"Operation Snail" and the Calais migrant camp protests

[Selfsurprise]

I saw this on the news yesterday and thought it might be worthwhile bringing up, assuming it doesn't descend into a unhelpful flamewar. If you aren't what event I'm referring to, please read this article.

 

It's all rather indicative of what an absolute mess the unresolved situation in Calais has become. What strikes me most is the way Western Europe (I'm speaking largely of Britain, Germany, not least France itself!) has collectively shrugged off any responsibility to committing to a wholesale resettlement of migrants, and yet at the very same instance in regards to the so-called 'Jungle' camp failed to impose any kind of substantial policing or logistical planning. I'm willing to admit that my interpretation might stem from my own distance of the events in topic, but I can't help thinking that Europe seemingly doesn't want to offer any serious aid (sans the great work done by understandably inundated charities) nor is it seemingly willing to take charge of the escalating problems - presumably out a misplaced sense of political correctness or antithetically out of a sense of border protectionism.

 

I'm mildly worried that my somewhat leftist orientation is clouding the fact that I actually feel a great deal of sympathy for the Calais protesters, as much as I do for the overwhelming majority migrants/refugees/choose-your-own-status-etc. They've had to deal with the human crisis of the Syrian diaspora on their doorstep, and the towns inexorable reputational trashing will surely hamper its future aspirations and economy. At the very least why aren't we seeing more action being taken against the actual traffickers and organized criminals preying off the situation? If we must demonize somebody, why not accuse those individuals instead of making scapegoats of millions of displaced people and resorting to terrifyingly archaic nationalist politics?

 

I apologize for the long-ish and rather rambling tone of this thread, I've been away from the internet for a while and I'm slightly out of practice.

[GolfClubNinja]

Keep the legitimate refuges and give economic migrants the ability to legally immigrate, but deport criminal and/or dangerous (terrorists and the such) out. Crackdown on economic migrants coming in but have more availability for them to migrate legally. This would be optimal but it would be very unlikely to happen on a major scale.

 

When it comes to the actual political points, politicians have to choose between citizens and migrants. The citizens are the one's who will be able to vote, so populists parties will easily gain control with most neutral citizens seeing the migrants as a problem to their jobs and safety, like these truckers.

 

In a way, Germany and its left leaning leaders, the center of the EU, killed it's own great project by letting migrants in without worry.

[Templar Knight]

IMO, you're never going to please everyone on this issue. The "Migrant Crisis" as they've been calling it has mostly produced the result where even nations in Europe that wanted to help as many as they could simply cannot anymore because they've been filled to capacity.

 

Several thousand people alone is tough for any nation to bear suddenly arriving, several hundred thousand or million is insane to cope with logistically.

 

As to why there isn't much action being done against legitimate abusers of these circumstances? There's likely a bunch of factors involved. Those same criminals are likely hiding behind the exact same types of people that are in need because they create the perfect shield and scapegoat for them to be able to slip away and continue their activities. The reality of the situation being that there's inevitably going to be trouble, and the locals are going to blame them all for it. Obviously it would be easier if the migrant communities like this one could self-police themselves and actually turn over the trouble-makers, but that's obviously not the case.

 

This is also a problem with multiple facets. For one thing, not all of the "migrants" arriving are from Syria or places afflicted by war or conflict, Germany and other European nations opening the borders basically said: "Yep, everyone who even looks like they might be Syrian come on in and take advantage of the fact that we basically have no checks on our borders.", all the more telling that most of those same nations have shut their borders again after they realized how stupid it was on a logistical level alone.

 

Second, the fact that many of these migrants, from wherever they are coming from, don't necessarily understand all of the laws of a particular region, or are so desperate to get to safety that they don't give a fuck about breaking laws. That causes trouble either way as they don't understand how to adapt to the new country without some form of guidance.

 

Third, large parts of Europe are in economic trouble right now. There's likely not that much money to go around to everyone, and lots of programs or divisions are probably budgeted. It doesn't help having a small purse when trying to deal with a lot of people coming in.

 

Four, Terrorism has basically made popular France fearful or suspicious of ANYONE they allow into the country. Hollande has declared martial law at least once if I recall, the police and military have had extraordinary powers given to them a couple times, and I wouldn't be surprised if everyone there has been on edge since the Paris attacks and then the later attacks in Brussels and Istanbul.

 

Plus there is the fact that any migrants trying to get to Britain by land have to go through France, and basically have to hijack or hide in trucks to do so, and generally act like criminals.

 

It all coalesces into a situation where migrants of any kind are not looked favorably by the local population regardless of who they are. Then as Golf said, it basically comes down to a choice, does the government care more about immigrants, or citizens? Currently, though I do believe that migrants who need help should get it and that borders shouldn't be shut, I do not believe that any sane government should put the interests of immigrants before its own citizens in these situations. Why add even more confusion and unknown variables to an already complicated situation by pissing off your own citizens who then think they're obligated to take matters into their own hands when the government essentially does nothing?