‘I was actually depressed’: France tries to deport immigrant students 

Names marked with an asterisk have been changed to protect identities.

Paris, France – In Saint-Denis, a gritty northern suburb of Paris and one of France’s poorest areas, dozens of children of immigrants are graduating from technical high schools.

But instead of getting job offers, some are receiving deportation orders.

In April, Mariem*, 19, who is studying medicine as part of a two-year vocational degree known as a BTS, received a text message notification that a letter was waiting for her at the post office. When she went to pick it up, she discovered it was an “Obligation de Quitter le Territoire Francais”, or OQTF, a deportation order.

“I was sad. I didn’t know what to do. I think I was actually depressed,” said Mariem, who arrived in France from Tunisia in 2019 at the age of 12. She had studied for seven years in middle school and a technical high school, she told Al Jazeera.

Mohammed*, 19, faces a similar situation. Currently enrolled in a two-year BTS programme in electrical engineering, he arrived in France from Morocco at the age of 14 along with his family.

In September, he returned from vacation to a similar letter. The OQTF, delivered by France’s Ministry of the Interior, informed him that he did not hold the proper visa to study since he arrived on a tourist visa. The letter also claimed Mohammed was not enrolled in school, which he said was false.

“I was shocked, disappointed,” Mohammed said. “I sat outside on a chair just staring. I kept asking myself why. What did I do?”

Scores of students affected

For this story, Al Jazeera spoke with five high school students, school staff and French immigration experts who confirmed that despite exemptions designed to protect students training to fill some of France’s most difficult and understaffed jobs, including certain medical fields, some high schoolers of immigrant backgrounds are being ordered to leave the country.

Others are unable to continue their studies or work due to their lack of paperwork.

While official statistics are not available, an academic adviser in one Saint-Denis trade school who spoke to Al Jazeera estimated that 50 students were either undocumented or had been deported on account of not being able to process their paperwork. The academic adviser said about a dozen other technical schools in the region were experiencing similar challenges.

These students are in a grey area because they arrived with their parents on nonstudy visas as children. Until they turn 18, they are safe from deportation. But after that age, they do not have the same protections despite having strong ties to France and future professional prospects.

In January 2025, Bruno Retailleau, then the interior minister, reduced the allotted number of work permits given to high school graduates to remain living in France legally.

His order was intended to reduce a backlog of paperwork processing in a country where, according to France’s largest labour union, a simple visa renewal can take as many as 18 months because the government has created stricter guidelines for who can receive French papers.

In reality, the percentage of visas issued overall has decreased by more than 40 percent and work visas by more than 50 percent, according to France’s Ministry of the Interior. From 2023 to 2024, France delivered more deportation orders than any other country in the European Union, even if not all are executed, according to Serge Slama, professor of public law.

In the most challenging cases, students have waited for as many as three years for their paperwork to be approved, the academic adviser told Al Jazeera. Even in fields with hard-to-fill jobs that should receive priority processing – including construction, engineering, nursing and caretaking – at least one student still received a deportation order, the adviser said.

‘Administrative tangles’

Several students Al Jazeera interviewed had lost out on work or study and apprenticeship opportunities because the prefecture’s timeline to approve work permits falls outside the academic calendar.

The backlog for residence and work permits is particularly bad in Saint-Denis.

“Saint-Denis is truly where the queues were longest. There aren’t physical queues any more, but there are now digital queues. It’s exactly the same problem, just in a different form,” Slama told Al Jazeera.

The average processing time for a residence permit in Saint-Denis is 145 days, compared with 117 across France.

Deportation orders are issued for multiple reasons from rejected asylum claims to administrative errors.

About 100,000 asylum claims are rejected in France every year, and if the claim is refused, residence permits are typically revoked, followed by a deportation order, Slama said.

Not all OQTFs are legal or reasonable, according to Samy Djemaoun, an immigration lawyer. Djemaoun has clients who have been ordered to leave during family reunification processes or as a legal status claim is ongoing.

He said criminal cases also lead to deportation orders.

“What I observe ranges from an unpaid metro ticket to terrorism. Terrorism-level cases are the ones with serious public order threats. That’s not the majority, contrary to what people would have you believe,” Djemaoun told Al Jazeera.

Often, deportation orders are the result of administrative errors, convoluted bureaucracy or language barriers, according to Djemaoun.

“Many OQTFs should never have existed. We often observe administrative tangles that are, in large part, the prefecture’s own fault,” Djemaoun said. “Situations are artificially created – bureaucratic labyrinths – to better justify the use of repression. Then it’s easy to say, ‘There are many unexecuted OQTFs, so we’re going to tighten the conditions for entering France even further.’”

The Interior Ministry defended its measures, saying, “All applications for residence permits are processed by the prefecture in accordance with the law. The procedures for regularising the status of young adults residing in the country without authorisation are defined by the Code on the Entry and Stay of Foreigners and the Right of Asylum (CESEDA) and clarified by case law.”

Because of the backlog, the Seine-Saint-Denis Departmental Council signed a protocol on January 6 to allow early review for unaccompanied children in the welfare system.

“This aims to facilitate, in accordance with the law, the administrative procedures for minors seeking to regularise their status upon reaching the age of majority who are enrolled in vocational training programmes,” the Interior Ministry said.

France’s Council of State ruled on May 5 that the government must “rectify the malfunctions” of the platform used for residence permit applications within six months. The council determined the portal is “likely to unduly restrict users’ right of access or compromise their ability to exercise the rights granted to them by law”.

Some foreign nationals with legal status in France who have lived in the country for years have been unable to renew their residence permits due to the complicated online system, the Council of State determined.

‘We can’t even speak up’

Some students like 22-year-old Ghada who have not received deportation orders still remain in legal limbo, unable to pursue extended education or be hired without a work permit.

She arrived from Tunisia in 2019 with her family on a tourist visa. She has excelled academically in France, specialising in IT. For three years, Ghada has been working with a lawyer to regularise her status. She needs a residence permit to sit for engineering school entrance exams soon but still does not have one.

“Our administrative situation layers on top of everything else. We can’t even speak up because we’re in an irregular situation,” Ghada said.

Ghada has few attachments to her home country and little desire to return.

“I want to go far. I want an engineering degree. Why not a doctorate?”

Her family moved to provide Ghada and her sister with more opportunities, but the administrative challenges have hindered those dreams. They arrived on tourist visas with hopes of finding a more permanent solution to stay in France.

“In my country, everyone wants to go to France. It’s considered a very prestigious country. That’s not the reality, but that’s how people think. It’s truly everyone’s dream. You can launch a career there. But then when you arrive, you see the real reality.”

In Saint-Denis, the election of a left-wing mayor has given some of these students hope. Bally Bagayoko, who was born in France and has Malian heritage, took office in late March.

Last month, Bagayoko and other representatives in Saint-Denis held a “civic pairing” ceremony in which undocumented technical school students were sponsored by French politicians to support their right to stay while waiting for their paperwork to come through.

Students were given documents attesting to their integration. Although nonbinding, they do offer a level of formal support.

Mohammed, the Moroccan electrician student, said the ceremony was nerve-racking. But in the end, “it’s good to know that you have somebody backing you up and that you’re not alone,” he said.

But Ghada could not make it. She had a job interview.