French NGOs Challenge Government’s Freeze on Family Reunification Visas

This action aims to challenge the same-day rejection of appeals filed by a collective of lawyers affiliated with the Syndicat des avocats de France (SAF) before the administrative court of Nantes, which concern the freezing of family reunification visas for the spouses and children of foreign residents, including Moroccans.

Migrant aid organizations such as La Cimade, the Association nationale d’assistance aux frontières pour les étrangers (ANAFE), the Association pour le droit des étrangers (ADDE), the CFDA, and associations such as France Terre d’Asile, Amnesty International France, the Groupe d’information et de soutien des immigrés (Gisti), the Ligue des droits de l’Homme (LDH), Médecins du Monde, the Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l’amitié entre les peuples (MRAP) and the Secours catholique support this request.

Since March 16, hundreds of foreign families have been deprived of the right to reunite with their relatives residing in France, although they have received authorization at the end of a long processing of their file as part of family reunification or, in the case of families of refugees in France, family reunification, the NGOs say in a press release.

Living in countries classified by France as ’active areas of coronavirus circulation’, "the members of these families are confronted with the wall of embassies and consulates that refuse to register and process their visa applications, or even to issue them to them," they explain.

By seizing the Council of State, these NGOs intend to demonstrate to it the discriminatory nature of the visa freeze for the families of foreign residents. According to them and the other stakeholders in the referral campaign, this situation "disproportionately infringes several fundamental rights, in particular the right to asylum, the right to family life and the right to respect for the best interests of the child".