Europe Wants Libya to Stop Migrant Boats, Plans Camps in North Africa
The European Commission has outlined plans to stem the number of migrant boats arriving in Europe from North Africa – last year’s busiest and most deadly migrant passage.
The plan includes dedicating 200 million euros ($214 million) toward curbing migration in North Africa, primarily in Libya. Those funds will pay for a crackdown on smugglers, increased voluntary returns from Libya and more European Union training and equipment for the country’s coast guard.
“It is a Libyan responsibility to prevent these losses of lives and to dismantle the traffickers’ networks, on the Libyan coast and in Libyan waters,” said Federica Mogherini, the E.U.’s foreign affairs chief.
Critics of the E.U.’s efforts in Libya point out that the country barely has a functioning government, while migrants and refugees are subject to widespread abuse on its territory and the Libyan coast guard has been accused of causing migrant deaths.
European officials are also pushing to set up camps in North Africa where migrants and refugees intercepted at sea can be returned and housed while Europe examines their asylum claims.
“The idea is to send them to a safe place, without bringing them into Europe,” German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere said, according to Reuters.
Slovenia Law Change Permits Turning Away Asylum-Seekers
Slovenia’s parliament voted to amend the country’s asylum laws allowing police to turn back asylum-seekers at the border and return undocumented migrants if there is a surge in arrivals.
Lawmakers said the changes were necessary to forestall a repeat of 2015, when hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers passed through the country along the Balkan route. The new laws would permit Slovenia to seal its borders and stop the country becoming a migrant bottleneck.
Amnesty International said the amendments were a “serious backward step for human rights in Slovenia.”
Resistance to Trump Immigration Orders
Opponents of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies held rallies across the United States to voice their support for refugees and migrants.
Thousands of New Yorkers gathered in protest against Trump’s executive orders to build a wall on the Mexican border and crack down on safe havens for undocumented migrants; they also oppose an order expected shortly suspending refugee resettlement and blocking visas for people from several Muslim-majority countries.
Reuters reported that the Department of Homeland Security has already temporarily halted staff trips to interview refugees for resettlement in anticipation of the order.
The draft order, which would indefinitely block Syrian refugees, has prompted outcry from Christian and Jewish groups involved in refugee resettlement.
Trump’s raft of anti-immigration measures has also encouraged Muslim and Latino advocates to join forces in opposition at rallies and press conferences across the country, the Associated Press reported.
Recommended Reads:
- The Guardian: Europe’s Crackdown on African Immigration Is Hitting Vulnerable Refugees
- The New York Times: Welcome to the New World
- Overseas Development Institute: Cash Transfers for Refugees: Economic and Social Effects of a Program in Jordan
- African Arguments: People Smuggling in Libya: You Can’t Bomb Away a Problem of Economics
- The Washington Post: Trump Says Syrian Refugees Aren’t Vetted. We Are. Here’s What We Went Through