Refugees and economic migrants to Europe

I have regrettably not posted anywhere nearly as I should have on refugee and poor migrant economic migration to Europe, primarily from Syria and Africa. The Washington Post summarizes the situation with these migrations, which differ from migration within the EU.

The Post writes, For nearly a decade, almost 50 migrants have died or disappeared on average each week trying to reach European shores aboard rickety boats in the Mediterranean. This year, the weekly toll has spiked to about 70, mostly asylum seekers fleeing African and Middle Eastern nations where post-pandemic poverty and desperation are exacerbated by despotism and chaos, the war in Ukraine and climate change. On June 14, more than 600 drowned when a single ship (a fishing trawler!) capsized off the coast of Greece (go here.) The American press buried this story below news of the loss of a handful of people in the deep diving Titan.

As migrant numbers have surged, so have steps in London, Brussels and other European capitals to impede their unauthorized entry and accelerate the rate at which they are processed and expelled.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party, in power since 2010, faces steep odds in the general election likely to be held next year. His agenda includes a promise to slash the number of migrants arriving on small boats, which generally depart from Calais, across the English Channel in France.

More than 100,000 have arrived on British shores using that route over the past five years. [Compare that figure with the increase in legal EU immigrants in the U.K. from 1.5 million in 2004 to 3.7 million in 2017, an average annual increase of 170,000.(go here).]

 

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