Foreigners

Since 1998, foreigners who are sick may obtain permission for temporary residence on medical grounds, but the application of this right comes up against the arbitrariness of prefectoral decisions. In addition, individuals subject to a " double penalty " are no longer deported (at least when they have the means to prove their state of health) but are placed under house arrest i.e. confined to a restricted area (generally a department) and to an extremely precarious situation : excluded from the right to work and to an income. This interference with the right to free movement is fraught with consequences for sick people whose state of health requires travel (hospitals, lab tests, etc.).

Along with the Social Rights Commission, the Foreigners Commission works on behalf of foreigners who are sick in order to improve their access to the social benefits available in France. It participates with other associations in watching over the application of legislative and administrative texts within the Observatory for Foreigners Right to Health Care and the Observatory for the Rights of Users of Social Institutions. It is within this framework that the Commission denounces the exclusion of undocumented foreigners from the new " health care coverage " scheme, the CMU.

The Commission also defends their non-deportability and the immediate granting of residence permits for foreigners engaged in a PACS (Civil Pact of Solidarity) and continues to fight for the non-deportability and regularization of all undocumented foreigners.

To ensure the defense of rights of entry and residence of foreign nationals suffering from illnesses and the equality of all with regard to health care and social protection, and to affirm the rights of foreign homosexuals through PACS : these are the objectives of the Foreigners’ Commission of Act Up-Paris, with the added intention to have these rights extended throughout the European Union.