Calais: Migration and the UK Border

[SpookyFrank]

I'm putting this in UK politics because it's an issue that concerns Britain, and in which the British state is intimately involved.

Presently there are more undocumented migrants in Calais than there have been for several years. Numbers are not easy to estimate as people are leaving and arriving fairly regularly, but it seems that the numbers of migrants in Calais has increased at least fivefold in the last 12 months.

The vast majority of the migrants are from one of a handful of countries: Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea, Ethiopia or Sudan. One of the main jungles in Calais is populated entirely by Sudanese people, and there are a couple of small camps where Syrians are staying. Other than that people from different countries and with different languages share their spaces. The largest of the jungles now has both a church and a mosque; as well as two restaurants, a shisha lounge and a tobacconist. There are probably at least a thousand people living there.

This main jungle sits next to a huge chemical plant opposite the ferry port. Some tents have been set up in an abandoned sports hall, and these are mostly reserved for women and children. Everyone else lives in tents outside. The only place in the jungle with no tents is the football pitch, which predates the jungle and still has its white lines and goalposts. Tents line the pitch on all sides, right up to the touchline, but nobody camps on the pitch itself. Football is taken very seriously.

The jungle is close to the motorway at point where it enters the port. Whenever there's a traffic jam, people drop what they're doing and run towards the road to try and climb onto lorries. People don't stop to collect posessions, they travel with whatever they've got in their pockets. There is a large car park on the opposite side of the road, the last place for truck drivers to pull in before they reach the port. This car park is controlled by one of the trafficking gangs, if you want to wait there to try for the lorries then you have to pay them. The gangs will happily shoot you if you don't pay up. Truck stops and filling stations up to 50 miles outside Calais are now controlled by gangs in this way.

The other large jungles, one Sudanese one primarily Afghan, are also located within sprinting distance of likely spots for traffic jams on the roads leading to the ferry port and the channel tunnel. Neither of these jungles has any access to running water. Whenever there are traffic jams the police are almost as quick as the migrants, and soon the CRS (French specalist riot plods) arrive in numbers. Migrants who don't scarper quickly enough are liable to get battered with truncheons and tear gassed. They are not keen to allow anyone to film any of this, and will either arrest you or beat you up if you try. Cameras seized by the CRS have been returned with their circuitry fried by tasers. Unlike the UK with all those vague anti-terror laws, there is no law in France that makes it illegal to film the police.

More coming soon...

 

[bluescreen]

Thanks for raising this subject. Are you writing from first hand experience? I know the French generally regard the Brits responsible for this continuing human misery. If we were part of the Schengen Agreement then these people would be able to enter without difficulty. The Guardian recently carried a long story about the death toll among migrants and the shocking conditions in which they try to live. It seems that Britain isn't taking anything like its fair share of asylum seekers, though apparently only a small proportion will claim asylum anyway, preferring to take their chance as illegals. http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...rying-enter-uk-die-shameful-calais-conditions

Here's a handy myth-busting guide from Salford City Council to wave at Kippers.

 

[Nancy_Winks]

It's really awful. But what would happen if we had no immigration policy? We'd be inundated cos life in the UK is a hell of a lot better than the majority of third world countries.

These people should be given proper shelter and amenities if they've got as far as France though.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Besides the jungles there is one large squat near the centre of town. A large industrial complex inhabited by a couple of hundred people, most of them Sudanese. There used to be several large squats in Calais but the local authorities have started simply ignoring French law and evicting even registered squats illegally. This last remaining squat is likely to be evicted before the end of January.

The jungles which currently exist in Calais have been allowed to exist for a relatively long time. Typically they are bulldozed every few months. Another mass eviction is likely to happen before long. The unofficial policy of not evicting migrants during winter seems to have gone out of the window.

The French and British governments seem to have come up with a carrot-and-stick type plan to get the migrants out of the town without actually letting them cross the border. A new day centre providing washing facillities etc will be opened at a site a few miles from Calais itself in the near future, although construction doesn't seem to be moving very quickly. It's expected that after the jungles are cleared the migrants will be forced to set up new jungles in the area around this new day centre, an area with no access to the town and which the police will be able to control access to. At this point this is just speculation, but it seems clear that a major change in strategy is likely to happen soon in light of both the increased numbers of migrants in Calais and the increased public awareness of the conditions they are living in. Whether anyone will actually try to improve the situation or simply make it less visible and more closely controlled remains to be seen.

There are plenty of people currently working to help the migrants in Calais, from large international Christian groups to individual local people popping by with a bag of food like you'd take to a food bank. Because of the sheer numbers of people though, it's very hard to know who needs what and where limited resources can be put to best use. French anti-solidarity laws mean that it's technically illegal to give any help to migrants unless you're working with a government approved charity, but in practice this law never seems to be used against anyone.

Police do keep a close eye on people going to and from the jungles and bringing food, clothing etc. Me and some associates were dragged off to the police station to be interviewed under caution when we were seen walking through a hole in a fence; a fence full of holes and one which several hundred people were already living on the other side of. The interviews (we were suspected of criminal damage to the fence apparently) turned out to be a ruse, firstly to collect information on us but also to get the chance to douse the contents of our van with pepper spray while we were in the police station. Enough warm clothes and blankets for maybe thirty people, donated in good faith by a group from Germany, were all destroyed. This has happened many times before, with the CRS even breaking into to private properties just to pepper spray stuff intended for distribution to migrants.

 

[SpookyFrank]

It's really awful. But what would happen if we had no immigration policy?

My intention with this thread is to highlight the consequences of the immigration policy we currently have, and the policies of the EU as a whole.

Whatever we think the consequences of changing those policies would be, the current situation is unacceptable. My personal position is that any system for controlling migration is both inherently racist and necessary for the maintenance of inequality, but I understand why people might some kind of middle ground between open borders and what we have now. An asylum system that was fit for purpose would be a very good start.

 

[Nancy_Winks]

My intention with this thread is to highlight the consequences of the immigration policy we currently have, and the policies of the EU as a whole.

Whatever we think the consequences of changing those policies would be, the current situation is unacceptable. My personal position is that any system for controlling migration is both inherently racist and necessary for the maintenance of inequality, but I understand why people might some kind of middle ground between open borders and what we have now. An asylum system that was fit for purpose would be a very good start.

Hard to disagree with any of that

 

[Limerick Red]

Brief report from of Calais migrant solidarity from earlier in the year from London anti-fascists
https://londonantifascists.wordpress.com/2014/09/27/from-london-to-calais-anti-fascist-solidarity/

 

[SpookyFrank]

Thanks for raising this subject. Are you writing from first hand experience?

I'm being as first-hand as I can. What isn't first hand comes from people who have spent more time in Calais than I have; whether as activists, local residents or migrants.

If we were part of the Schengen Agreement then these people would be able to enter without difficulty.

I'm not sure this is true. As an asylum seeker you are supposed to claim asylum in the first safe country you reach, which in the EU's opinion is the first EU country you reach. If you've turned up on the system in Greece or Italy, which are often not safe places for migrants and where asylum seekers effecitvely recieve no support whatsoever, then you will be sent back there if you later claim asylum in another schengen country.

At present you can go to the home office and argue that even though you've been to another EU country on your travels, you still need asylum in the UK. If we were in the schengen group, it might give the UK an excuse to deny asylum to even more people than we do now.

It seems that Britain isn't taking anything like its fair share of asylum seekers, though apparently only a small proportion will claim asylum anyway, preferring to take their chance as illegals.

One key thing about the UK asylum system is evidence. You need to provide documentary proof that you're at risk in your home country. Most warlords, torturers, terrorists and corrupt government troops don't provide you with documentary evidence when they destroy your life, and even if they do there's not much chance you'll be able to hang on that documentation during your journey across deserts, mountains and seas to finally wash up on British shores. There's also the fact that you can only claim asylum if you're physically on UK soil, and for people from certain countries the chances of getting a legitimate visa to come here in the first place are basically zero, so people have no choice but to come here 'illegally'.

One of the most absurd things about the asylum and immigration system is detention of migrants. Unless there's any evidence that someone is a danger to the public, in which case the criminal justice system can deal with them, it's got to be better to give people the resources to support themselves (primarily by allowing them to work legitimately) than to lock them up in detention centres for months or years at exorbitant cost. Sadly the political rhetoric is all aimed at creating the idea that an immgrant who has slipped off the home office's radar is basically the same as an escaped criminal. In reality if it weren't for the papers telling people about all these 'illegals' all over the place, nobody would ever notice. All they'd ever see is ordinary people minding their own business, and they'd think nothing of it.

Immigration is an industry. For the companies running the detention centres, the companies contracted to round up undocumented migrants and for the employers getting rich by paying migrants poverty wages. Those in power are not interested in fixing the immigration system, they're interested in continuing to profit from the fact that it's broken.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I was in Calais in November - took this picture of Syrians protesting on one of the roads out of the ferry terminal. They were being watched by a couple of vans of cops from across the road.



I saw a lot of graffiti both pro and anti around the outskirts of town, in English and French. I did hear of some French far right coming to Calais as well as French antifa.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Many people in Calais don't know much about the immigration system in the UK. People don't generally know about claiming benefits, and have no interest in claiming benefits. The vast majority of people want the same thing, they want to be safe and warm and they want the chance to earn an honest living and live in peace.

You meet engineers amongst the migrants in Calais, teachers, designers, builders, piano teachers, dentists and everything else under the sun. What you don't see in the papers is any talk about what these people could contribute if they were given half a chance. All the talk is about people coming to our country and taking, taking, taking. They'll take the food from your children's mouths if we let them. Actually they might take the rotten teeth out of your kids' mouths, they might help get NHS waiting lists down, they might open yet another pointless pop-up cafe, they might take their place in society just like anybody else. Because, despite their present circumstances, they are just like anyone else. All the propaganda depends on the idea that somehow they are not, that they are different from us, that they are something we have to be protected from.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Road sign near the terminal:

 

[frogwoman]

Thanks for posting this.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

One more, a crop from a long way away of some graffiti on a warehouse I think.



I don't have that many, I was with a group and also my camera kept fucking up helpfully enough.

 

[Geri]

I have Facebook friends who are Kurdish from Syria and Iraq and they all want to come to the UK. They are highly educated and currently working, although not necessarily in their chosen field.

One of them was on his way here via Denmark when he was thrown into jail and forced to sign papers saying he was seeking asylum in Denmark. He doesn't want to live in Denmark and is threatening to go on hunger strike. I thought Denmark would be quite a nice place to live but he wants to be here.

I wrote to my MP about the issue of Syrian refugees because we are not taking our fair share.

 

[Citizen66]

I'm all for open borders, but even the system we have now puts pressure on w/c communities. That isn't the fault of migrants of course, but it is something to consider.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Amnesty on Syrian refugees:

Excluding Germany, the five largest countries in the EU (the UK, France, Italy, Spain and Poland) have pledged just 2,000 places between them constituting just 0.001per cent of their combined populations.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/world-s-pitiful-response-syria-s-refugee-crisis-2014-12-05
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/fact...-crisis-international-resettlement-2014-12-05

 

[DotCommunist]

Amnesty on Syrian refugees:

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/world-s-pitiful-response-syria-s-refugee-crisis-2014-12-05
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/fact...-crisis-international-resettlement-2014-12-05

Nobody but nobody in government wants to be seen inviting in refugees (brown ones at that!) in an election year. The kippers would milk it like a gift from god

 

[SpookyFrank]

Road sign near the terminal:

View attachment 65832

Years that bit of grafitti has been there, years

 

[SpookyFrank]

Nobody but nobody in government wants to be seen inviting in refugees (brown ones at that!) in an election year. The kippers would milk it like a gift from god

A proper statesman like I imagine we used to have in the olden days would welcome the kippers' ranting, seeing it as an opportunity to expose their selfishness, racism and lack of basic human decency.

Politicians avoid using the word 'refugee' altogether these days, at least when it comes to dometic policy. The word 'refugee' instantly inspires sympathy, whereas the phrase 'asylum seeker' carries within it the image of someone wanting something from someone else, and the implication that there's a good chance that whatever they want they probably don't deserve it.

 

[likesfish]

A plan has to be worked out expecting Greece and Italy to shoulder the majority of migrants is insane.
Much like giving a free ticket to everyone who wants to come to the uk is insane.

 

[classicdish]

SpookyFrank

Thanks for this thread.

I've just watched this 12-minute film by The Guardian (Dec. 23 2014) : http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...rying-enter-uk-die-shameful-calais-conditions

...this 15-minute film from Vice (July 2014) : http://www.vice.com/en_uk/video/the-migrant-crisis-in-calais-britains-border-war

...plus another 6-minute one from Vice covering a far-right demo in Calais (September 2014) : https://news.vice.com/video/britains-border-wars-dispatch-2?utm_source=vicenewsyoutube

 

[SpookyFrank]

A plan has to be worked out expecting Greece and Italy to shoulder the majority of migrants is insane.

Greece gets money from the UNHCR to support refugees. They don't spend it on looking after refugees, they just fucking pocket it.

But I agree that the 'first place you get to' rule is mental. It's probably one of the reasons that Southern Europe is having so much trouble with the far right, both on the streets and in quote unquote legitimate politics: lots of migrants who don't want to be there get stranded in, or repeatedly deported back to, Greece and Italy. It's not just about people coming to those countries, it's about them coming there and being given no chance to integrate themselves and become a part of normal society.

 

[SpookyFrank]

SpookyFrank

Thanks for this thread.

I've just watched this 12-minute film by The Guardian (Dec. 23 2014) : http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...rying-enter-uk-die-shameful-calais-conditions

I was surprised to see that video, not just because the papers don't usually give a shit about this but because lots of the people in the jungles are very wary of journalists.

What you see there is the biggest jungle, the one I mentioned in the OP.

 

[brogdale]

I was surprised to see that video, not just because the papers don't usually give a shit about this but because lots of the people in the jungles are very wary of journalists.

What you see there is the biggest jungle, the one I mentioned in the OP.

That said, C4's News coverage has been quite impressive, with Paraic Brien's reports being notable for their empathetic tone.

 

[SpookyFrank]

That said, C4's News coverage has been quite impressive, with Paraic Brien's reports being notable for their empathetic tone.

I heard that a channel 4 news cameraman was assaulted by the CRS in Calais just before christmas. Still they're not interested in reporting on the police brutality the migrants suffer on a regular basis, their angle seems to be about people's living conditions and that's all they're interested in. But I expect that's all dictated from higher up and the reporters on the ground don't get much say in the matter.

Vice news reports on Calais are often quite good but I've heard complaints that some of their reporters have acted like, and I quote, insensitive wankers.

 

[DownwardDog]

An asylum system that was fit for purpose would be a very good start.

What would that look like?

 

[likesfish]

Actually dealt with cases in less than a year made the correct decision first time round rather than having loads of appeals because the first decision was completely wrong.
Either your allowed to stay or your not and your sent packing rather than some khasque nightmare.

 

[J Ed]

SpookyFrank can you tell us a bit about the gangs? Who are they made up of?

 

[8115]

Is there some element of diplomatic stalemate between the British and the French?

It is a terrible situtation, real shame for each country.

I totally agree with what you say about the waste of potential.

 

[brogdale]

I heard that a channel 4 news cameraman was assaulted by the CRS in Calais just before christmas. Still they're not interested in reporting on the police brutality the migrants suffer on a regular basis, their angle seems to be about people's living conditions and that's all they're interested in. But I expect that's all dictated from higher up and the reporters on the ground don't get much say in the matter.

That's probably a fair judgement, in the round, but C4 do seem to have made some attempt to report the views of the migrants:-

http://www.channel4.com/news/calais-migrants-hold-demonstration-as-far-right-closes-in

Migrants in Calais hoping to make their way to England are holding a demonstration calling for more protection from the police today, as far-right groups plan to protest their presence this weekend.

They claim to have experienced an increase in the number of physical attacks by French police in the past week and say that they have no confidence that they will protect them when an anti-immigration group marches in Calais on Sunday.

"In the last weeks many of us had to face a lot of police violence," said one of the migrants, whose identity was not disclosed. "Some of us got broken hands and others broken legs and even some got hurt their heads," they said.