actually get deported. Most are instead sent from the border to Athens. While in Athens some may seek to find a getaway to another country while others look for safe ways of staying in Greece. However, as a traditional emigration country, Greece has never had a proactive and realistic immigration system; rather, Greek immigration policy has remained short-sighted, treating immigration as a necessary evil6. Despite several regularization programmes (2005, 2007, 2009) that gave the chance to foreign residents to enjoy relative freedom in Greece, a recent report by the OECD came to the conclusion that, in the past three years, immigrants in Greece with residence permits have not exceeded 650,000. The same report estimated the immigrant population in Greece at 1,259,258, meaning that nearly half of the foreigners in Greece are now unauthorized7. Testimonies from detained immigrants highlight the insecurity and fluidity between regularity and irregularity that immigrants experience in Greece. Even those with valid residence permits can be detained and deported as Greek authorities have now placed strict restrictions on the renewals of these permits, leading to more and more people lapsing into irregularity. The fragility of the Greek immigration system does not stop there. If a long-term integration perspective for economic immigrants in Greek society is lacking, the Greek asylum system is not much better. An asylum seeker has almost no chance of being granted asylum in Greece. For many years the rate of international protection granted fluctuated from 0.1 to 0.3 per cent; recently it rose to high point of 3 per cent. In 2011 out of 9311 filed applications only 587 were granted asylum.8 Many of the criticisms of the Greek asylum system are highlighted in academic papers9 and NGO reports10, as well as in judgments by the European Court of Human Rights, which deemed Greece unfit for protecting refugees11. All the above document that detainees are 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. often prevented from seeking protection or sometimes tricked out of the process by the police; for example, they release them before their interviews take place or give them crucial information only in Greek. Based on personal conversations with asylum seekers, long delays and widely known inefficiencies made them reluctant to apply for asylum at the earliest point. The country’s recent economic decline, highly porous borders, growing xenophobia, and ineffective legal and institutional framework have made Greece an undesirable place of residence. In 2010, for the first time in 20 years, the immigrant population in Greece started decreasing12. As an economic immigrant vividly put it, ‘you have to understand me. There is nothing for me in Greece. I don’t want to steal. I just decided to leave’. Without papers, however, departure is not permitted. Leaving Greece Recent case studies have shown that the severe recession has had a negative impact on low-skilled laborers, particularly Greece’s immigrant population13. More specifically, the shrinking of the construction and agricultural sectors has put large numbers of foreign nationals out of work. According to the Hellenic Statistical Authority, the unemployment rate in Greece has risen steadily over the past several years and will continue to grow throughout the following years. Immigrants participate in the Greek labor force at high levels, and their rate of unemployment has increased more than the overall rate over the course of the recession, most sharply after the third quarter of 2008. This is reflected in the thousands of applications that the International Organisation for Migration received in 2012 from foreign residents who wanted to return to their countries voluntarily. Out of 9,000 requests, 7,052 came from irregular migrants, 1,661 from asylum seekers and 106 from refused asylum seekers14. Psimmenos I. and Kassimati, K. (2002) The Greek case: Immigration Control Pathways: Organisational Culture and Work Values of Greek Welfare Officers, IAPASIS Project Report, KEKMOKOP, Panteion University, Athens, available at: http://www.eui.eu/RSCAS/Research/IAPASIS/Reports.shtml , accessed on 20 August 2012; Triandafyllidou, A. (2005) The Greek Migratory Policy: Problems and Directions, ELIAMEP Policy Texts, Nr. 6, 2005, available at: http://www.eliamep.gr/en/migration/publications-migration/migration-policy-in-greece/ last accessed on 19 August 2012; Triantafyllidou, A. (2009) Greek Immigration Policy at the Turn of the 21st Century. Lack of Political Will or Purposeful Mismanagement?, European Journal of Migration and Law, 11: 2. OECD (2010) International Migration Outlook, SOPEMI 2010. Statistics from http://www.astynomia.gr/index.php?option=ozo_content&perform=view&id=12630&Itemid=73&lang , accessed on 20th August, 2012. Skordas, A. and Sitaropoulos, N. (2004) Why Greece is not a safe country for refugees, International Journal for Refugee Law, 16: 1; Papadimitriou, P. N and Papageorgiou, I. F. (2005) The New ‘Dubliners’: Implementation of European Council Regulation 343/2003 (Dublin-II) by the Greek Authorities, Journal of Refugee Studies, 18: 3. Pro Asyl (2007) The truth may be bitter but it must be told: The Situation of Refugees in the Aegean and the Practices of the Greek Coast Guard, Frankfurt a. M. and Athens; Human Rights Watch (2008) Stuck in a Revolving Door: Iraqis and Other Asylum Seekers and Migrants at the Greece/Turkey Entrance to the European Union, USA. S.D. vs. Greece, 11.06.2009; A.A. vs. Greece, 22.07.2010; Tabesh vs. Greece, 26.11.2009; M.S.S. vs. Belgium and Greece, 21.01.2011; Rahimi vs. Greece, 05.04.2011; R.U vs. Greece, 07.06.2011. Triandafyllidou, A. and Maroufof, M. (2011) GREECE, Report prepared for the SOPEMI Meeting, Paris, 1-3 December 2010. Maroukis, T. (2012) Migration and the crisis in Greek society: the parameters of a coordinated departure; Triandafyllidou, Á. and ,Maroukis, T. (2012) Migrant Smuggling: Irregular Migration from Asia and Africa to Europe, Migration, Minorities and Citizenship Series, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Private conversation with IOM officials. 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