News Digest

Britain and France crack down on migrants

Britain and France on Thursday announced tougher security tools to guard the Channel Tunnel, a new joint police command to target human traffickers and 10 million euros ($11.2 million) in new British government money to help asylum seekers — and send others back home. The measures are aimed at overcoming diplomatic tensions around the French port of Calais, a flashpoint in a European summer marked by unusually large waves of migrants. The moves focus more on policing than humanitarian efforts. British Home Secretary Theresa May and French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve visited the tunnel Thursday and announced plans for a “substantial” increase of security guards, higher fences, surveillance cameras, floodlighting and infrared detection technology. Since the start of June, at least 10 migrants have died trying to sneak through the Channel Tunnel to Britain, and countless others have slipped through undetected. Britain and France have accused each other of not doing enough to manage the migrants.

It’s a problem that starts elsewhere in the world with migrants trying to come abroad with organized criminal gangs.

British Home Secretary Theresa May

An estimated 3,000 migrants are camped in unsanitary, hungry conditions in Calais with more arriving and leaving daily, drawing intense political attention in Britain. Elsewhere in Europe this year, Germany has seen 360,000 migrants arrive and 160,000 migrants have reached Greek shores. The two countries announced a new joint police command center to coordinate intelligence to disrupt migrant-trafficking gangs. The overall cost of the measures was not disclosed. But a joint statement said Britain would provide an additional 5 million euros a year for the next two years for identifying and protecting the most vulnerable migrants, particularly women and children — and on sending economic migrants home. Migrants in Calais, however, met Thursday’s announcements with skepticism, noting that as long as they hear of success stories in Britain, they will continue to risk the journey. Some staged a protest on a highway near a migrant camp, while others continued trying to sneak onto trucks traveling across the channel.