Two weeks after the painful adoption of the immigration law, which plans to facilitate the removal of foreigners, the annual toll of expulsions is already up compared to 2022. In total, 4,686 delinquent foreigners were expelled in 2023 , or 30% more than in 2022, the Ministry of the Interior announced on Thursday January 24 to Agence France-Presse (AFP), confirming information from Le Figaro.
In detail, 4,686 delinquent foreigners were deported in 2023, compared to 3,615 in 2022 and 1,800 in 2021, the ministry said. Beauvau communicates these figures on the day the Court of Auditors issues a report on the policy to combat illegal immigration. The main destination areas for expelled people are, in order, the Maghreb, sub-Saharan Africa and central Europe.
Gérald Darmanin calls for “speeding up”
These figures correspond to “effective removals upon leaving the administrative detention center and the execution of ministerial expulsion orders”, it is specified at Place Beauvau. This does not include people expelled due to their registration in the file of reports for the prevention of radicalization of a terrorist nature (FSPRT).
Gérald Darmanin, who brought together the prefects on Thursday morning at the Ministry of the Interior, “welcomed this first assessment” and asked them to “further accelerate in this area, in particular thanks to the contributions of the immigration law as soon as it is promulgated,” those around him told AFP.
The text, on which the Constitutional Council must still rule before it is promulgated, provides in particular for the expulsion of legally delinquent foreigners, even those who arrived in France before the age of 13 or have a French spouse.
On Thursday, the Court of Auditors called on the State to “be better organized” for the expulsions of foreigners. In a report which details the “policy to combat illegal immigration”, the rapporteurs judged that the administration would benefit from recalibrating a currently “ineffective” strategy, which is based above all on the massive issuance of obligations to leave. French territory (OQTF).
“This disconnect between the number of removal measures pronounced and their effective execution demonstrates the difficulties of the State in enforcing, including under duress, its particularly numerous decisions,” observed the Court of Auditors, emphasizing that “only a small minority – around 10% – of OQTFs are executed.”
