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European Border Agency Reports Surge in Illegal Migration European Border Agency Reports Surge in Illegal Migration
(about 9 hours later)
LONDON — The number of migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean to enter Europe illicitly this year is close to the total for all of 2013 and is likely to rise as summer weather brings calmer seas, officials from the European Union’s border agency reported on Friday. LONDON — Even as its leaders grapple with populist demands for curbs on migrants, Europe is facing a surge of asylum seekers risking their lives to escape war and poverty in Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere, according to new assessments on Friday.
The assessment fed into a debate on immigration that has led to a surge among right-wing populist parties in Britain, France and elsewhere. The forecast is likely to sharpen disputes between Europe’s mainstream politicians and right-wing figures who campaigned in elections this month on anti-immigrant platforms, scoring remarkable advances and rattling political elites in France and Britain in particular.
The agency, Frontex, which is based in Warsaw, said in an annual report earlier this month that the number of asylum seekers arriving, mainly in Italy, from North Africa in 2013 was 40,000. Ewa Moncure, a spokeswoman for the agency, said in a telephone interview on Friday that unofficial figures for 2014 indicated that 37,000 migrants had already been detected crossing from Libya and Egypt, while reports in the Italian media suggested that the figure for the same period was closer to 40,000. The populist gains were built in part on promises to restrict immigration across the 28-nation European Union’s internal frontiers, many of which, under the bloc’s rules, may be crossed at will by citizens of member states.
“Looking ahead, everything points to a heightened likelihood of large numbers of illegal border-crossings into the E.U. and an increased number of migrants in need of assistance from search and rescue operations but also in terms of provision of international protection,” the Frontex report said. But in figures released on Friday, Frontex, the union’s border agency, also said the number of migrants from outside Europe known to have entered Europe illicitly this year was already close to the total for all of 2013 and was likely to rise as summer weather brings calmer seas, benefiting migrants crossing the Mediterranean from northern Africa.
Overall in 2013, the number of people detected trying to enter the 28-nation European Union illegally had risen to 107,000 in 2013 from 75,000 in 2012, the report said. Syrians, Afghans and Eritreans were “the most commonly detected nationalities,” it added. It was not clear how many migrants had escaped detection. For most migrants, packed aboard rickety boats, the journey is a gamble.
With the civil war in their home country now in its fourth year, Syrians accounted for almost a quarter of all arrivals in 2013, “and at 25,500 was almost three times the 2012 figure,” the report said. More than two-thirds of Syrian fugitives wound up seeking asylum in Sweden, Germany or Bulgaria. “They know that they can drown,” said Carlotta Sami, a spokeswoman for the United Nations refugee agency in Geneva. “They know that they can die.” Only last week, the Italian authorities said they rescued almost 1,000 such migrants in international waters off Sicily and the island of Lampedusa.
Apart from the central Mediterranean route, where migrants risk their lives in leaky, overcrowded vessels to reach Italy and Malta, there had also been a “sharp increase” across the border between Hungary, which is a member of the European Union, and Serbia, which is not. But the numbers are nonetheless increasing.
The figures emerged after a series of episodes illustrated both the determination of asylum seekers to reach Europe — and the reluctance of some in Europe to accept them. In its annual report issued this month, Frontex said 40,000 asylum seekers arrived, mainly in Italy, from North Africa in all of 2013. But Ewa Moncure, a spokeswoman for the agency, said in a telephone interview that 37,000 migrants had already been detected making the crossing so far this year, according to unofficial figures, while reports in the Italian news media suggested that the figure for the same period was closer to 40,000.
Earlier this week, the French riot police dispersed hundreds of would-be migrants at a makeshift camp in Calais on the same day as more than 1,000 people tried to forced their way over razor-wire barriers into Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla. Last week alone, the Italian authorities said that they had rescued almost 1,000 migrants off the coast of Sicily and the island of Lampedusa. “Looking ahead, everything points to a heightened likelihood of large numbers of illegal border crossings into the E.U.,” the Frontex report said.
The episodes evoked European concerns that the European Union has become a draw for asylum seekers from far-flung lands, even as the bloc’s wealthier nations attract economic migrants from its poorer members, Bulgaria and Romania in particular. The immigration debate played a large part in elections for the European Parliament this month that boosted the political fortunes of the National Front in France and the U.K. Independence Party in Britain, both of which demand curbs on immigration. Last October, European Union leaders agreed to review the bloc’s procedures for dealing with the influx of refugees. But since the collapse of authority in Libya with the Arab Spring in 2011, much of the onus for dealing with the fugitives has fallen to Italy.
After two major maritime disasters that took hundreds of lives last year, Italy increased naval and air patrols as it struggles to cope with the influx. The Italian authorities have also said they are trying to fight the illegal networks that smuggle desperate migrants to Europe.
Greece has tried putting in place a fence along its border with Turkey, an important crossing point for migrants coming from Asia and Africa. But securing Europe’s vast land and sea borders — a task far greater than that faced by the United States along its border with Mexico — has proved to be all but impossible for the European Union, which has prided itself on the relatively free movement of people within its borders.
In 2013, 107,000 people were detected trying to enter the European Union illegally, up from 75,000 in 2012, the report said. Syrians, Afghans and Eritreans were the most commonly detected nationalities, it added. It is not clear how many migrants had escaped detection.
Apart from the central Mediterranean route, there has also been a sharp increase in illegal migration across the border between Hungary, which is a member of the European Union, and Serbia, which is not.
The figures coincided with a series of episodes that illustrated both the determination of asylum seekers to reach Europe and the reluctance of some in Europe to accept them.
This week, the French riot police dispersed hundreds of would-be migrants at a makeshift camp in Calais on the same day as more than 1,000 people tried to forced their way over razor-wire barriers into Melilla, a Spanish enclave in North Africa.
The immigration debate played a large part in elections for the European Parliament this month that bolstered the political fortunes of rightist parties in several countries, including Britain, Denmark, France and Hungary.
In France, the right-wing National Front, led by Marine Le Pen, promised to cut the annual number of immigrants to 10,000, down from 200,000, saying that uncontrolled immigration was “a source of tensions in a republic that can no longer assimilate new citizens.”
Public apprehensions about illegal immigration in France have also centered on the status of an estimated 20,000 noncitizen Roma from Romania and Bulgaria.
In Britain, Nigel Farage, leader of the right-wing United Kingdom Independence Party, conjured visions of Romanian organized-crime gangs infiltrating his country. “I haven’t got a problem with Romanians,” he told CNBC after the election. “I have a massive problem with Romania.”
The growth of anti-immigrant sentiment is widely seen as dating to 2004, when European Union countries decided to throw open their doors to new members from Eastern and Central Europe. Some countries, like Britain, significantly underestimated the influx that would follow.
At the time, the government predicted that 5,000 to 13,000 migrants would arrive annually until 2010. The 2011 census showed 521,000 Polish-born people listed as residents of Britain, although that number has since fallen. But the arrivals created a perception, fanned by the Euroskeptic media and the far right, that migration was spiraling out of control.
Fears of an immigrant invasion in Britain were fueled anew in January after labor restrictions for Bulgarians and Romanians in nine European Union countries, including Britain, France and Germany, were lifted, prompting concerns that migrants from the bloc’s most impoverished countries were invading. The influx never happened.
John Springford, an expert on immigration at the Center for European Reform, based in London, said that while immigration had been initially welcomed by European policy makers as a means to offset Europe’s aging population, the economic downturn in Britain and elsewhere after the financial crisis of 2008 had spread consternation that immigrants were taking away scarce jobs.
“In the U.K., the recession has given an added piquancy to anti-immigrant backlash,” he said. “There are fears that Romanians and Bulgarians will take away jobs, even as there is little evidence for this.”
Concerns about illegal immigration have prompted some politicians, including Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French president, to call for the bloc to overhaul its current visa-free area, known as Schengen, in which border controls have largely been dismantled.
But Mr. Springford said that while there was new pressure in Europe to tighten immigration policies, Europe’s leaders were nevertheless extremely wary of undermining the free movement of citizens, since it was one of the bloc’s founding principles.