The terrifying conflicts that have forced so many people to flee their homes have also torn families apart, with mothers separated from sons and daughters, and husbands separated from their wives. Newly arrived migrants face a waiting period of about three to six months to be housed, Pierre Henry, president of France Terre d’Asile, a French advocacy organization, told Le Monde. One British and one French senior commander will share management of the center, to be built near the Eurotunnel entrance.
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There are some 3,000 refugees at the Calais camp waiting in hope of crossing the 35 kilometres of the English Channel separating France and Britain.
Mrs May said that the government will help fund “dedicated facilities” located a “significant distance from Calais” for those having their claims processed to relieve pressure on the “frontier”.
It follows moves by the Conservative government to deny migrants access to housing and banking if they are deemed to be in the country illegally.
Border Force officers are already visiting camps to provide migrants with a “more dissuasive and realistic sense of life” in the UK, the agreement said.
It includes an unprecedented deployment of British police to work in a joint “command and control” centre to target trafficking gangs.
As part of the deal, the Home Office said Thursday that British police officers will be deployed to Calais to combat gangs smuggling migrants and refugees across the Channel. The unusual feature of the Euro Tunnel project, which effectively pushed the British border forward onto the continent for the first time since the 13th century, has caused friction between the two countries as it has left the French government patrolling the border nearly unassisted.
Britain will increase monitoring of other North Sea ports as the crackdown on Calais pushes people to other potential departure points, she said.
“The Immigration Minister has already had discussions with the Dutch and Belgian authorities to look at ports there and whether work might need to be done there”.
But humanitarian workers in Calais say the French asylum process is still far too slow, exacerbating the build-up of waiting migrants.
In conclusion, she reiterated that these people are “risking their lives” because they are resorting to such extreme measures in their desperation to get to the UK via the Channel Tunnel.
The declaration Mrs May will sign alongside Mr Cazeneuve also sets out strengthened security measures to be put in place in Calais.
That will be underpinned by a reinforced fast-track asylum process to distinguish between “people migrating for economic reasons and genuine victims of persecution”, the ministers said – with more resources used to “encourage migrants to take up voluntary returns packages”.
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“Today we commit to even greater cooperation”, said May after the agreement was signed.
