Human Rights Watch visited with this man on several occasions during our visit to Greece. On our last day we learned that he had left again for Patras and was trying once more to leave the country. Official Deportations The number of official deportations from Greece is small compared to the number of persons arrested for illegal entry or presence, the vast majority of whom are ordered to leave the country.69 There are significant challenges to Greece’s ability to deport undocumented foreigners.70 Many migrants have no identity documents and give false names and nationalities. Determining their identities and correct nationalities can be time consuming and expensive. Because the migrants’ home countries are often poor and over-populated, their governments, desperate for remittances from their diasporas, have little capacity—or incentive—to cooperate in the return of their nationals. Greece, therefore, often finds it impossible to deport nationals of these countries within the three-month limit on administrative detention of migrants. Consequently nationalities that have no prospect for deportation are usually detained for less time than others. Afghans, Burmese, Palestinians, and Somalis—are held for shorter periods of time than those for whom Greece thinks it might be able to effectuate a deportation, such as Bangladeshis, Egyptians, Iranians, Pakistanis, and Sri Lankans. This is a primary reason for migrants to lie about their nationality. Even though Sudanese and Iraqis are not easily deported, they tend to be held for longer periods of time as well, according to testimonies from detainees.71 Despite the widespread fear among Iraqis of being deported, relatively few are officially deported from Greece. In 2007 Greece deported 405 Iraqis out of the 9,586 Iraqis who were “arrested to be deported.”72 Since Greece has not been able regularly to deport 69 According to statistics supplied by the Ministry of the Interior to Human Rights Watch, in 2007 only 29.14 percent of individuals “arrested to be deported” were actually deported (58,602 arrested; 17,077 deported, of whom 14,403 were Albanians). (Statistics on file with Human Rights Watch.) 70 The legal basis for deportation is Law 3386/2005 (Aliens Act), Article 76 and following. 71 In addition to Iraqis themselves telling Human Rights Watch about being held for the three-month maximum, members of other nationality groups had the same observation, such as a 25-year-old Afghan detained at Mitilini who said, “Some refugees were detained longer—Pakistanis, Iraqis, Sudanese…I don’t know why they were detained longer. I don’t know whether they applied for asylum.” Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, S-114), Athens, May 23, 2008. 72 Ministry of the Interior statistics provided to Human Rights Watch. (Statistics on file with Human Rights Watch.) 35 Human Rights Watch November 2008