An illegal migrant from Guinea avoided deportation by refusing to take a pre-flight coronavirus test, only to find himself in detention asking: “Am I going to stay in prison until I die?”
Abdoul had been given an order to leave France but, like many other migrants, managed to stop his deportation by simply refusing to take a PCR test for the Chinese virus before getting on the flight back to Guinea.
However, because refusing to leave France when ordered is a criminal offence, the migrant found himself in court in Perpignan, L’Independent reports.
The migrant complained in court that he owed €3,000 (£2,552/$3,552) to the person who had paid for his trip, and therefore could not go back because he could not reimburse him, saying: “I want to stay here.”
“France cannot become a debtors’ paradise,” the public prosecutor responded, but only asked for a sentence of three to four months.
The illegal alien was handed back to the border police services to be put in administrative detention for three months. He was also given a three-year ban on entering French territory, although it is unclear what impact this will have given he is already in France and illegal aliens do not typically care whether or not they are allowed in the countries they enter.
After three months, Adboul will be asked again to take the PCR test. If he refuses, according to the newspaper, he will be brought before the court again, and the process of continued incarceration for refusal to leave France will continue.
“Am I going to stay in prison until I die?” the Guinean national asked a judicial police officer, to which the presiding justice of the Criminal Court of Perpignan responded: “As long as you refuse the test, we will be at an impasse.”
Abdoul then said he would comply with the order to take the PCR test after all.
“You will pass it Sir… in three months,” the judge stated.
France is not the only country to see migrants refuse to take PCR tests to avoid deportation. The same phenomenon was reported in Sweden in May.
Mikael Holmgren, acting head of the Border Patrol section in the western region, stated that countries required negative tests to take back their nationals and the tests could only be done voluntarily.
“Many of these that we have in custody have been here even before the pandemic. So when it drags on, and they don’t agree to PCR tests, we can’t deport them. In the end, we have to let them go,” he said.
In one case, a 21-year-old Afghan migrant avoided deportation despite having previously been convicted of raping a minor, simply because he refused a PCR test.
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