EUROPE (Washington Insider Magazine) – The infamous Channel crossing between France and the EU is extremely dangerous and has been the topic of much contention and discussion over the past few months.
Migrants have been using the Crossing to get into Great Britain. While motives for doing this are clearly individual, many have been using the Crossing to seek illegal asylum and flee from their local home countries.
France is arguing that creating a safer method of entry could potentially save lives and help the local governments to have more understanding and a locus of control over the system that is currently completely unmonitored and unregulated.
The idea of a safer crossing is appealing, but other governmental entities are debating the best method of implementation. There are many other more administrative considerations that they do not have the time or tax allocation to cover, such as the process of denial of asylum. There are several questions and aspects of migration that lawmakers are considering, including the cost and time needed to create a process to return immigrants to their home countries in the case of such denials. Beyond this, the simple construction of a crossing will take considerable time and other resources away from more pressing projects.
The UK remains the wildcard player when it comes to such discussions, as in the Brexit debates. During these discussions, the UK governmental entities actually denied law that would allow for the ability to return those who are denied asylum to be returned to their home countries.
Generally, the country has not always been a supporter of asylum seekers or asylum requests as a whole, for fear that there would be excessive fraudulent claims that would block or otherwise compromise the system.
Despite the voiced concerns from other members of the EU and from the UK, France is continuing to argue and state that this is an “EU-centric” issue — calling attention to the fact that many other members of the European Union are struggling with the very same problem of intense immigration that is occurring through illegal channels, combined with little to no infrastructure to address the problem.
So far, the Channel has claimed the lives of 27 migrants who were fleeing their home countries to seek asylum in the UK. This actually was the root source of the diplomatic fallout that was widely publicized between France and the UK, leading to high tensions between the two countries.
The French Government has continued to uphold its agenda to have more stringent measures, policies, and oversight over the free movement of people in and out of the country, and has nearly always been a proponent of tighter immigration standards and safe passage opportunities.
France has received a high number of asylum applications in comparison to other countries in the EU, and has repeatedly attacked the “attractive” tax policies in the UK that act as a magnet to illegal immigrants.
