The European People’s party (EPP), an umbrella group of centre-right and conservative parties, has said in the final draft of its manifesto ahead of elections to the European parliament in May that it wants a series of deal with non-EU countries with a view to deporting irregular migrants for asylum processing in “safe” third countries.

“Yet another unsavoury EPP chunk of red meat, meant to attract the far-right vote. It will not work. All the EPP strategy has achieved over the past years, is making the far right bigger. So if they know it doesn’t work, why do they stubbornly repeat the same tactics each time?” said Sophie in ‘t Veld, a Dutch MEP, and the lead representative for the liberal Renew group on the parliament committee for civil liberties, justice and home affairs.

  • gian
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    19 months ago

    But that is kind of the issue here. In your perception this would be the extraordinary case, but it is the normal case. This has become even more grave, as illegal pushbacks, e.g. Cops or border military violently beating up and deporting people back over the border, without ever listening to them regarding their case. The same is happening for everyone, who does the journey by sea. You can’t wait on an overcrowded boat for the border police to process your asylum applications.

    Fine. But I am not seeing as trying to flee as soon as you arrive can end in a better situation. I agree, the situation at the borders is critical, but the solution is not to allow everyone in.

    And again you wrongly assume there to be a mass of refugee seekers living off petty crime.

    I don’t assume, I see them doing it. From selling drugs to snatching old ladies, from stealing cars to entering homes to steal something to sell at the flea market, from assaulting people to occupy illegally a house just because the owner is on holidays. I see them to made whole zones of my city unsafe for women (and sometimes also men) because I lived in one of these zones.

    I was a victim of some of this petty crimes, so no man, I can change what I think but I cannot change what I see. And what I see is not what you are saying.

    First of all there is no “mass” since the numbers have been going down significantly since 2016. Second of all, most of them get practically detained into processing centers and finally the reason why some people resort to crime is because they are kept being denied to work legally.

    Yes, but most of the time they don’t want to work legally, they just want to stay here and get whatever they ask.

    If worked at a company that illegaly employed asylum seekers that had no work permit, despite living in the country for years. Their work conditions were absolutely inhumane and highly illegal. Think 12 hours shift with nothing but a 6 hour break in between for sleep. And of course the cash payments did not amount to the mandated minimum wage. Still those guys would rather do that, than sell drugs or steal. But the answer in both cases is to grant people the right to work.

    I agree, there are situations like this. And they are absolutely wrong. But the point is that these situation exist exactly because there are illegal immigrant to be easily exploited.

    But the problem at hand here is not “what we do with all the people who want to enter” but “what we do with all the people already in, maybe for years, that live on petty crimes and have no intention to integrate into the society”.