[News] Europe's migration policies are in shambles as arrivals soar

[#Steeven.™]

As a boat carrying 400 migrants ran out of fuel adrift along a dangerous migration route in the central Mediterranean last week, Italian authorities led a major rescue operation after Maltese authorities refused to rescue those who were on board.
The desperate pleas for help from the passengers went unheeded for almost a week before they finally reached Italian shores on Wednesday, along with 800 migrants stranded for more than 10 days on another ship.

Many of the migrants fell to the ground once they reached land, severely dehydrated and covered in vomit from the rough seas, witnesses said. Few wore life jackets.

NGOs operating in the area, including the German organization Sea-Watch International, said they repeatedly alerted the Maltese authorities about the ship, only to be ignored.

“Malta would rather take the huge risk of 400 people dying than take care of these people,” Sea-Watch noted.
The Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) told local media that the people on board the ship did not request ransom, according to the Malta Independent. They did not respond to CNN's request for comment.

This event, another dispute between European Union (EU) countries, sheds a new light on the bloc's inability to negotiate who should adapt to a surge in migrant arrivals, something critics say only leads to more suffering and tragedy.

When the occupants of the first two boats finally made it to safety, two more, both containing around 450 people, were seen at sea. Once again, Sea-Watch International alerted the Italian and Maltese authorities, he confirmed to CNN, but neither country immediately launched a rescue.

The number of undocumented people arriving on European shores by sea has skyrocketed so far this year due to conflict, global inequality and the climate crisis.

More than 36,000 migrants arrived in Europe's Mediterranean region from January to March this year, almost double compared to the same period in 2022, according to the latest figures from the UN refugee agency (UNHCR). It is the highest number since the refugee crisis that peaked in 2015 and continued into the first months of 2016, when the arrival of more than a million migrants on Europe's shores caused EU solidarity to collapse. in disputes and border chaos.

So far this year, more than 98% have arrived by sea, compared to 2% by land, the highest proportion since 2016, according to the UN. And an estimated 522 migrants have died or gone missing along the way, UN data shows, reflecting the lack of safe and legal routes available to refugees and asylum seekers.

“People are fleeing because they have to get away from these very difficult situations at home,” said Jenny Phillimore, a professor of migration and super diversity at the University of Birmingham in central England.

“Why are they taking these risks and getting on the boats? Because there are no safe and legal routes, they have no other option.”

 

A lack of cooperation
Every year, tens of thousands of migrants fleeing war, persecution and poverty risk treacherous routes to Europe in search of safety and better economic prospects.

But the lack of safe and legal migration corridors available to refugees and asylum seekers can have deadly consequences.

In March, at least 28 migrants died after their boats capsized off the Tunisian coast as they tried to cross the Mediterranean to Italy. The previous month, at least 93 people died after a wooden boat carrying migrants from Turkey crashed onto rocks off the coast of Calabria in southern Italy.

Further north, four people died in December after a small boat believed to be carrying migrants capsized in the English Channel, on one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.

In many cases, migrant boats are overcrowded and unfit for the voyage, and the need to expend resources to rescue those on board can lead to European countries shifting responsibility because authorities "don't want the people landing on its shores," added Phillimore.

“Italy has long been one of the countries that (has) seen a higher proportion of arrivals via the Mediterranean, compared to northern European countries. While the EU Commission has tried to instigate repartition and quotas, it hasn't really worked,” he said.

Italy's cabinet issued a state of emergency on Tuesday after the arrival of the migrant boats. Those on the boats are considered migrants, even if they come from countries that qualify for asylum status. They are not recognized as refugees until the long process is complete.

Italy's populist and right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will present new legislation this month that will tighten the rules to include the forced repatriation of migrants who do not meet the refugee status requirements. Currently, migrants who do not meet those standards are given a notice to leave the country, but unless law enforcement stops them, removal is rarely enforced.

The amendments are likely to pass with strong support from opposition lawmakers and the European Union, as well as Meloni's vast majority in parliament. Italy asked its EU partners for help in the repatriation and processing of immigrants, as well as in the reception of those who do qualify for refugee status according to the protocols sti[CENSORED]ted by UNHCR.

 

"Not Pulling Your Weight"
Elsewhere in Europe, aid agencies criticized leaders for proposing policies aimed at restricting border access to ease pressure on wealthy countries, where systems for dealing with undocumented migrants are overwhelmed.

Opposition lawmakers and human rights campaigners recently criticized the UK government for its "cruel" and unfeasible plans to house migrants on military bases and disused barges instead of hotels.

It came as the cabinet of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faced accusations of breaking international law with a proposed illegal migration bill, which plans to send refugees and asylum seekers arriving in the UK by boat to Rwanda or your country of origin.

In 2022, 74,751 asylum applications were made in the UK, according to the government. The total number of people waiting for an asylum decision more than doubled between 2020 and 2022, from around 70,000 to 166,300, according to the Interior Ministry. Critics say the UK's immigration system is sloppy and failing.

“The bill would prevent a large group of extremely vulnerable refugees from relying on the protection of human rights, by leaving it up to the Home Secretary to decide who should be protected and who should be deported, and almost completely excluding the courts” Adam Wagner, a leading human rights lawyer, told CNN in March.

In Italy, 77,195 applied for asylum last year, according to the Italian Ministry of the Interior. Of these, 52,625 applications were examined and 53% were denied asylum. Those who are denied can appeal the decision, but most slip away and are left without documents.

Further west in France, of the 137,046 asylum applications that were registered in 2022, 56,179 were granted, according to the French Interior Ministry. Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees said 244,132 asylum applications were submitted in 2022. Of those, 72.3% were granted, and some of the approved applications include backlogged applications from the previous year.

In Greece, 37,300 asylum applications were submitted, around a third more than in 2021, according to the European Union Agency for Asylum. Of these, 30,886 were examined, of which 19,243 were granted and 11,643 were denied.

A month earlier, UNHCR condemned reports that nearly 100 migrants were stripped of their clothes at the Greece-Turkey border. In 2021, Greece finished building a 40-kilometre (25-mile) wall along its border with Turkey amid concerns that the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan could cause an influx of asylum seekers.

Greece was at the center of Europe's migration crisis in the mid-2010s, when millions of refugees and migrants from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq traveled across the continent. She has taken a hawkish stance ever since, rejecting pleas from Turkey and international organizations to allow more migrants across its borders.

“The response to this problem is not just the response of one country, certainly the countries that have fueled geopolitical inequities and created the kind of problems that people are fleeing… also have a responsibility and the Global North is not doing their part,” added Phillimore.

"(Countries in the) Global North have more money, but they accept much less people."

 

"Save Human Lives"
The failure of European leaders to coordinate a cohesive response to increased migrant arrivals and to relocate asylum seekers across the continent creates a "political stalemate," according to the researchers.

During the 2015 migration crisis, a confluence of political conflicts, including the rise of ISIS, the Syrian civil war, and instability in Afghanistan in the Middle East and elsewhere, led record numbers of people to leave their homes and try to cross to Europe.

That year, 1,000,573 people reached Europe via the Mediterranean by sea, and nearly 4,000 are feared to have drowned, according to UNHCR.

The largest number of refugees entering the EU traveled through Libya. At that time, the EU entered into a new agreement in the Mediterranean based on "cooperation with the Libyan authorities", said Luca Barana, a researcher at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) and coordinator of the Working Group. on Migration T20 Italy.

After the Libyan civil war, Tunisia became the new gateway to Europe, but while there is an agreement between Italy and Tunisia, there is no similar agreement at the EU level. Departures from Tunisia also increased due to the "growing adversity and discrimination against sub-Saharan migrants residing in Tunisia," Barana added.

Instead of taking a "cooperative" approach with Tunisia, "the European Union is investing in improving border control infrastructure and increasing the number of returns and readmissions," Barana said.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said it is "deeply alarming" that EU countries are trying to renege on commitments to rescue refugees and asylum seekers stranded at sea.

“As more people are forced by conflict and human rights violations to undertake perilous journeys across the Mediterranean to seek safety in Europe, it is deeply alarming and disappointing that EU countries are attempting to abdicate their duties of rescue people in distress at sea under international law," a spokesperson for the international NGO told CNN.

Liz Throssell, UN human rights spokesperson, also called for an end to policies that allow human rights violations against migrants. “UN Human Rights has also repeatedly deplored the prevention or obstruction of humanitarian search and rescue efforts, including through the seizure of vessels and the criminalization of aid providers and other migrant rights advocates.”

Several NGO workers face legal obstruction after attempting to rescue migrant ships stranded at sea. In January, human rights groups and the European Parliament roundly condemned a trial of 24 emergency workers in Greece, after they were arrested in 2018 for helping refugees trapped on a boat after leaving Turkey.

Daniele Fiorentino, a professor of political science at Roma Tre University in Rome, Italy, said refugees whose lives are at stake should take precedence when it comes to EU policies regarding the arrival of migrants by boat in the region. .

"Maybe today the situation is less critical than in 2015, but the tragedy... is the result of a weakness or inefficiency in the decision-making process both in Italy and in Europe," he told CNN.

“Whose responsibility is it to rescue people lost at sea, who oversees the process and makes the decisions? When doing this, the authorities, and all of us, must always keep in mind that the main issue at stake here is very immediate and clear: saving human lives."

 

https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2023/04/16/politicas-migratorias-europa-caos-aumentan-llegadas-migrantes-trax/