In the City of São Paulo, the "Municipal Council of Immigrants" allows immigrant residents to participate in the formulation, implementation and monitoring of the city's policies.
The Municipal Council of Immigrants was created by Municipal Law 16.478/2016. Its members are of 22 different nationalities and were officially invested in last August to serve the 2018-2020 term. The Council is linked to the Municipal Secretariat of Human Rights and Citizenship.
From the late 1990s until today, the municipality of Barcelona has followed an intercultural strategy to implement inclusive measures for local migrant integration. These measures were reinforced to welcome asylum seekers as the population tripled between 2015 and 2017, through a range of measures, including:
The City of Lisbon’s One Stop Shop that brings together under one roof and streamlines services to immigrants and ensures open access to everyone (regardless of status) has been an inspiration for other cities.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in collaboration with DLA Piper Law Firm and civil society organisations, has undertaken a pilot mapping of national forms of admission and stay which are based on human rights or humanitarian grounds.
The Papyrus Project, which officially began in February 2017, is a project of the Canton of Geneva, supported by the Swiss Confederation. The project aims to initiate a process of regularisation of undocumented migrants in Geneva and to address the economic sectors affected by undeclared work and unfair remuneration. Operation Papyrus was developed and implemented with the active participation of Geneva associations and trade unions, which advised and supported migrants in the preparation of their regularization file.
In line with Pakistan’s policy on ‘Voluntary repatriation and management of Afghan nationals’, the Government of Pakistan registered around 880,000 undocumented Afghans in 2017-2018. This registration aimed to provide better protection to the undocumented Afghan nationals living in Pakistan, enable them to safely return to their country of origin, obtain legal travel documents, benefit from the visa policy of Pakistan towards Afghan nationals and contribute to the development of their country of origin as well as destination as regular migrants.
The Law on Refugees, Complementary Protection and Political Asylum incorporates the concept of “complementary protection”. A person who does not comply with the criteria defined by such law to be recognized as a refugee, can be granted complementary protection to prevent their return to a country where their life could be in danger. Beneficiaries of complementary protection have a documented stay in the country, freedom of movement, access to gainful employment, as well as basic social rights.
The Italian legislation provides for a temporary residence permit in case of exceptional natural disaster in the country of origin, where return under conditions of safety would be impossible.
In 2017, Argentina granted access to temporary residence and suspended the deportation of Haitians, due to the situation in Haiti, in particular the repeated natural disasters.
In Finland, a residence permit on compassionate grounds may be granted as a residual and final step of the asylum procedure, after the refugee claim under international and regional refugee law has been rejected. It can be granted for reasons related to medical conditions, ties to Finland or other individual compassionate grounds, particularly in consideration of the circumstances a person would face in the home country or the vulnerable situation of the individual.