is the client. People flee to avoid persecution or to find work, but the distinction is sometimes blurred among experts, politicians and perhaps even the migrant.
The refugees
Ali is a quiet 35-year-old Somali who has been waiting for refugee status in Ukraine since January 2003. His wife is in England, and he wants to join her. He is currently being assisted in his goal by the U.N. and its local NGOs. Why he left the war-torn East-African country is easier to understand than how he got here.
After paying $1,700 to a smuggler in Somalia, he arrived in Moscow by plane. His travel documents were then taken away and he was put in a minibus to Ukraine along with several Bangladeshi. "I never knew when I actually crossed the border," he said through an interpreter, because there were no windows to look out. The entire journey from the border to Kyiv took nine days and included lengthy stays at safe houses, where he and his fellow travelers slept on the floor and were given little to eat.
The treatment at an Interior Ministry detention center wasn't much better. He ended up there along with his fellow travelers after being detained on the street in Kyiv, where the minibus driver had unexpectedly dropped them off, promising to return shortly. For three months, he shared a single-toilet cell with 50 other detainees. "The treatment was military. If you step out of line, they give you a shove," Ali said. One day, he was released and given some paperwork.
If Ali's story is to be taken at face value, it would mean that he crossed the border by car. If this was a border check point, the border guards couldn't have not noticed the migrants hiding in the back of the van. And did the smugglers just ditch him in Kyiv, or was he told that he would be dropped off to find the UN office on his own? Lastly, it's not clear why he had to spend three months at the detention center. How long could it possibly take to determine that he was a Somali in search of asylum? Bureaucratic bumbling aside, it's the police who complain that they have to feed and house the migrants and thus should want to get rid of them as soon as they can.
Hassan, 22, is also Somali and speaks English fairly well. His travel tale is much the same as Ali's, but he smiles as he tells it. Unlike Ali, he has recently received refugee status, as he arrived two years earlier. "I want to enroll in a university or college ... and live in the U.S.," he says cheerfully. Life in Ukraine is not on the agenda. Here, he only socializes with other Somalis because he doesn't know Russian or Ukrainian well and feels uncomfortable introducing himself as a refugee.
Mokhad, 27, is the most somber of the three, although he also has refugee status. He doesn't, however, have a family and says he's willing to live anyplace where he can make a decent living. "I'll take any job as long as I don't have to do striptease," he says, almost smiling.
The paper chase
In order to get refugee status, asylum seekers must apply with Ukraine's State Migration Service, which has offices in Kyiv and the regions. According to Ukrainian law, this must be done within five days after arrival. After registration, they get a document showing they are legally seeking refugee status. If the Migration Service eventually turns an asylum-seeker down, he can apply for a court hearing, in which case he gets another registration card to carry until his hearing date.
If, on the other hand, the asylum-seeker doesn't make the initial five-day deadline, an organization called HIAS (Habro Immigrant Aid Society) will issue him a temporary document, which he can use for a month until the Migration Service issues him their card. Deadlines aside, this option is probably more desirable for the road-weary migrants than starting off their lengthy paper chase with a lesson in Ukrainian bureaucracy. HIAS is a UN-funded international NGO that provides legal assistance to asylum-seekers and tries to work with the authorities to help them teach police to recognize these three documents. But "it's the Ukrainian authorities who decide who's a refugee," says Leonard Terlitsky, the head of the HIAS office in Ukraine. The Migration Service is obliged to review their cases under a UN convention. Organizations like HIAS help the state to meet its obligations under the convention. HIAS takes up to four days to decide whether an international visitor is a genuine asylum-seeker or an economic refugee. "It's a very detailed and precise procedure," conducted by highly trained specialists with in-depth experience of the country of departure, Terlitsky points out. The applicants also take the process seriously. One Iranian man cut his wrists at the UN High Commission for Refugees office in Kyiv to draw attention to his case. He is now settled in Norway.
Dealing with rejection
"We don't advertise, they just come, Terlitsky underlines, and "we certainly don't provide assistance to just anyone who shows up at the door." That having been said, it's interesting how the otherwise disoriented migrants know where to go once they arrive in Kyiv. Many use the one phone call they're allotted at the detention center to contact HIAS. "People don't just end up here," confided an informed source, "it's a business, and someone organizes it all." And after all that hard paperwork "practically all asylum seekers, one way or another, don't plan on staying in Ukraine," the source said. "What would you do in their place?"
"A great many migrants can get stuck," says Terlitsky, referring to the detention centers as well as ethnic communities centered around urban markets. Others are turned down either by HIAS or the Migration Service and turned loose. What happens to them is anyone's guess. If the police pick them up, they are subject to deportation. The Ukrainian authorities try to get the home governments and even the migrants' relatives to cover the expense. The results are mixed. The UNIAN news agency recently reported that a Chinese migrant about to be sent home stabbed himself at the Chinese embassy. He wasn't as lucky as the Iranian mentioned earlier: His wound was minor and border guards put him on a plane headed east the next day.
An asylum-seeker must show that he was persecuted, says Natalia Prokopchuk, press secretary for the UNHCR in Kyiv. "We are an administrative unit that conducts public relations, lobbies for legislation and manages NGOs." Legal and social assistance is provided by implementing partners like HIAS. The UNHCR funds NGOs or implementing partners operating in 17 regions. The biggest caseloads are in Kyiv and Odessa. Fifty percent of these are Afghans, 30 percent from the CIS and 20 percent from other countries. Between 1996 and 2001, there was a 50 percent acceptance rate. But in 2003, "we had a huge problem because of the new deadline (for applications to the Migration Service), so they couldn't even get an application."
Like Terlitsky, Prokopchuk emphasizes the screening that migrants undergo to get help in their
asylum bid: "We don't give assistance to just anyone." For example, social workers visit aid recipients' homes to check up on them. "It's almost impossible for a single, able-bodied man to get something," he said. The UNHCR also conducts regular audits, and a committee makes all funding decisions.
The aid givers
"They are interesting, they are beautiful, but we don't see that when they come to us with their hands outstretched," says Dina Gud, who runs another UN implementing agency called Rokada, which provides social assistance to asylum seekers in Kyiv region. Her center gets around 10-15 newcomers a month, all from HIAS.
Rokada offers vocational training and new clothing. It also provided school kits including uniforms, clothing and supplies to about 250 school children last year. Rokada also gives some money: A man, woman and child can get up to $110 per month in assistance for a couple of months. But Rokada plays an even more important function, Gud explains. Many of the asylum seekers are Muslims, and the Rokada center gives the women a place to meet and sew clothes to sell at the market, while their children take computer courses or learn to draw. All this is especially important, considering that these women have been uprooted from traditional societies and most suffer severe stress during the trip across the border.
Other aid includes special food and medicines. More than a few asylum-seekers have contracted tuberculosis during their stay at one of the Interior Ministry's detention centers, says Gud.
Alternative housing is scarce. Currently, there are only three temporary accommodation buildings in Ukraine, where asylum-seekers can stay while waiting for their applications to be considered. Two, with a total of 600 beds, are in Odessa and another is in Mukachevo, in Transcarpathia. The EU was supposed to fund another one outside Kyiv, but construction was recently suspended.
Ukraine, in fulfillment of its UN obligation, gives a one-time Hr 17 payment to those who are eventually granted refugee status, and some politicians even blow this out of proportion, says Prokopchuk. In addition, half of the new clothes that are donated go to poor Ukrainians to avoid local resentment.
Neither fish nor fowl
Afghanis make up 50 percent of Ukraine's asylum seekers, but most did not slip across the border in a minivan. Many came over during Soviet times as students or guests of the Communist regime. Power changed hands and they got stuck. According to the UNHCR, 3,000 have received refugee status since 1996.
Azim is one of them. He was a judge in Afghanistan, and came to Ukraine in 1992 to visit his brother, who was studying in Kyiv. "There is a future here at least," he says. But the main problems are economic, like the high cost of apartments. He now works, like many migrants, at Troyeschyna market, which is one of the few places where he socializes with his countrymen, because all are too busy trying to make ends meet.
Abdul, 34, has also been in Kyiv since the early 1990s. He is married to a Ukrainian woman and has a daughter, "who is more Ukrainian than Afghani," but he still doesn't have refugee status. He originally arrived as an education student and had simply continued to register his visa every six months. But last year, he decided to seek asylum. Now he is in limbo with the authorities, who say he has overstayed his visa but can't be considered a refugee. "Those Ukrainians who fought in Afghanistan are also called 'Afghanis' (in Russian) and they don't get their rights respected any more than we do," he says dejectedly.
Abdul, 46, is a former military man and looks like it. He has refugee status but also five children to support. They were born here but are still not considered Ukrainian. "The Mujahadeen were illiterate and barbaric. Socialism was the hope of the country" that he fought for, he says in fluent Russian. Ironically, when the Taliban came to power, some Mujahadeen ended up in Ukraine as well.
Local fish swim west
Ukraine's western border is just as much a hindrance to Asian migrants as it is to Ukrainians seeking to better their lot. No one knows for sure how many Ukrainian citizens are working abroad, but estimates go as high as eight million. Most of them are, admittedly, in Russia, but Portugal and Italy also have large Diaspora communities. These expatriates are primarily employed as construction workers, field hands and nannies. Many fall victim to exploitative employers and racketeers who want a cut of their earnings. The remittances they do manage to send home make up significant contributions to Ukraine's economy, says Jeffrey Labovitz of the International Organization of Migration.
But since the last wave of EU expansion on May 1st, the border looks increasingly less permeable. Ukrainians can no longer travel to neighboring countries like Poland, Hungary or the Czech Republic (where the Diaspora is also sizeable) without meeting stiff EU visa requirements. Those already abroad often fall into the category of migrants who arrived legally but who have overstayed their visas and are subject to deportation. Where they, the Chinese market workers or the next wave of Afghan refugees will be when the game of European tolerance musical chairs finally ends is a matter of timing and personal fate.
John Marone is chief editor of Willard News Service, an online publication (www.wns.kiev.ua).
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