Timothy has told part of his story to other journalists. His account of his arrest gives us an idea of the mechanisms at work: “A policeman looked at me and said, ‘Ok, we’re going to take you far away from here!’ I told them that I wasn’t going anywhere with them because they had no grounds. Then, they handcuffed me, with my hands behind my back, and shoved me into the back of a police van”. Rabat is teeming with these vehicles: white vans with red and green inscriptions (the colours of Morocco) and the words “National Security” on the doors.

Timothy was arrested on the street, while others are captured in the Moroccan forests close to the European border, or at their homes during large-scale raids. “Collective arrests in some working-class neighbourhoods of major Moroccan cities are carried out in areas identified as having a high concentration of people presumed to belong to the target group. (…) The police are able to blend into the neighbourhood to obtain information which helps them break into houses where foreigners or ‘Africans’ are likely to be staying illegally. This limits their margin of error in areas where the foreigner is often quickly identified”, says Nadia Khrouz, a member of Morocco’s National Human Rights Council (Conseil national des droits de l’homme, CNDH) in her book The Foreigner in Morocco.

“Some arrests are clearly based on the assumption that a black foreigner would be more likely to be staying illegally. Document checks are not always carried out on site. There have even been people working for international organisations who have been arrested,” says Yassine¹, a member of an important Moroccan institution.

“The police have always explained to us that, on the street, during raids, they do not have the equipment to check documents”

Philip S. heads the Moroccan office of a large charitable organisation in a big house shaded by vegetation. He is not very chatty: “All I can tell you is that people are under pressure. Some of our employees, even with a residence permit, have been arrested. They have been taken to police stations where they were able to phone us to let us know about their arrest”. On the reports, the police cite “flagrant crimes”. Philip S. adds: “They have always explained to us that on the street, during raids, they do not have the equipment to check documents. So, they do it once they have picked them up and brought them to the police station. The people whose papers are in order are automatically released”.

In 2014 and on the initiative of King Mohammed VI, a wave of regularisations took place. 27,000 people² staying illegally applied for a one-year residence permit. 16,000 of them obtained it. According to Philip S., today, Morocco is a country where you must find your place. He thinks that those who wish to settle are welcomed. Those who plan to travel to Europe are subjected to repression and detention. “Morocco is not only a transit country, but increasingly a destination country. Obviously, most people who arrive here plan to go to Europe at some point. Migration is always dynamic. Currently, we have a few more arrivals because the central road to Italy is almost closed. This influences public policies, but the figures are not dramatic”, he explains. Morocco reported There were 98,600 migrants in mid-2019: 0.3% of the population.

Forced relocation by bus¶

Investigating migration in north-eastern Morocco is not without risks: in 2015, a European observer from Amnesty International was escorted to the airport to be deported. “In the morning, we had a meeting with the Morocco’s National Human Rights Council (Conseil national des droits de l’homme, CNDH). Everything went well. In the evening, she left for Oujda to finish her work. It was there that she was apprehended”, says Salah Abdellaoui, the director of the NGO in Morocco. The practices of the country’s police officers include pushing back and forcibly relocating migrants to the south or to the Algerian border, especially from Nador and its surroundings to Oujda, a city located 20 km from Algeria.

The arrested migrants are forcibly moved to a town a little further south. Arrested in Tangier? You will be deported to Rabat. If you are arrested in Rabat, you can finish your journey in Tiznit, Beni Mellal, or even in Marrakech or near Western Sahara. Elsa Tyszler, a researcher at the Centre of Sociological and Political Research of Paris (Centre de recherches sociologiques et politiques de Paris, CRESPPA) and a member of the Migreurop network,has no qualms about defining these forced relocations as another form of deprivation of liberty. She says, “We can say that this is a form of confinement since people are sometimes relocated to very distant locations. It can take several hours before they are fed or have access to running water or a toilet”.

While the immigrants are arrested and placed in National Security vans, other vehicles are used to relocate them. “These are normal buses with a logo on them. I don’t know who they belong to”, says Timothy. These are CTM buses, Morocco’s public transport company. On its website, the company prides itself of its bus rental services for field trips and school events, as well as company outings. “Private companies are paid by the police, the authorities and auxiliary forces. These are not Royal Moroccan Gendarmerie buses. These vehicles go unnoticed and it’s more discreet if they don’t leave a trace”, says Salah Abdellaoui. These buses, which usually serve Moroccan citizens, are made available for the forced relocation of migrants. “The concentration of migrants in some cities is too dense, so we bring them to the south. This was before the Marrakesh Pact ³. Since then, there have been more deportations to the country of origin with the collaboration of the embassies”, explains Philip S.
The goal: to lead them out and keep them away from the crossing points. Some people describe it as deportation.

There is no official immigration removal centre in Tangier, on the Mediterranean coast. A simple police station is erected there. “I have been at the police station for three weeks now, I am starting my fourth week today”. This message was sent on October 31, 2018 to GADEM, an association that defends the rights of foreigners, from the basement of the Tangier central police station. In its report Free evictions, GADEM reports one of the few descriptions of this place: a sort of garage where the floor is littered with rudimentary mattresses. According to the report, “The people here only have access to a small part of the floor marked out by security barriers. There is insufficient space for a group of 90 to 100 people”.
The sanitary conditions there are deplorable. Men and women are cooped up, staring aimlessly, waiting. The photographs in the report speak for themselves: the urine-filled bottles are a few centimetres from the mattresses.

“At night, we have to pee in bottles because we don’t have access to running water. There’s a rat in the toilets and we don’t have anything to wash ourselves with. We just have little water”.

GADEM has set up its offices on Avenue de France, one of the main arteries of the Agdal district in Rabat. “In 2018, at the Tangier central police station, the detained people did not have blankets. Some stayed there for two months. They only had a piece of bread to eat each day”, testifies one of their managers.

Timothy was not held at the Tangier police station, but at the one in Rabat, the capital of Morocco. “It was a really disgusting place. I don’t even understand how police officers manage to work in a place like that because it was revolting. It was a basement. The sanitary facilities were not working. They didn’t turn on the lights when night fell. We were just wandering around this room that looked like a hallway. We only did one thing: wait. No one told us anything.” Around him, thirty to forty people paced back and forth. “I realised that everyone – as in every single one of us – was black. Some came from Nigeria, others from Senegal, Cameroon, or Liberia. And then, me, the American. Everyone I spoke to was shocked and asked me why I was there. I had no idea. And I still don’t.” Timothy did not have his phone. It was impossible to tell how long he was detained. “I guess I was locked up there for two and half hours.”

Then, like a well-oiled machine, the wheels were set in motion. Timothy and five other men were transferred to another room for their photos to be taken. They were fingerprinted and interrogated. Timothy’s turn came. The questions were the same:
“ - You, from where? Where are you from?!
- From the United States.“
The police laughed out loud.
“ - No, but really… where are you from?
- From the United States!
- But why didn’t you tell us before?!
– That’s what I’ve been telling you since you arrested me.“
His answer was not considered satisfactory: “But your parents, where do they come from?” Timothy’s mother is from Alabama, his father from North Carolina.
“ – Terrorist.
*- Excuse me?!
- Boko Haram. Terrorist.
– No, I’m not.
- Yes, you are a terrorist.
- Fuck you, I’m not a terrorist.“

He was sent back to the lobby. The men waited in silence. Officers ordered them to board a bus. They were not handcuffed but were forcibly pushed inside the bus. “They were incredibly violent”. Once the bus set off, violence erupted. “Young people who must have been around 17 years old complained about the cold and the lack of food. The police beat them with their batons. Then they hit every person who tried to stop them.”

Arekmane, leisure centre¶

“In addition to police stations and the Royal Moroccan Gendarmerie quarters, other premises that have nothing to do with the detention of migrants are also used. For example, in Nador, there is the Arekmane centre”, says Elsa Tyszler. Arekmane, four syllables that come up often. The strongest criticism comes from the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (Association marocaine pour les droits humains, AMDH), a thorn in the side of the authorities. AMDH and GADEM are the only organisations that regularly and publicly denounce the detention of migrants.

The Arekmane centre was built for tourism. It is under the Moroccan Ministry of Youth and Sports. Presented on its website as a socio-educational centre, the Arekmane centre has been requisitioned by the authorities to lock up migrants arrested near the coast. The National Human Rights Council (CNDH) does not have access to it.
“There is more arbitrary imprisonment today than before. This has become quite widespread. They were actually ad hoc centres that were supposed to be temporary. They are now accepting people more regularly and for longer periods of time. The authorities are requisitioning centres that were not necessarily mobilised”, Yassine adds hesitantly. “There is no intention to make the imprisonments and what is happening behind the scenes public.”

If Timothy had not had proper papers, he could have been tried on this ground and imprisoned. In Morocco, illegal residence is punishable by six to twelve months in prison.¹ According to GADEM, however, the law is not widely applied. Imprisonment rarely results from illegal residence alone. The absence of papers is often discovered during an arrest for public drunkenness or acts of delinquency. Some undocumented foreigners are reported. “The bulk of imprisonment for illegal immigration took place in 2012. It was under another policy”.

They are called the “harragas” - Moroccans who try to leave their country without a visa. If the treatment of undocumented immigrants is taboo, that of illegal emigrants is even more so. They are called Ilham, Fatima or Zhour. They were detained in November 2019 and, according to a recovered document obtained by a Moroccan NGO, imprisoned in the prisons of Tetouan or Oujda for one single reason: illegal migration. Two of them have been sentenced to one and two years in prison, respectively.² The third is awaiting trial.

In France, Moroccan citizens are among the ten nationalities with the most illegal residents. In 2018, nearly 7,500 of them were issued an expulsion order (obligation de quitter le territoire français, OQTF), of whom 1,161 were deported.³ Those who were deported risk incarceration on their return. The researchers from the IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research) in their 2013 study state: “While the Moroccan government’s response to the return of legal Moroccan migrants has focused on administrative and entrepreneurial support, very little assistance has been provided for the return and reintegration of irregular migrants”. According to this study, 6,619 Moroccans were arrested for irregular emigration in 2007.

What about the others?¶

Timothy, on the other hand, returned to Rabat the day after his arrest. He met his roommate, the “best person in the world”. He settled down beside her for their usual breakfast. Wide-eyed, he kept reliving his nightmare: Disrupted from his daily life, suspected of being an undocumented migrant, and called a terrorist because of his skin colour before being thrown into a lawless zone. Only his nationality could save him. At 11 am, he dialled the number of the American embassy in Rabat. He informed the consular services that the Moroccan authorities had just arbitrarily detained him and forcibly relocated him, an American citizen. “They told me that the numbers of English-speaking lawyers were listed on their website and that I just had to contact them. It’s like a doctor saying to his patient: what do you want me to do?!”.
Thanks to the protection provided by his nationality, Timothy had the luxury of expressing his anger. What about the others?