About this time last year, Bolivian citizens travelling to Ireland began to flag more and more episodes of airlines refusing to let them board in places as spread around as Turkey, Brazil, Colombia and Germany.
These travellers had said that airline staff were demanding extra documents, ones that weren’t listed anywhere on the Irish government website as being required.
When Bolivian officials, and the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs on their behalf, asked the Department of Justice what was going on, the official response pushed responsibility solely onto the airlines. The airlines made the final call, said the department’s statement at the time.
But emails between the Department of Justice and its Border Management Unit (BMU) suggest it was more complicated than that.
Irish officials seem to have ignored requests from Bolivian officials to tell airlines that they were demanding more than what was required by Irish law and skirted answering in writing whether they had a hand in what was happening.
Behind the scenes, the government – citing concerns about Bolivians using Ireland as a gateway into Europe, and around asylum claims – was also plotting to change the rules to make it harder for them to come here.
It did that on 12 September. Since then, Bolivian citizens have needed visas to travel to Ireland.
Seeking answers
On 27 March, the Bolivian embassy in London sent a letter to Irish officials asking if travel rules for Bolivian tourists and students had changed, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act.
They wanted to make sure Bolivian citizens knew, if that was the case.
On 19 May, a staffer from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) followed up with the same question ahead of a meeting with the Bolivian ambassador in Argentina.
They shared a list of requirements given to a Bolivian travel agent by Air France, showing that it goes beyond what the Irish government says on its website is needed to travel.
And they asked if airlines were doing that because more Bolivian citizens were being refused entry when they landed.
Airlines can be fined up to €3,000 by the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) if they board passengers who can’t get permission to land at the airport’s immigration desk.
At the time, a Department of Justice staffer also asked a colleague the same question: “Are the airlines going above what we ask for in the attached or is this message on brand?”
Responses from officials in the Department of Justice skirt the key question of whether airlines were asking for more than was legally required at the behest of government officials, or on their own.
In responses to press queries and those from TDs, the Department of Justice kept repeating that travel rules for Bolivian citizens hadn’t changed and airlines made the final call about boarding people.
Albeit, they may for any passenger contact the Border Management Unit for advice, they said.
On 6 June, a Department of Justice official emailed someone at its Border Management Unit at Dublin Airport, saying that Bolivian officials wanted them to contact airlines and tell them that the rules hadn’t changed.
The staffer asks if the airlines have full discretion on who they carry. The BMU worker writes back on 9 June but seems to have ignored the request to call up airlines.
“I would be reluctant to go beyond what we have already said in terms of advice to airlines re admissibility of passengers in Ireland,” says the email.
They have kept to consistent lines on the question and don’t want to add to the narrative, they said.
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice didn’t say why it had brushed aside requests from Bolivian officials to confirm the rules with airlines.
In the background
During that time, Department of Justice officials were considering a shift in policy for travellers from Bolivia.
Under the impression that Bolivian citizens were abusing visa-free travel to Ireland to reach other countries in Europe, officials were sketching out a plan to scrap that policy, the documents show.
They were also concerned that more Bolivians would seek asylum if they boarded flights and were refused leave to land here, according to the documents.
On 12 September, the government announced that it was ending visa-free travel for Bolivians.
Gabriela Burnett, then-president of the Association of Bolivian Residents in Ireland, says she is disappointed the department hasn’t been transparent about its role in how Bolivian citizens were targeted by airlines in the period running up to that.
“We had months and months of people coming and being discriminated without any official changes, but they were doing something in the background,” she said.
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice said the documents show how much thought and coordination it puts into making visa policy decisions. In drawing up any immigration policy, they said, the main concern is striking a proper balance.
“Between protecting the country’s vital national interests by maintaining an effective immigration regime while at the same time facilitating travel for those who meet the criteria,” they said.
Justifying change
The Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) had pushed for a change in policy for Bolivians, mainly concerned that they were using Ireland as a gateway to Spain, documents show.
In the early months of 2023, civil servants swung into action and drew up a proposal to introduce visas for Bolivians.
Leave-to-land refusals had been trending up since 2017, bar the first couple of pandemic years, a report says. Some come here as tourists and students but have other plans, says the document.
Also, “eleven of the 104 passengers refused entry to have claimed asylum so far this year”, it says.
Plus, 76 percent of Bolivians who’d been refused leave to land didn’t report back to Dublin Airport for deportation while under open custody, which doesn’t involve detention, says the document.
“This lack of compliance supports the view that these passengers had always intended to abuse the immigration system,” it says.
It lists a sample of jobs that Bolivian travellers had said they had and compares their monthly salaries to the relevant costs of a trip to Ireland and how much the passengers said they had for the trip, plus how long it’d take them to save that much.
A nurse, making €425 a month, it says, needs to work seven months to save money for the journey, while it would take a little over five months for a plumber.
The document includes a link to a Daily Mail article from December 2022 about three people arrested in London who were suspects in a human-smuggling gang allegedly flying Bolivian citizens into Dublin and then bringing them over via Belfast.
“The criminal operation is suspected of manipulating the so-called Common Travel Area which allows passport-free movement between the UK and Ireland,” the article says.
Burnett, the former president of the Association of Bolivian Residents in Ireland, says the story seems to make an issue look bigger than it is as is the style with some tabloids. “Making it something really big like gangs or mafia.”
On 12 June, a Department of Justice staffer said as of the end of 2022, there were 1,407 Bolivians registered in Ireland. And there may be some more without papers, they said, but Bolivians did not feature heavily in the amnesty scheme for undocumented people.
Maria Eugenia Gonzales, the current president of the Association of Bolivian Residents in Ireland, said there was immigration abuse, but also many people who just genuinely wanted to visit family or study in Ireland faced discrimination when boarding flights.
“That was not fair,” Gonzales said.
Short notice
Gonzalez said when the government cancelled visa-free travel for Bolivians on 12 September, it gave such short notice that it ruined genuine travel plans. “It was a mess.”
The Department of Justice had considered a transitional window to help travellers who had already booked without a visa during visa-free times. But it opted not to do that, documents show.
“BMU in conjunction with the carriers will try to facilitate genuine travellers and adopt a pragmatic approach on a case by case basis,” says an email from a Department of Justice staffer on 11 September.
When a DFA staffer asked if they could tell people that Irish border guards would greenlight visa-free boarding for passengers who’d booked flights before 12 September, a Department of Justice worker said no.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate to offer the level of assurance suggested above to customers/potential travellers,” they said.
In the end, a press release about the policy shift, which went live on 9 September, said it would “try to accommodate emergency travel” for some people who’d pre-booked.
Including travel that involves a seriously ill family member with proof from a medical institution, students enrolled in third-level course students, and those with a work permit. It doesn’t mention English language students.
Burnett, the ex-president of the Association of Bolivian Residents in Ireland, said some of them had flights booked and school fees paid months in advance. “Suddenly, everything has changed, and people are losing money.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice said it would’ve been inappropriate to announce the visa decision before it had the minister’s approval.
Walls close in
Gonzales, the current president of the Association of Bolivian Residents in Ireland, says with visa rules in place, people aren’t getting singled out by airlines anymore.
“It brought some discipline,” she said.
But they struggle to travel back to Bolivia for holidays or emergencies, she said.
Migrants can’t live and work or study on a visa. They usually get up to 90 days on visas to register their immigration statuses and get a residence permit.
In Dublin, people have to phone the city’s immigration office and book an appointment slot for that. It can take some time.
Gonzales says that now, if people don’t manage to do that while their visas are still valid, going home bears the risk of not being able to return.
That wasn’t a problem in the past. Since they didn’t need visas, they couldn’t miss the window to sort their immigration status in the country while the visa was still valid.
She’s also concerned about the lack of Bolivian diplomatic representation in Ireland – the nearest Bolivian embassy is in London – and how it dampens advocacy and makes people feel helpless, she said. “During Covid, I thought, what happens if I pass away?” she said.
Burnett, the ex-president of the community group, said that with Ireland also closing its doors, Europe is now mostly closed off to Bolivians, and that upsets her.
It’s not that easy to get visas, she said. Citizens of some other South American countries can still travel to Ireland without visas, like Brazilians, Argentines, Guyanese and Paraguayans.
Says Burnett: “Why Bolivia? Why to us? Why they didn’t want us here?”
She has a clutch of worries, she said, about undocumented mothers in Ireland with kids in Bolivia who used to come over to visit them here. Now, the changes stand in the way of these reunions, she says.