The Director General of the Belgian Immigration Office, Freddy Roosemont has cautioned Cameroonians against real dangers of illegal immigration to Belgium. This has come as a result of tens of thousands of application files which are piling up, awaiting a case-by-case decision, saturating the asylum and immigration services.
The Director General’s visit for the information campaign which took place at the Hilton Hotel in Yaounde on June 7 served as part of a prevention mission concerning the real dangers of irregular immigration to Belgium, which has had negative consequences on Cameroonians.
Director Freddy Roosemont said the asylum and migration services are currently saturated in Belgium, with tens of thousands of application files. However, a very minimal number of these applicants receive the refugee status.
‘‘Most Cameroonian applicants receive a negative decision and then an order to leave Belgium’’ he said. ‘‘If their asylum application is rejected, they definitively have to leave Belgium, otherwise risk being detained in a detention centre in view of their forced return to Cameroon.
Freddy Roosemont revealed that studying in Belgium involves a long and meticulously prepared procedure. Controls aimed at detecting forged documents are being intensified.
‘‘For the student visa, its threefold, first of all the number of applications is abnormally high, Cameroon provides 1/3 of the total visa applications for a country which is not that big, more than Morocco, more than China, more than the States and so on’’ the Director said.
Security is being strengthened and each document will be verified, not only when the application is submitted but also when crossing the border.
‘‘A lot of these applications are done with fake documents, fake diplomas, fake banks attestations and soon and thirdly when they get the visa and they come into Belgium, they almost never go to school, they never present themselves for their exams, they really seem not to be motivated and it can’t be a language problem. People from Cameroon are going to French-speaking universities, they know the language so if they don’t go to class and they don’t present themselves for their examinations, they are not motivated and they are taking the place of somebody who can be motivated’’ said the Director general.
Hence, candidates will have to explain their study project and prove that the studies chosen are related to their previous studies.
‘‘We see a lot of ill-intentioned Cameroonian students who want to enter into Belgium to stay there illegally. It is not worth doing that. These students are immediately sanctioned by an order to leave Belgium. Some are directly turned back at the border’’ Freddy Roosemont adds.
He ended by cautioning anyone who is considering to travel to Belgium for studies, explaining that processing times for study visa applications are very long. As such, it is impossible to guarantee that student applicants will arrive on time before the start of the academic year to take exams.
Sa'ah Siona Ikei, The Post Newspaper.
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