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Thread: Calais and Migrants

  1. #1

    Default Calais and Migrants

    The headlines in the last two weeks have been increasingly dominated by the escalating migration crisis taking place in Calais, with thousands of migrants camped out in squalor near the rail terminal to the channel tunnel, nightly storming the barriers trying anything and eveything to break onto rail and road freight in order to get into the UK. Many are dying in the process.







    Quote Originally Posted by BBC
    The PM said the UK was doing all it could to make Britain's borders secure, as migrants told the BBC they remained determined to reach Britain.

    Mr Cameron was speaking after people gathered for a third night at fencing at the Channel Tunnel freight terminal.

    More than 3,500 people have tried to get into the tunnel terminal this week.

    Several hundred migrants were escorted away from the terminal by French police on Wednesday night - the third night of large-scale attempts to storm the terminal.

    ______________________
    At the scene
    Lucy Williamson, BBC correspondent:

    As night fell, the road towards the Channel Tunnel started to come alive. Groups of 10 or 12 migrants, moving steadily along the darkened highway, jackets pulled close, hoods up.

    After a day of discussion in Paris and in London over how to secure the tunnel entrance, and fresh deployments of riot police, the determination of Calais' migrants seems unchanged.

    People like Jamal - an Ethiopian who arrived here on Wednesday morning.

    He told me he'd spent most of his adult life doing military service in the Ethiopian army, had spent 10 days drifting in the Mediterranean Sea, and had crossed six different European countries to get here.

    Not once had his dream of reaching England wavered. For Jamal, a barbed wire fence, or a brush with police, might change his tactics, but probably not his goal.

    The fresh attempts came despite the death of a man, believed to be a Sudanese national and aged between 25 and 30, on Tuesday.

    French police said he was probably crushed by a lorry which was leaving one of the shuttles that transport vehicles through the tunnel.

    Nine people have been killed attempting to cross the Channel in the last month.

    Speaking in Vietnam during his tour of South East Asia, Mr Cameron said the French had sent an extra 120 police to Calais and the UK was investing in fencing and security measures at the Channel crossings in both Calais and Coquelles.

    "Everything that can be done will be done to make sure our borders are secure and make sure that British holidaymakers are able to go on their holidays," he told the BBC.

    The prime minister acknowledged the situation was "very testing" but insisted the government was "totally focused" on the problem, with "intensive" talks going on.

    "We have to deal with the problem at source - and that is stopping so many people from travelling across the Mediterranean in search of a better life," he said.

    He warned that illegal immigrants would be removed from the UK "so people know it's not a safe haven".

    Raihan Jan, 24, a clerk from eastern Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, said he had travelled first to Iran, then on to Turkey, Greece and Italy before arriving in Calais four days ago.

    "We heard that one guy died last night and we know it's very dangerous, but there is not another way to go the UK," he said.

    "This is the last chance that we have. We think that the economy is a little bit better in the UK so we will get a chance to have documents and some work."

    English literature graduate Mohammad Al-Mohammad, 26, said he had fled civil war in Syria. He said he had walked and hitchhiked from a refugee camp in Turkey, through Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Austria and Italy before arriving in France three months ago.

    "I have tried maybe nine or 10 times to get to the tunnel but I have failed," said Mr Al-Mohammad, from Aleppo.

    "I am seeking peace in the United Kingdom and my brother is there. I ask the United Kingdom authorities to help me to go to him."

    The rail shuttle has seen delays in both the UK and France in recent days, but Eurotunnel said its passenger service was currently operating to schedule.

    But disruption to freight traffic looks set to continue, with Operation Stack - where lorries are park on the M20 in Kent when Channel crossings are disrupted - due to run into the weekend.

    The UK has brought in a temporary relaxation of the rules that limit how long lorry drivers can drive for and how long they must rest to make it easier for businesses caught up in the disruption.

    The BBC's Gavin Lee said migrants in Calais had told him they would keep trying to get through a number of holes in security fences. They told him that going in groups of up to 400 gave them the best chance of getting into the Channel Tunnel.

    Eurotunnel said it had blocked 37,000 migrants trying to make their way to Britain since the beginning of the year.

    Spokesman John Keefe told the BBC the situation was intolerable, adding: "It is a nightly assault by hundreds, if not thousands, of migrants who are trying to get to the UK by any means possible.

    "So they're coming through the fences, trying to get to the freight terminal, they're trying to get on to trucks or trains that would eventually carry them to the UK."

    UKIP leader Nigel Farage is among a growing number of politicians who have called for the government to urge France to do more to resolve the situation.

    He warned unless "something radical is done it is only a matter of time" before a British holidaymaker or lorry driver died as a result of the crisis.

    Labour's interim leader Harriet Harman called on the government to "get a grip" on the situation.

    Meanwhile, Labour MP Keith Vaz, who chairs the home affairs committee, urged Mr Cameron to hold talks with French President Francois Hollande on his return from Asia.
    Commentary and opinion is hugely varied on what to do, with no clear consensus.

    Cameron's response has been to send £7m in order to build further fencing. But that will just mean that the migrants will climb higher or have more to cut through.

    The French have sent an additional 120 riot police. But faced nightly with a mob of hunderds and on occasion thousands of desparate people, this is relatively paltry.

    What's to be done?
    Whose responsibity is it?
    Quote Originally Posted by Steely Glint View Post
    It's actually the original French billion, which is bi-million, which is a million to the power of 2. We adopted the word, and then they changed it, presumably as revenge for Crecy and Agincourt, and then the treasonous Americans adopted the new French usage and spread it all over the world. And now we have to use it.

    And that's Why I'm Voting Leave.

  2. #2
    It is the ultimately responsibility of France. This is happening on French sovereign territory and only France can act on this. The UK is affected so should and will help, but we can only help to the extent that the French let us help. There have been some wild and crazy suggestions recently in British media but many are non-starters as France would not permit them.

    The French strikes in Calais are a large part of the problem, the migrants are trying to take advantage of the havoc they're causing. Resolving them would be a start, but this is France so that's not likely any time soon. We recently went on holiday to France for the first time as a driving holiday, we were booked on a ferry from Dover to Calais but due to the strikes we were re-routed to Dunkirk instead.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
    ℬeing upset is understandable, but be upset at yourself for poor planning, not at the world by acting like a spoiled bitch during an interview.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Timbuk2 View Post
    The headlines in the last two weeks have been increasingly dominated by the escalating migration crisis taking place in Calais, with thousands of migrants camped out in squalor near the rail terminal to the channel tunnel, nightly storming the barriers trying anything and eveything to break onto rail and road freight in order to get into the UK. Many are dying in the process.

    Commentary and opinion is hugely varied on what to do, with no clear consensus.

    Cameron's response has been to send £7m in order to build further fencing. But that will just mean that the migrants will climb higher or have more to cut through.

    The French have sent an additional 120 riot police. But faced nightly with a mob of hunderds and on occasion thousands of desparate people, this is relatively paltry.

    What's to be done?
    Whose responsibity is it?
    It's more than a migration crisis, it's a refugee and humanitarian crisis. Since the problem starts with desperate people trying to escape civil wars or extreme poverty....and those are political problems....more fences or riot police or forced deportations aren't a real solution.

    It's amazing what lengths people will go to when their homeland is truly fucked up, risking death to find a better life, hoping Europe (or the Americas) will be compassionate and either "let them in" as refugees, or provide a decent place to stay while working through the legalities. It "escalated" when chaos in the middle east and parts of Africa spread like wildfire....so it's going to be a complicated, messy process to figure out what's to be done and by whom.

    It's a global problem, so every nation has "responsibilities" to some degree, but also limitations. For example, tons of refugees show up on Greece's shores, but since they're bankrupt (and have so many internal problems) they can't possibly meet the challenge without EU or UN help. It doesn't look like Italy or France can either, so refugees are effectively using the weaknesses of certain nations to move through Europe until they find "safe harbor".

    The "real" solution would be ending the conditions that lead to such desperation in the first place, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

  4. #4
    These aren't refugees. They may have been upon arriving at Italy, though most likely they were economic migrants then. After moving a thousand miles through all of Italy and France they well and truly aren't refugees.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
    ℬeing upset is understandable, but be upset at yourself for poor planning, not at the world by acting like a spoiled bitch during an interview.

  5. #5
    Hang on. How should we differentiate between immigrants and refugees?

  6. #6
    A refugee is seeking safe harbour from extremes like war or extreme persecution.

    An economic migrant is someone seeking somewhere else that they want to be for other reasons like getting a better job or making a better life for themselves.

    The two are not the same thing. If they're refugees then they've reached safe harbour already.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
    ℬeing upset is understandable, but be upset at yourself for poor planning, not at the world by acting like a spoiled bitch during an interview.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by RandBlade View Post
    A refugee is seeking safe harbour from extremes like war or extreme persecution.

    An economic migrant is someone seeking somewhere else that they want to be for other reasons like getting a better job or making a better life for themselves.

    The two are not the same thing. If they're refugees then they've reached safe harbour already.
    Then what's the problem? It makes perfect sense that people could be both economic and political migrant refugees.

  8. #8
    Because refugees have a right to move until they reach safe harbour (which they've reached so should stop). Economic migrants need to move legally. Either way these Calais migrants are acting illegally.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
    ℬeing upset is understandable, but be upset at yourself for poor planning, not at the world by acting like a spoiled bitch during an interview.

  9. #9
    Yeah GGT these are economic migrants from Syria and Afghanistan who wanted a pay-raise and who don't understand that they aren't allowed to reconnect with family or go to a place where they can actually make use of their English speaking skills.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  10. #10
    Exactly. I wish we had an open-doors immigration policy but we don't.

  11. #11
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by RandBlade View Post
    Exactly. I wish we had an open-doors immigration policy but we don't.
    First of all, the claim that all the migrants in Calais are "economic migrants" is unsubstantiated, never mind that we haven't even discussed what we mean with the term. Secondly, the conventions in question do not explicitly state that you must stay in your country of first refuge. International law has over the past few decades worked from such principles but even then those principles are balanced by considerations about family unity for example. Trying to get to the UK is not very illegal, but once they get there you seem to have every right to ship them back to France if you can or wish to. Please refrain from giving undeserved credibility to the populist rhetoric on this matter, it's a sad enough situation as it is.
    Last edited by Aimless; 08-02-2015 at 12:02 PM.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Aimless View Post
    First of all, the claim that all the migrants in Calais are "economic migrants" is unsubstantiated, never mind that we haven't even discussed what we mean with the term. Secondly, the conventions in question do not explicitly state that you must stay in your country of first refuge. International law has over the past few decades worked from such principles but even then those principles are balanced by considerations about family unity for example. Trying to get to the UK is not very illegal, but once they get there you seem to have every right to ship them back to France if you can or wish to. Please refrain from giving undeserved credibility to the populist rhetoric on this matter, it's a sad enough situation as it is.
    The problem is mostly a British problem I say, for the simple reason that the Brits don't have a means to check who's within their borders (regardless of their claims of being in control of their borders by staying out of Schengen.

    On the other hand I do not believe there's a right of an 'open buffet' to pick from with regards to the country you go to. The conventions give protection against persecution (state persecution) to be more precise and war. They do not give protection from a dislike of the French language. I think we can safely say that Syrian refugees by and large fullfill the criteria for asylum. Most of the African migrants do not; and we should insist on sending them back as they keep the whole human trafficking trade (with the thousands of resulting deaths) alive by telling blatant lies about their lives in the lap of luxury in Europe.

    FYI : I have first-hand experience of how human trafficking works, it's all based in greed and lies. And very often all it takes is to stick a needle in the bubbles people think is their future in Europe. I'm proud that I can say at least a couple of dozens of people I talked to and helped away from smugglers never regretted not spending their savings and those of their families on crazy attempts to go to Europe.
    Congratulations America

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Aimless View Post
    First of all, the claim that all the migrants in Calais are "economic migrants" is unsubstantiated, never mind that we haven't even discussed what we mean with the term. Secondly, the conventions in question do not explicitly state that you must stay in your country of first refuge. International law has over the past few decades worked from such principles but even then those principles are balanced by considerations about family unity for example. Trying to get to the UK is not very illegal, but once they get there you seem to have every right to ship them back to France if you can or wish to. Please refrain from giving undeserved credibility to the populist rhetoric on this matter, it's a sad enough situation as it is.
    1: Unless they're fleeing persecution by the French they're not refugees. By definition, this is a legal truism.
    2: Family unity is its own issue. If they want to apply to get a family visa they can and there are channels for it.
    3: Not very illegal? Trying to break through border control without a passport or visa is illegal. Always has been, always will be.

    These aren't up for debate, they're all facts. I'm possibly the most liberal person on this board as far as what migration policy is.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
    ℬeing upset is understandable, but be upset at yourself for poor planning, not at the world by acting like a spoiled bitch during an interview.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by RandBlade View Post
    3: Not very illegal? Trying to break through border control without a passport or visa is illegal. Always has been, always will be.
    Probably the most disobeyed law in the world.
    Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
    If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by RandBlade View Post
    1: Unless they're fleeing persecution by the French they're not refugees. By definition, this is a legal truism.
    2: Family unity is its own issue. If they want to apply to get a family visa they can and there are channels for it.
    3: Not very illegal? Trying to break through border control without a passport or visa is illegal. Always has been, always will be.

    These aren't up for debate, they're all facts. I'm possibly the most liberal person on this board as far as what migration policy is.
    1: At no point are refugees obligated to stop at the first country they run across that isn't actively persecuting them. That is a rule created by the Dublin regulation to prevent asylum shopping, and has resulted in EU border countries being overwhelmed by refugees that they cannot take care of. It's been a few years, but the last time I looked into it, most EU border countries have poor asylum systems. In fact, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that EU countries cannot return refugees to Greece given the terrible conditions and that the quality of asylum in an EU country cannot be assumed.

    Greece: http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-..."001-103050"]}
    Asylum Quality:http://ecre.org/component/content/ar...uarantees.html

    Also, your definition of refugee is off. The generally accepted definition comes from the 1951 Refugee Convention which says that a refugee is someone who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country." It says absolutely nothing about the country the individual is currently residing in beyond their home country.

    2. The average refugee's knowledge and capacity to apply for family asylum is not high. Just because a process exists doesn't negate the barriers to access it.

    3. So is denying access to asylum. It's contradictory, sure, but most refugees aren't coming with passports. Their attempts to get into every country is both illegal (no passport) and legal (right to asylum).

  17. #17
    1: The fact that Greece and other nations are struggling is a reason for Greece and other nations to seek changes, not a reason we need to unilaterally drop border controls. We have border controls between France and the UK entirely legally. France has no border between itself and Italy (where most of these migrants are arriving from) by its own decisions.

    2: That's a shame. The answer is not to allow the most aggressive to jump the fence literally and potentially die under the wheels of a train in the process. The answer is to find a well worked and legal solution.

    3: Denying entry into our nation (from a safe one) is not illegal on any asylum grounds. We get tens of thousands of asylum claims a year, the right to seek asylum is legal but there is no law that says they have a right to go between safe nations.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
    ℬeing upset is understandable, but be upset at yourself for poor planning, not at the world by acting like a spoiled bitch during an interview.

  18. #18
    1. I'm not saying you need to drop border controls. I am saying Britain, along with the rest of the EU, needs to come up with a sensible refugee and migration policy that doesn't dump the responsibility on a handful of states.
    2. You do realize the basic premise of being a refugee is desperation, don't you? It's not like they can just chill for a bit while the EU governments get around to figure this out. You don't travel 3000 miles across dangerous lands because you've got a good place to relax for a bit. Also, if the refugee thinks it's better to risk the potential of train related wheel death, doesn't that tell you something?
    3. Define "safe". I don't know what France's asylum system looks like, but I'll bet you don't either. If it doesn't offer protection from expulsion for asylum seekers, then it does not count as "safe".

  19. #19
    1: I agree.
    2: They don't need to "chill" they need to accept refuge when you can get it, which is where they are. Trying to get into another nation because they like it is not the same as being a refugee. One is a desire the other is a need.
    3: They're members of every convention on human rights that I can think of.

    As Hazir succinctly said there's no right to not speak French, that's not what being a refugee means. Using the term refugees on these migrants devalues the term for genuine refugees who are fleeing sometimes quite wicked persecution, not the French language.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
    ℬeing upset is understandable, but be upset at yourself for poor planning, not at the world by acting like a spoiled bitch during an interview.

  20. #20
    But aren't they still refugees seeking asylum?

  21. #21
    No
    Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
    ℬeing upset is understandable, but be upset at yourself for poor planning, not at the world by acting like a spoiled bitch during an interview.

  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    But aren't they still refugees seeking asylum?
    They are people who could apply for asylum in France, but refuse to do so in order not to get stuck in France for up to 5 years.

    Now, I am no fan of the British position on the refugee crisis; they are incredibly selfish when they say that the countries in the south should solve these problems where it is obvious that these countries are overwhelmed. And the Brits seem to forget that if this is the way Dublin works, then maybe Greece, Italy, Malta and Spain may not care too much for the continuation of a program that obliges them to carry the burden and makes life easy for countries like the UK that refuse any responsability. Clearly the only way to go is a system with quota's.

    However, why should I feel any sympathy for people who refuse to apply asylum in France just because they have some fancy dreams about life in Britain? They clearly aren't persecuted in France.
    Congratulations America

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