Several people, including a small child, died when overcrowded boats were trying to cross the Channel to the UK, French authorities said. The interior minister said the child was trampled to death on board.
France’s interior minister said that several people, including a small child, died on Saturday trying to cross the English Channel in overcrowded boats.
“Today several people died trying to cross the English Channel,” Bruno Retailleau said. “A child was trampled to death in a small boat.”
Retailleau said the “tragedy” again highlighted the need to crack down on people smuggling groups organizing the dangerous crossings.
“The people smugglers have the blood of these people on their hands and our government will intensify the fight against these mafias who are getting rich by organizing these crossings of death,” he wrote.
Having 0% chance of ending up in the UK because you’re processed offshore and automatically denied entry is what actually works.
This is what Australia did and they reduced deaths from illegal crossings to 0.
They also reduced trafficking in Indonesia because it turned out a lot of that was making its way to the south coast to illegally enter Australia.
Stopping the system of exploitation from working has benefits that ripple outwards.
If we didn’t have an asylum system breaking under the strain of false and bogus claims we might actually be able to open new legal routes to those facing a real emergencies. The largest cohort arriving in 2022 was working aged Albanian men. There is no emergency in Albania. About 90% of claims were rejected at enormous cost via accommodation, legal fees, court time etc. This is grossly unfair on those we should actually be helping.
That sounds decent, but I get the distinct vibe accepting more migrants isn’t usually part of the plan. Most of the time when boat deaths are brought up, it’s a way of making something intrinsically mean seem humanitarian. They don’t actually give a shit about drownings, and definitely don’t give a shit if they die of despair back where they came from.
That’s definitely the case for some, depends what kind of politician they are.
Politicians just say what people want to hear.
Anti-migrant sentiment is common in Europe now, and it’s the whole reason boat deaths were made an issue (as opposed to any number of other things with a greater humanitarian impact).