born in the country, on the basis of birth registration, or late registration established on the basis of witness testimony, without real difficulty. Migrants and their children may thus integrate as Guinean relatively easily, and obtain access to documents. For example, among the Balanta community in the Kansar area, descendants of refugees and migrants from Guinea Bissau around the time of the violence preceding the independence of Guinea Bissau (1975), most possess national identity cards and other documents from Guinea-Conakry, including electoral cards and birth certificates. While they complained in research for this report that they might need connections to get such documents, or to pay bribes over and above the official fees, this is generally the case in Guinea where corruption in the administration of documents is widely acknowledged to be widespread.166 4.3. The situation of migrants “returned” to their country of origin West African states have often had a tolerant approach to migrants in irregular status, especially since the establishment of ECOWAS and its zone of free movement. Nonetheless, many countries in West Africa have expelled migrants, including refugees, in response to national economic or political crises when – in the traditional way – it has been easiest to blame foreigners for endogenous problems. But it may not be clear who is a foreign migrant, illegally present in another country and thus under some circumstances legitimately subject to expulsion (though an individual decision-making process would be required in law); and who is a person with (a right to) nationality, whose expulsion even on an individual basis would be impermissible in international (and national) law. Right from the date of independence, tens of thousands of the well-educated Dahomeyans who had dominated the French colonial administration were expelled from nearby countries.167 Larger numbers of ordinary migrants were expelled in successive waves from many West African countries. In 1965 and 1969-1970 Ghana expelled several hundred thousand foreigners, many of them Nigerian, including children born in the country; and Ghanaians were expelled from Sierra Leone and Guinea.168 Nigeria expelled Ghanaians immediately after independence, and again in 1983 around 1.5 to 2 million foreigners, of which an estimated one million were Ghanaians; though many were readmitted within a short period; a further three quarters of a million were expelled two years later.169 166 Interviews, Conakry, Kansar and Boke, Guinea, June 2014. At the same time, representatives of the community reported that the Guinea Bissauan electoral commission had come to register them for the second round (only) of the 2014 presidential elections (in which a Balanta, Nuno Gomes Nabiam, was one of the final two candidates, losing to José Mário Vaz of the PAIGC). This was the first time they had any contact with Bissauan authorities, even when they had faced difficulties with their “host” communities in Guinea. It was not at all clear the grounds on which the electoral commission regarded them as eligible to vote, given that many did not hold any Bissauan documents (though some did). 167 Including Côte d’Ivoire in 1958, Congo-Brazzaville in 1962, and Niger in 1964. Herschelle Sullivan Challenor, “Strangers as colonial intermediaries: The Dahomeyans in Francophone Africa”, in William A. Shack, and Elliott P. Skinner (eds.) Strangers in African Societies University of California Press, 1979, pp.67-83 ; Alain Tirefort, “L’affaire « Daho-Togo »: Une fièvre de xenophobie en Côte d’Ivoire”, in Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch et al, Etre Etranger et Migrant en Afrique, Vol.1, 2003, pp.415-452. 168 Margaret Peil, “The expulsion of West African aliens”, Journal of Modern African Studies Vol 9, No 2, (1971), pp.203–29; Margaret Peil, “Ghana’s aliens”, International Migration Review Vol.8, No.3, (1974) pp.367–81; Margaret Peil, “Host reactions: aliens in Ghana”, in Shack & Skinner, (eds). Strangers in African Societies, 1979 pp.123–40l; see also Howard-Hassmann, Human Rights in Commonwealth Africa, p.104. 169 Lynne Brydon, “Ghanaian Responses to the Nigerian Expulsions of 1983”, African Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 337, 1985, pp. 561-585; Roger Gravil, “The Nigerian Aliens Expulsion Order of 1983”, African Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 337, 1985, pp. 523-537. 52