Migrants – Who Are the Real Criminals?

²⁸ Every third year you shall bring out the full tithe of your produce for that year, and store it within your towns; ²⁹ the Levites, because they have no allotment or inheritance with you, as well as the resident aliens, the orphans, and the widows in your towns, may come and eat their fill so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work that you undertake.

Deuteronomy 14:28-29

Last week, the BBC featured an article in which they tracked down the person who provided the boat in which a young girl was suffocated as her family tried (with scores of others) to reach the UK from Calais. This was but one tragic story amongst the many as desperate people risk all to reach the UK. This particular story stood out because video footage was captured of the little girl with her father  getting into the boat. They had been living in Sweden and the children had been happily settled there for years but then they were deported (1). The moving interviews of the distraught father were a illustration of just how badly wrong our immigration system (or lack of it!) is.

The identification and running down of the smuggler (2) was an impressive piece of investigative journalism but one was left wondering what was the point?  It would not solve the family’s problems or the sadness of the siblings. It would not alter the fact that people will continue to attempt the hazardous journey across the Channel. Unquestionably, the smuggler and others like him are exploiting a situation where they offer hope to desperate people, but the smugglers have not created the situation – they merely exploit it.

The language which is used of irregular migrants frames the issue as a legal matter. So, people providing the means of transport across the Channel are smugglers, migrants adopting irregular means of entry are illegal, and – under legislation proposed and carried out under the now last UK government – such migrants run the risk of immediate deportation to a third country (the Rwanda plan) and are treated effectively as criminals such that they are detained, denied work, and potentially, permanently denied the right to apply for entry to the UK. Making this a matter of criminal law conveniently provides a framework for justifying the exclusion of migrants regardless of circumstances and avoiding our moral responsibility to another human being. They are criminals and so they are at fault. We, on the other hand, have no fault and so are free of moral obligation.

The UK, of course, is not alone in this approach. Europe and the US, bastions of the liberal, democratic order, take the same approach. It is a convenient washing of the hands, an excuse for refusing to develop decent, humane, well thought-out immigration policies that address the desperate circumstances of migrants and fairness to the resident population. It enables us to turn a blind eye to the underlying causes of international poverty, inequality and the impact of power politics by the self-same nations and their rivals.

Returning to the specific issue of the Calais migrants, it baffles me that we (the UK) do not simply set-up a visa processing unit close to the migrant camps. Surely that would be cheaper than deploying boats to police the Channel, paying the French police to monitor (not very effectively) the beaches, and building a big fence! This would remove the need for migrants to make the hazardous crossing and eliminate the opportunity for the smugglers and, perhaps, no more little girls will need to suffocate at the bottom of an overcrowded small boat.

1. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68930088 acc. 6 Jul 24 13:26
2. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx77l5ej2yyo acc. 6 Jul 24 13:28