Trouble at Calais

[Pierre ZFP]

Yesterday I went to drop a freind off as a foot passenger at Calais ferry terminal.

The traffic (Cars and trucks) was backed up a long way down the autoroute.  I suppose the volume of cars was understandable as they were 99% Brits, presumably heading home before the schools start.

As we got closer, there were literally hundreds of illegals milling about, in the road, on the other side of the autoroute where vehicles had to take avoiding action to miss people just dashing out without care. 

Many trucks were at a halt and the trailers were being broken in to and loads piling on board. Ordinary motorists were being harrassed too and fights were breaking out.

I was by a motorway exit and I know a back way into the port so I did that.

The police were completely ineffective and did nothing until about 20 minutes later when I left the port.  They blocked the autoroute so I asked the Gendarme (in French) how I could get to direction Dunkerque.  He said nothing but just waived me around the roundabout back the way I had come - Gee thanks !

Again, I knew the way but many obviously didn't and were sorting out sat navs etc, all the while being harrassed.  Finally as I left, many police vehicles were arriving and there was a helicopter overhead (police or TV I don't know)

I can't find any reference to it in the news but I've never seen things so bad there before.  It would certainly make me think twice before using Calais again.

Was there anything special going on to cause this?

[Loiseau]

La Voix du Nord newspaper just puts it down to end-of-Brit-hols congestion

http://www.lavoixdunord.fr/region/calais-bouchon-sur-la-rocade-en-direction-du-terminal-ferry-ia33b48581n2340826

But I would imagine the illegals would reckon it might give them a good chance of "hitching" a lift.

Angela

[idun]

Calais seafront and parts of the town are quite pleasant, so why doesn't the Maire and the Prefet make the police/gendarmes/CRS pick up these people. Why are they there? AND why do they want to be here?????? Why don't they use up all that energy to make their own countries decent places to live.......... how come ours is........ because our ancestors fought to get the rights we have now!

This drives me mad, and I truly would send them back from whence they came. I know that they can test hair to see where people were brought up, do it!

I'm not really a right wing looney, but these days I realise that all the money I gladly gave when I was far younger did no bloody good at all. The people of the UK have been incredibly generous over the years, including me, to help people in other countries improve their lives, including educating the children. Feels like 99% has been wasted, I believe we know where the money went, into the pockets of despots.............HOW did it happen, how did the money given to the charities not have their money used properly!  It angers me beyond belief and it is no longer my problem. I simply do not care any more.

[vette]

They are fleeing their own country because they no longer like to live there.

They choose the UK because of the benefits system.

Once in the UK they expect it to become like the country that they have just left.

Pity that consecutive governments have allowed this to go on for so long. The trouble is that it's now too late, the damage is done.

Mind you, as a UK citizen, I can be fairly sure that the next time I enter the UK I will be grilled by the border force whilst watching various white vans, etc, trundle through unchecked.

[Pierre ZFP]

Well I hope that the Border Control (or whatever they are called now) were checking all the trucks yesterday as many of them had unwanted passengers on board and the drivers could only lock themselves in their cabs.  I  saw three drivers form up a sort of 'wagon train' then patrolled their vehicles carrying baseball bats.

That it should come to this

[YCCMB]

I always thought that the law was rather clear on this point: asylum seekers are obliged to seek asylum in the first country in which they arrive after fleeing their own. As far as it appears, there are a whole chain of countries turning a blind eye, or putting up with some degree of inconvenience, in order to shunt the problem onto another jurisdiction. As it stands, the UK is at the end of that chain. If the rules were enforced prior to these people arriving in Calais, or indeed once they arrived in Calais, it would be a start.

Are there any figures indicating how many asylum requests are pending in Italy, or Spain, or indeed France? I sort of doubt it, because there appears to be a tacit agreement that everyone will just allow these people to continue their journey and, once they've successfully managed to reach the UK, they'll either fade away or seek asylum.

And it's all very well saying that the UK should "send them back", but why should it be allowed to get to the point that it's the UK's responsibility to do so? They should have been "sent back" long before that.

[woolybanana]

Most of these are not asylum seekers but economic migrants who have been tricked by agents into believing they have a better life in UK - and, if they manage to get in, they probably do. Proof of this, just look at the average age; they are young, few older folk, whereas look at the refugees from say Syria or now Iraq, they are a wider age range, and are probably genuine asylum seekers.

Asylum is being abused, as Betty suggests, and people are being tutored in what to say, what scars to have and show.

Calais is a French problem; these people are illegals in France and the EU who should have been stopped in Italy or Greece or Spain or France or wherever. The French should simply bundle them up, interrogate, give them a decent wash and feed and bung them back from whence they came. They are not a British problem.

[NormanH]

http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/handbook-law-asylum-migration-borders_en.pdf

[YCCMB]

Presumably you've read all 260 pages, Norman? Are you en mesure to offer a synopsis?

[mint]

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]Presumably you've read all 260 pages, Norman? Are you en mesure to offer a synopsis?

[/quote]

Good old Betty!

You do have the knack of asking the questions that all of us would like to ask [:D]

[Chancer]

Nothing about it on the news today so maybe it was just a normal day in a town Under seige albeit a busier than usual one, I feel sorry for the Mairess of Calais and agree with her planes to build another Sangatte centre.

[quote user="woolybanana"]Calais is a French problem; these people are illegals in France and the EU who should have been stopped in Italy or Greece or Spain or France or wherever. The French should simply bundle them up, interrogate, give them a decent wash and feed and bung them back from whence they came. They are not a British problem.[/quote]

If the French can legitamately do that, and I believe that they can, then why dont the British do so, if it means much more rigid controls at Dover then so be it, once they have got out of the lorries deeper into the UK then there is no way of disproving tthe myth that hat the UK was the first country they arrived in.

Stop them at Dover or even at the customs posts at Calais and send them back to France who will then have to do the same thing which will be much harder given all its borders, practically impossible but it would stop the politique of aiding them on their journey to the UK.

[NormanH]

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]Presumably you've read all 260 pages, Norman? Are you en mesure to offer a synopsis?

[/quote]

Yes. I took a rapid reading course and now I can tell you

1) War and Peace is about Russia

2)  This document is  about asylum seekers in the Schengen area and where they are processed and settled.

[woolybanana]

Your statement makes the horrible assumption that they are "asylum seekers". They are largely not.

[idun]

There is no reason why money cannot be spent on keeping the borders policed properly. The UK is still sending aid to India........So let that money go into border control. India doesn't need our 'aid', it needs to sort itself out and get it's population under control and it most certainly has the means to do that these days.

I sometimes watch Who do you think you are, and the other day, the thought struck me that the census that are done these days are probably not as accurate as they were a hundred and more years ago. I bet they daren't ask half the questions that were asked then, and I personally would bet they don't do every household as they are supposed to.

[PaulT]

There is a programme on TV about border control. The UK personnel use CO2 monitors that they push into curtain sided lorries and if CO2 levels are high then there could be illegals on board. They pull them off in Calais and hand them over to the French police who then release them to try again = GOOD GAME, GOOD GAME.

Some of the illegals seal themselves in large plastic bags to stop CO2 escaping in to the trailer - why not require lorries to be fitted with CO2 monitors that sound an alarm when CO2 is above a certain level.

As for aid to India - it has been recently reported that half the women have to go out in to the fields to defecate because the houses / hovels do not have sanitation AND THEY HAVE A SPACE PROGRAMME!!!!

[Pierre ZFP]

Another problem of sending these illegals 'back to where they came from' is exactly where did they come from?  Ethiopia? Somalia? somewhere else? They have no documentaion so why should those countries accept them?

In the document that Norm provided (OK I only skimmed through it) it says a lot about what happens in the Schengen region, something about 'putting back at sea' (which the Italians fell foul of, they had an agreement with Libya to return them which was deemed illegal because the immigrants weren't given recourse to National Law to plead their case in Italy).  I couldn't see anything much about the French/English border issue.

So, in Dover only a small percentage of trucks are stopped and checked with the CO2 or heatbeat monitors and I think you're not allowed to X-Ray the load anymore.  Now here's a plan.  If I, Joe Public, can identify trucks containing unwanted cargo, why don't UK Border control station someone at Calais and 'phone back the numbers of the trucks to be stopped? If there is only a small chance of getting into UK then the attempts will decrease no?

[Théière]

[quote user="Pierre ZFP"]

So, in Dover only a small percentage of

trucks are stopped and checked with the CO2 or heatbeat monitors and I

think you're not allowed to X-Ray the load anymore.  Now here's a plan. 

If I, Joe Public, can identify trucks containing unwanted cargo, why

don't UK Border control station someone at Calais and 'phone back the

numbers of the trucks to be stopped? If there is only a small chance of

getting into UK then the attempts will decrease no?

[/quote]

[I]

I

watch some of those border programmes when not much else is on TV and

the background work and cost of a sting opperation on some company using

illegals is very high and they issue the miscreants with bits of paper

telling them to report to somewhere or other and guess what, they

disappear!  Totally stupid civil service wasting our money, tag their

ankles at the very least but with a much stronger tag that won't come

off so easily as these immigrants have a lot more to loose by being sent

home.

[YCCMB]

Still, none of the above really addresses the question...why has nothing been done to prevent at least some of these people getting as far as Calais?

It does seem as though there are many other European countries only too happy to let the problem continue on its merry way towards the UK, where there's finally nowhere else to go and someone else can pick up the tab.

At present, there seems to be a lot more effort and organisation in place to prevent rabies entering the UK than there is to prevent illegal immigrants.

[EuroTrash]

"It does seem as though there are many other European countries only too happy to let the problem continue on its merry way towards the UK, where there's finally nowhere else to go and someone else can pick up the tab."

That makes it sound as if they just 'happen' to end up in the UK and find they're stuck there. Which is not the case, the UK is their objective when they set out, they are just in transit through France et al. So yes other countries could intercept them but you can't blame them for feeling it's not really their problem.

Something that I always thought was very unfair is that when illegals are found, it's the truck driver or his company that gets fined for bringing them in. How is that right?

[Pierre ZFP]

Yes I agree. No doubt there are a small number of people traffickers but when someone has got aboard your truck without your knowledge then surely you have an excuse?  Ignorance of the law is not an excuse but ignorance that you have committed a crime is.

[YCCMB]

But the whole point is that if they're seeking asylum, then they are legally bound to do so in the first country they reach after leaving their own, and if they're illegal immigrants, then they're already illegal immigrants NOW, in France or wherever they're holed up. So that's where they should be dealt with. It smacks of the comments of the Mayor of Calais, or whoever he was, saying it's the UK's problem. No it isn't. It's the UK's problem to deal with those who manage to arrive, but if the UK accepts responsibility for the problem of people who haven't even arrived yet, then it's hardly going to encourage France or any other country from doing something to stem the flow, is it? I should imagine they'd have the Douanes and the Gendarmes giving them a leg-up onto the lorries within seconds if they thought they could get away with it.

I wasn't aware that whichever category they fell into it gave them the luxury of choice in the matter. It's not as if, when a bunch of illegal immigrants are intercepted, they can just say "It's fine, we're not stopping, we're off the the UK" and be waved happily on their way. If that were the case then they wouldn't need to be doing all the ducking and diving en route, surely?

No, it's not that the element of choice is wide open to them, it's that the countries on the journey are only too happy to palm off the problem onto another jurisdiction.

[PaulT]

Pierre wrote:

'why don't UK Border control station someone at Calais and 'phone back the numbers of the trucks to be stopped?'

UK Border Control is based in Calais and that is where the trucks are stopped, illegals taken off, handed to French police who then release them - so perpetual motion until they get through

[EuroTrash]

"It's not as if, when a bunch of illegal immigrants are intercepted, they can just say "It's fine, we're not stopping, we're off the the UK" and be waved happily on their way."

But that's pretty much what is happening isn't it. They clearly have no intention of staying and seeking asylum in France. France is not the land of milk and honey that they have their sights set on.

So they're not seeking asylum in France, and does France have the right to stop them applying for asylum in the UK if that's what they are determined to do, how does France know whether the UK will accept each person or not? And can a person be classed as immigrant in a country where they have no intention of immigrating to? Don't see how they can, really.

[suein56]

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]But the whole point is that if they're seeking asylum, then they are legally bound to do so in the first country they reach after leaving their own, and if they're illegal immigrants, then they're already illegal immigrants NOW, in France or wherever they're holed up. So that's where they should be dealt with.[/quote]

Quite; I just wish I could have expressed my thoughts so well.

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]

I wasn't aware that whichever category they fell into it gave them the luxury of choice in the matter. [/quote]

Precisely; as you say the French, amongst others, are choosing to act the way they do; leaving the UK to pick up the pieces.

Sue

[Chancer]

[quote user="You can call me Betty"] I should imagine they'd have the Douanes and the Gendarmes giving them a leg-up onto the lorries within seconds if they thought they could get away with it.

[/quote]

 

Thats exactly what they do, in the days of Sangatte they ran a permanant shuttlebus service to return them to the camp if they were unable to jump on a lorry.

If they succeed in building Sangatte 2, 3 and 4 which will all be away from the centre of population they will certainly re-instate the shuttle buses.

What do you think happens to an Eritrean that is caught on the train to Paris or the onward train to Calais without a ticket, do you think that they are arrested and processed, deported from France? Or do you think a blind eye is turned for them to continue to Calais and hopefully to the UK?

I travel from and to Calais frequently, I always see hundreds of illegals at and around the port yet never in 15 years have I seen anyone resembling one Hitch hiking in France, my conclusion is that they are allowed to use the trains.