An exhausted Albanian mother and her young child disembarked an airplane from Barcelona at Dublin Airport on a Friday morning last week. They claimed to be in Ireland for a vacation, an arrangement supposedly made by her aunt two days prior according to her explanation to the Border Management Unit (BMU) officer manning the passport booth.
However, suspicions arose when the woman could not provide straightforward answers about her planned accommodations and sightseeing itinerary. When confronted with the officer’s disbelief of her holiday intentions, she confessed that her story was fabricated, revealing her actual goal to request asylum in Ireland.
Further interrogation disclosed that she had initially flown from Athens to Barcelona before flying to Ireland. Miraculously, she had managed to catch the Dublin bound flight in spite of lacking a valid visa. This later raised issues with Irish authorities who would confront the involved airline and likely impose a penalty.
Over the years, this woman joins thousands who have endeavoured to gain entry into Ireland without appropriate travel documents. The usual course of action for such travellers is to apply for asylum, granting them permission to stay while their case is under evaluation.
The influx of asylum seekers sans legitimate papers has caused the government some humiliation. This embarrassment has spurred Justice Minister Helen McEntee to enforce a range of measures, like increasing fines for airlines permitting passengers to embark without passports, and arresting individuals who discard their passport during travel.
This year alone, charges have been brought against 220 individuals for not producing passports, with 80 of them imprisoned. A stark contrast to the single prosecution recorded from 2019 to 2022.
A major shift has been transferring more authority and resources to the BMU to tackle rogue immigration and human trafficking via Dublin Airport, where the majority of Ireland’s guests arrive. Almost 180 staff members now make up the BMU, a subdivision of the Department of Justice, handling all immigration control at the airport, liberating around 100 police for additional immigration enforcement tasks.
The Albanian woman, amidst her immigration dispute, is guided to await further processing on a bench near passport control.
As this takes place, a group of American visitors, mostly tourists, are processed by BMU officers. Following enquiries about their accommodation and travel plans within the country, the officers bid them an enjoyable day and permit them to proceed.
Eileen Leahy, who is positioned at the helm of the BMU, asserts that they extend the same degree of treatment to every individual, be it a holidaymaker or someone seeking refuge. Wishing travellers ‘happy birthday’ upon spotting it in their passport is an aspect of their courteous behaviour, Leahy explains.
The BMU has weathered numerous distinct adversities. The coronavirus outbreak instigated a situation where immigration enforcement had to undertake the role of public health regulation executioners, equipping themselves swiftly to identify counterfeit vaccination and PCR test certificates.
This was promptly succeeded by the refugee emergency due to the Ukrainian conflict, which led to various BMU personnel processing a large influx of distressed migrants, many didn’t possess their possessions or travel documents.
The increased arrival of asylum seekers from various nations, including many who discarded their passports, added to the challenges. In the initial six months of 2022, almost 3,000 persons without legal travel papers made their arrivals at the airport. Amongst them, around 77 per cent sought refuge.
However, by the first seven months of 2024, this number considerably dropped to 1,471 arrivals. The widespread institution of so-called doorstep manoeuvres by the BMU is a contributing factor to this decline. The aim is to check travel documents before travellers reach passport control, often right after they alight the plane.
Leahy expounds that this is beneficial because it lessens the chance for people to discard their passports as they make their way from the airplane to immigration administration. The method also aids officers in identifying the plane someone without a passport deboarded from in a bustling airport like Dublin, which could otherwise require many hours of investigative work.
To discern the pathways employed for irregular migration and where to direct doorstep operations, personnel rely on information from national and international agencies and their personal knowledge.
BMU staff maintain a duty phone which is repeatedly flagged by airline staff abroad if they notice suspicious passengers. This happens very frequently, and alerts them every few minutes.
Currently, flights arriving from Frankfurt are under scrutiny due to the perceived high risk of undocumented migration and human smuggling. That day, BMU officers undertook a doorstep manoeuvre on a flight coming in from the German city, setting up near the exit to swiftly cross-check passports as passengers disembarked.
One man expressed shock when informed that he would indeed need to showcase his passport again at the immigration control, although the majority of passengers didn’t raise objections. “The purpose of our assignment here seems to be clear to most”, observed O’Donohoe, the Head of Operations at BMU, regarding the flight where everyone appeared to own a legitimate passport.
He further expounded that applications for refugee status could be made by asylum seekers, irrespective of whether or not they owned a passport. But he also raised the question: why do a high number of people discard or obliterate them? O’Donohoe points towards criminal organisations who direct them to destroy documents to boost their chances of staying in Ireland and continuing their asylum applications. These cartels distributing counterfeit passports, favour not sharing the fake documents with immigration officials so as to safeguard their profitable operations.
In other scenarios, the criminals lend passports for boarding the flight, only to confiscate them before the immigration control on reaching the other side so as to recycle them. Identifying such incidents of human trafficking is increasingly becoming common due to the rise in checkpoint endeavours, notes the BMU officer.
For this year alone, 40 possible smuggling incidents have been brought to the Gardaí’s attention by the BMU, prompting charges against 17 accused suspects. On one such occasion, a BMU official on his return trip from a Spanish holiday spotted a man confiscating passports from seven co-passengers just before take-off. The man feigned illness and deplaned. Upon observing this evident case of human smuggling, the officer notified his Dublin colleagues who awaited the passengers on their landing.
In some instances, people escaping war-stricken areas or disasters don’t have the opportunity to procure their passports before heading to Ireland, a scenario that was common during the initial influx of Ukrainian refugees, mentions Leahy. However, O’Donohoe is quick to refute the notion that authorities are unaware of the identities of those arriving without a passport, despite the hundreds still managing to do so.
People seeking asylum are generally eager to provide alternate identification forms in order to verify their identities. This is usually scrutinised using police databases within the European Union. In addition, fingerprint data is gathered and registered across numerous global databases.
“Many times, individuals voluntarily give us their mobile phones, which often contain pictures of their passports,” he remarks. “In an overwhelming majority of situations, we manage to accurately establish their identity.”
At the immigration department, staff are gearing up to initiate an initial asylum consultation with an Albanian lady. Her young daughter – no more than five – amusingly tinkers with one of the crowd-control barriers whilst an interpreter facilitates communication between the BMU officers and the woman.
The fingerprinting procedure for the lady is conducted, which takes a bit longer due to the child’s insistence on clutching her mother’s spare hand during the entire process.
Once this procedure is done, ham and cheese sandwiches are arranged for the duo and the lady is instructed to report to the International Protection Office on Mount Street in Dublin’s heart on the following Monday. The concluding phase involves contacting the International Protection Accommodation Service to find out the availability of any accommodations for the weekend.
“It’s a challenging task, indeed. We encounter individuals landing in trying conditions. They are not merely statistics to us,” O’Donohoe states.
“Our staff is alert about the outside pressures and the prevalent context. They aren’t protected from that. They use social networks,” he adds.