Upset professor reports police

“The conditions for people who need to use the Immigration Section’s services are shameful and terrible. I am deeply shocked by what I've experienced,” says Øyvind Thomassen after two visits to the Immigration Section last week.

A waiting list for a queue number

Thursday night, more than 100 people had gathered in front of the Police Station entrance. Thomassen, who is a professor at the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, observed a number of NTNU employees or NTNU-related researchers and students.

According to Thomassen, people had tried to create a voluntary waiting list, to avoid chaos and scuffles in front of the queue number machine when the doors opened.

Almost violent

The voluntary waiting list was not respected by some of the latest arrivals and Thomassen described the beginnings of a potentially violent situation when police opened the door halfway at 08.05. Then a police officer began to hand out queue numbers in an arbitrary manner, according to Thomassen.

“He just let things happen when the situation got of control,” says the professor, who has also sent a personal letter to Justice Minister Knut Storberget on the matter.

Not enough queue numbers

Thomassen had been outside the police station with his partner the previous morning.

“We were then No. 73 on the list, and had to give up when the queue number machine was shut down at No. 43. We went back Thursday morning and waited outside from half-past four,” he says.

When the door opened, there were 100 names on the waiting list. The queue number machine stopped at number 52. The reason why the machine stops issuing numbers is that the section can only serve a limited number of customers each day.

“There were people of lesser abilities who could not participate in the fight for a queue number. They were powerless and very desperate about the situation, which was very, very unpleasant,” says Thomassen.

No peace in their own building

Thomassen went on to report the Trondheim Police Department’s Immigration Section because he believes there was a threat to health and safety in the crush that ensued in the fight for a queue number. He said it was a violent situation, with shoving, scuffles and loud, angry words.

“Instead of executing the basic police duties of keeping the situation calm and orderly, the police pulled back, locked the door and left everyone to themselves. It was volunteers in the group who took charge of the situation and calmed everyone down,” says Thomassen, who called the police’s general attitude and their failure to safeguard people’s health and safety “very shocking and reprehensible.”

“That the police backed off the situation and let it happen inside the door of their own building is particularly bad,” says Thomassen, who described the situation to the Special Unit for Police Affairs on Friday.

Asks NTNU to act

The NTNU professor stressed that he had the same experience two days in a row. He also notes that according to both visitors and the desk staff, the same thing happens every day the Immigration Section is open.

Since many NTNU staff and students are forced into what he believes is a totally unacceptable situation, Thomassen hopes that NTNU will immediately take action.

“How do you think that NTNU can do that?”

“Many employees, students and others with connections to NTNU come from countries that are outside of the Schengen area. I believe that NTNU is responsible for how these people are handled, both by the university and by Trondheim as the host city.

NTNU wants to be an internationally outstanding university, and taking care of people and treating them properly is in fact a part of that. ”

Police apologize

Curt Ivar Røhmen, supervisor of the Immigration Section, says the situation Thursday morning was very unfortunate. He would not comment on Thomassen’s report, but acknowledges that the situation had been very chaotic. This has also happened before, and for that reason the police have tended to have guards outside and to assist with the queue, according to Røhmen.

“Just that morning, we were late coming out, and the situation occurred as described. We apologize for that,” said the policeman.

He said the unit has been working systematically with improvements in several areas since the beginning of the year. The processing times will decrease, and conditions in the queue will be improved, as will information for customers. Because of the convergence of several unfortunate situations, such as the threat of a strike and problems with the processing system, there were extra long queues last week. The section, which previously had said that it would be closed this week, is now open.

New approach should help

“Beginning next Tuesday, we will initiate several measures to avoid other unfortunate situations,” Røhmen said.

Today everyone has to wait in the same queue. Now the system will change so that people who have already been granted a residence visa, for example, will be handled on certain days. That way half of the queue will disappear, says Røhmen. Also, specialists and skilled workers will be removed from the queue, because they will be told to come on Tuesdays.

“We believe that these approaches mean that the load will disappear. It will take some , of course, before people understand the dynamics of the new system, but over time it should help remedy the situation,” Røhmen says.