Will Eritrea's New ID Cards Stop African migrants from pretending to be Eritreans?

Eritrea is ready to issue new citizenship identification cards

Will Eritrea's New ID Cards Stop African migrants from pretending to be Eritreans?

As many of you may know, Eritrea is in the process of updating its citizenship identification cards. The new digitized cards should be a major security improvement from the previous cards which were criticized for being relatively easy to forge, resulting in many African migrants — mostly from Ethiopia — using fake Eritrean IDs to gain asylum in the West.

It appears African migrants first started masquerading as Eritreans in large numbers in 2006, when Israel offered a six-month work visa for Eritreans of fighting age, which resulted in tens of thousands of African migrants flooding into the Jewish state. Once the six-month work visa expired, the migrants would then claim they are persecuted refugees who are seeking asylum from Eritrea in a bid to permanently stay in the country.

When Israel ended its controversial six-month work visa policy for Eritreans in the summer of 2012, migrants from Africa - especially those from Eritrea - stopped coming overnight. In the first half of 2012, data from the Israeli Immigration and Population Authority shows 9,570 citizens of various African countries entered their country illegally, while in the first six months of 2013, only 34 did – a decrease of over 99 percent.

Israel says around 53,000 African migrants are in their country illegally, and of this figure 36,000 are thought to be Eritreans. However, based on the Eritrean government findings, they believe at least half (18,000) of those claiming to be Eritreans in Israel are Ethiopians or other African migrants pretending to be Eritreans in order to qualify for the defunct six-month work visa.

"They know the Eritreans automatically receive a six-month visa, so they pretend to be Eritrean," said Tesfamariam Tekeste, the Eritrean ambassador to Israel.

Interestingly enough, it was only after Israel ended its politically motivated six-month work visa policy for Eritreans in 2012 that we started to see a significant spike in the number of Eritreans claiming asylum in Europe. It seems migrants in Israel and those who had planned on going to Israel, shifted their destination towards wealthy European countries. And if 50% of those who entered Israel were not Eritreans, then it becomes plausible to believe that at least half of those entering Europe today are not Eritreans as well.

Right now, from Ghana to Ethiopia, African migrants are claiming they are Eritrean refugees when entering the West. It's becoming laughable at this point. Migrants in Africa know their best shot of permanently staying in Europe is to say they are Eritreans.

And you can't really blame African migrants for lying, either. UNHCR, which is makes it no secret it has an ax to grind against the Government of Eritrea, has went out of its way to make Eritrean migrants a special case that even some war-torn countries and people facing genocide aren't receiving.

At the end of the day, these new ID cards will make it more difficult for African migrants to forge, but it will not end the tide of African migrants masquerading as Eritreans. So long as UNHCR's 2004 policy position on Eritrea stands, which re-designated all Eritrean asylum-seekers with ‘prima facie’ status (i.e. automatic recognition of Eritreans en masse), there is little the GOE can do to stop African migrants from using Eritrean identity to gain asylum in the West. The incentive to lie is too great.

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