It's interesting how when Belarus allowed migrants to the Polish border it was seen as weaponizing them and outrageous, at one point about 1000 had amassed there. Meanwhile, the UK's long term frenemy, France seems to have some selective enforcement and we've recently been having as many as 1000 per day cross the channel.
Of course, they want to have more money for policing maybe sometimes they have police carry out enforcement action, sometimes they leave the camps alone, sometimes the crack down...
Funnily enough, after this tragedy, with 27 people sadly drowned in the channel, they were able to arrest 5 suspected traffickers within hours:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...igrant-arrests-update-smuggling-b1964069.html
Five people have been arrested in connection with the sinking of a boat in the English Channel that killed at least 27
migrants,
France’s interior minister has said.
Authorities said on Wednesday, the day the shipwreck happened, that four suspected people smugglers had been arrested.
Gerald Darmanin, the interior minister, announced a fifth arrest on Thursday morning. He told RTL radio station it had taken place the night before. He also accused the smugglers of promising an “El Dorado” to those desperately trying to get to the UK.
He called the shipwreck which killed at least 27 people a “total tragedy”.
Authorities in Lille have said 17 of the victims were men, seven were women and three were children.
Seems they're able to arrest these people rather quickly when there is a more pressing need to do so, perhaps they should have put a bit more effort in beforehand and something like this could have been avoided. I mean where are all the boats coming from - they're not necessarily cheap but with the volumes of people, we're seeing cross that needs a serious supply of boats.
The French taking a half-baked approach to this isn't helpful at all, of course, they've rejected any notion of joint patrols on their territory, can't have the UK coming over and actually making sure these basic patrols are carried out thoroughly and regularly.
The UK still warrants some criticism too - UK surveillance drones seem to only operate Monday - Friday or something???? Sounds like some stereotypical civil service BS, wouldn't be surprised if the drone operators only work 9-5 too now. France doesn't even bother using them at all.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/hot-topics/migrant-crisis/yvette-cooper-migrant-drone-patrols-weekdays/
Speaking to LBC's Nick Ferrari, Ms Cooper said: "We found that only five people had been returned to other European countries and that contrasts to - it used to be several hundred a year.
"We've found other problems, for example, gaps in some of the policing and intelligence cooperation - surveillance cooperation.
"All sorts of problems around drones, for example, not happening on the French side of the Channel and only happening five days a week on the UK side.
The stupid thing is that, long term, cracking down on it properly would help the French too - especially if a big portion are in France because they want to come to the UK, make that harder/remove that incentive and you alleviate the pressure.
The Australian approach seems to be the one to go to to save lives here - process claims outside the UK, it's less attractive for someone to find they're going to a processing facility in Albania etc.. rather than being let loose in the UK while their claim is "processed" and then potentially disappearing anyway if it is rejected.
No. It's exactly how an asylum process should work.
Seems like the total opposite as it would encourage even more migrants to make dangerous crossings across North Africa, across the med etc.. we've already seen what happens when one European leader publicly declares "refugees welcome", you get a mad rush of migrants from all over the place, people smuggling businesses boom and people drown in the med, the channel and get into all sorts of trouble elsewhere on their journey too.
It's a huge faff for the UK to chase up and repatriate failed claimants and the more you encourage the more economic migrants and chancers you'll attract - you'll cause more deaths on the journey, more faffing about with tracking people down, getting them onto repatriation flights etc.. claims should ideally be processed closer to actual conflict zones.