Two deputies from the majority underline the “black point” of the “delays in processing civil status documents” of the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (Ofpra), which “strongly penalize integration procedures”, in a report consulted by Agence France-Presse, Thursday November 16. Backed by the 2024 draft budget, this report by Stella Dupont and Mathieu Lefèvre (Renaissance) looks at the resources granted to immigration, and more precisely to Ofpra.
If the Office has significantly reduced the time taken to examine asylum applications, the time taken to establish civil status documents for beneficiaries of international protection (birth certificate, family record book, marriage certificate, etc.) ) however remain a “black spot”. “The deadlines for establishing these acts continue to deteriorate. These delays stood at 4.8 months in 2016, 8 months in 2021 and almost 12 months in 2023,” deplore these parliamentarians.
“These delays result in significant delays in establishing residence permits, in increased difficulties in accessing social housing, in additional time for the issuance of the Vitale card or in the impossibility of providing birth certificates children when registering for school,” they continue.
An addition of 300,000 euros to finance eight additional positions at Ofpra
“It’s a real obstacle to integration,” believes Stella Dupont. The two deputies obtained in the draft budget, adopted by the use of article 49.3 at first reading, the addition of 300,000 euros to finance eight additional full-time positions at Ofpra.
In this immigration budget, Mathieu Lefèvre, however, did not succeed in his other proposal to increase credits for the renovation of administrative detention centers (more than 6.2 million euros).
The appropriations for the “Immigration, asylum and integration” mission in the 2024 draft budget represent around 2.2 billion euros, an increase of 7%. This does not take into account state medical aid (AME), which appears in the health budget and represents 1.14 billion euros for 2024.
During consideration of the immigration bill, the Senate voted to eliminate AME and replace it with “emergency medical aid.” The government and the majority in the Assembly intend to restore the AME in the text during the debates at the Palais-Bourbon, expected in session from December 11.
