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Around half a million migrants were granted asylum in the European Union (EU) last year, the blocs statistics office said Thursday, with Germany taking 60 per cent more than all other member states combined.

by Liam Deacon20 Apr 2018, 9:36 AM PDT0

Bullying in German schools in Berlins heavily migrant populated areas has increased drastically with pupils claiming that they are threatened and beaten simply because they are German, and not Muslim.

by Chris Tomlinson20 Apr 2018, 3:19 AM PDT0

The unemployment rate for foreign-born Swedish residents continues to remain far higher than the native population, with a new report showing that almost six in ten signing up for the Swedish Employment Service are born overseas. The overall unemployment rate

by Chris Tomlinson19 Apr 2018, 4:06 AM PDT0

The number of migrants reporting themselvesto German police claiming to be members ofterrorist groups in order to avoid deportation is on the rise according tothe public prosecutors offices in Stuttgart and Karlsruhe.

by Chris Tomlinson18 Apr 2018, 1:45 AM PDT0

The European Commission has announced plans to make biometric ID cards compulsory across the bloc which will allow authorities to bar terrorists and criminals from accessing money and other services.

by Virginia Hale17 Apr 2018, 2:00 AM PDT0

New figures released by the German Interior Ministry at the request of a Free Democratic Party (FDP) MP show that the regional governments have only deported 10 foreign radical Islamic extremistswhile 745 extremists in total still remain in the country.

by Chris Tomlinson14 Apr 2018, 6:03 AM PDT0

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) Several hundred refugees and migrants have gathered outside a police station in Greeces second largest city, waiting for hours to be formally arrested in order to gain temporary residence in the European Union country.

by Breitbart London14 Apr 2018, 1:13 AM PDT0

A report from the German Federal Employment Agency (BA) has shown that more than half of the recipients of the Hartz IV welfare income benefit come from migrant backgrounds, with Syrians the largest group in the country.

by Chris Tomlinson13 Apr 2018, 2:21 AM PDT0

Nearly 13 per cent of residents in central-European powerhouse Germany arenow foreign-bornaccording to the national statistics bureau, in news that comes shortly after the revelation that nearly a quarter of all Germans possess a migrant background.

by Oliver JJ Lane12 Apr 2018, 5:40 AM PDT0

Europe must increase its efforts to integrate Muslims and eradicate religious hate speech, Muslim World League (MWL) chief Mohammed al-Issa has declared.

by Virginia Hale12 Apr 2018, 12:27 AM PDT0

German Development MinisterGerd Mller has announced a new initiative to encourage migrants to return to their home countries as a new report has revealed that up to 21,000 deportations failed last year.

by Chris Tomlinson11 Apr 2018, 8:18 AM PDT0

A 17-year-old asylum seeker has been arrested in the French city of Dijon after stabbing two teen African asylum seekers in a large inter-ethnic brawl between Pakistani and African migrants.

by Chris Tomlinson10 Apr 2018, 9:50 AM PDT0

Immigration and the care of migrants should be put on the front burner and not considered a second-tier issue, Pope Francis has insisted in a new teaching letter released Monday morning in the Vatican.

by Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.10 Apr 2018, 2:55 AM PDT0

More than 8,000 migrants granted refugee status in European Union member-states made a second inadmissible asylum application to Germany last year.

by Victoria Friedman10 Apr 2018, 1:00 AM PDT0

Addressing a rally of supporters in Budapest Sunday night as the results of Hungarys national elections rolled in, returning Prime Minister Viktor Orbnhailed the vote, calling it a decisive victory. Orbns comments came as the results rolled in from Sundays

by Oliver JJ Lane9 Apr 2018, 6:55 AM PDT0

Facebook has repeatedly punished a fast-growing conservative website for its conservative views on immigration and other topicssuspending its moderators, censoring content, and threatening to close the site down.

by Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.9 Apr 2018, 5:51 AM PDT0

Authorities warned that the number of Muslim fundamentalists including jihadists living in Germany has doubled to 11,000 in just a few years.

by Virginia Hale8 Apr 2018, 1:32 AM PDT0

With Hungarians set to go to the polls on Sunday, a spokesman for the Prime Minister has warned organisations sponsored by billionaire financier George Soros are working to blackmail the country into accepting mass migration.

by Oliver JJ Lane7 Apr 2018, 4:36 AM PDT0

French conservativepoliticianNicholas Dupont-Aignan, who gave his support to anti-mass migration presidential candidate Marine Le Pen last year, has been given a suspended fine of 5,000 euros for speaking about a migrant invasion.

by Chris Tomlinson6 Apr 2018, 2:52 AM PDT0

The rise in the number of children needing state welfare in Germany is being primarily driven by migrants arriving from the Middle East and from poorer European Union nations.

by Victoria Friedman6 Apr 2018, 2:07 AM PDT0

There are almost 2,000 asylum seekers now living on the streets of Paris, with the vast majority congregated in a large tent city in the north of the French capital.

by Chris Tomlinson6 Apr 2018, 1:01 AM PDT0

Four Syrian asylum seekers have been arrested in connection with an attack on a Turkish mosque in the German city of Ulm which is believed to have beenpolitically motivated.

by Chris Tomlinson5 Apr 2018, 2:47 AM PDT0

Violence among young people has been on the rise across Germany and according to a study by the GermanMinistry of Family Affairs, foreign background children are behind the increase.

by Chris Tomlinson4 Apr 2018, 6:04 AM PDT0

The European Unions (EU) attempt at tackling people smuggling is failing and the terror threat remains high, the executive director of the blocs border agency has warned.

by Liam Deacon4 Apr 2018, 2:48 AM PDT0

An 18-year-old Syrian migrant went on a two-hour rampage in the German town ofHagenow, throwing beer bottles at bystanders, smashing shop windows, and stabbing an Iraqi man while shouting Allah hu Akbar!

by Chris Tomlinson3 Apr 2018, 10:32 AM PDT0

Nearly ten per cent of Swedish municipalitiesaregiving failed asylum seekers and illegal immigrants welfare payments despite a court decision last year which ruled they were not entitled to them.

by Chris Tomlinson3 Apr 2018, 7:47 AM PDT0

An asylum seeker fromGuinea has been sentenced to four months in prison for identity fraud after he claimed that he was underage, then an adult and even switched his gender from female to male.

by Chris Tomlinson3 Apr 2018, 4:39 AM PDT0

The United Nations migration agency (IOM) has posted an upbeat Easter message celebrating international migration as not only inevitable, but also necessary and desirable.

by Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.3 Apr 2018, 4:19 AM PDT0

A large number of residents of the heavily-migrant populated Parisareas of La Chapelle, Goutte-dOr and Barbs have demanded the government act to stop underage Moroccan migrant gangs, with women being routinely targetted for assault. The petition, which now stands at

by Chris Tomlinson3 Apr 2018, 1:04 AM PDT0

An Islamic cultural centre leader in the Italian city of Foggia was arrestedthis week after allegations of ties to the Islamic State terror group and accusations he had been radicalising children with pro-Islamic State propaganda. Abdel Rahan Bdel Mohy Eldin

by Chris Tomlinson2 Apr 2018, 3:58 AM PDT0

A significant majority of French now support banning the radical Salafist sect of Islam, and the government reinstating the national state of emergency, as the nation reels from another deadly radical Islamic terror attack in March.

by Oliver JJ Lane2 Apr 2018, 12:50 AM PDT0

A groupof over 50 men from migrant backgrounds, armed with various weapons including bats, machetes and iron bars, went on a rampage in the centre of the German city of Duisburg as part of an apparent inter-ethnic conflict. Around 100

by Chris Tomlinson1 Apr 2018, 11:07 AM PDT0

The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Br) has said that it will not gather ethnic or migrant background data on criminal suspectsclaiming that the data would not help its mission.

by Chris Tomlinson1 Apr 2018, 11:02 AM PDT0

The Swedish government has withdrawn a controversialbrochure on child marriages only hours after it sparked outrage from members of the public.

by Chris Tomlinson30 Mar 2018, 12:00 AM PDT0

The number of childbirths in Germany has declined for years but a recent reporthas shown a rebound as migrant women accounted for almost one in four mothers in the country in 2016.

by Chris Tomlinson29 Mar 2018, 4:00 AM PDT0

A massive poll covering all 28 European Union (EU) states has revealed an overwhelming concern over illegal immigration with more than three-quarters of EU citizens saying that Europes external borders should be better protected.

by Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.29 Mar 2018, 3:38 AM PDT0

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbn has said that Europe is full and that following the gains of pro-sovereignty parties in recent elections, the EU can no longer bury its head in the sand over peoples rejection of mass migration.

by Victoria Friedman26 Mar 2018, 8:42 AM PDT0

The Swedish parliament has voted to stop recognising child marriages despite parties from the government, including the Social Democrats, seeking some exemptions.

by Chris Tomlinson26 Mar 2018, 1:27 AM PDT0

Up to two-thirds of sub-Saharan Africas 1.1 billion population want to migrate to Europe or to the United States, with millions planning to make the move in the next five years.

by Victoria Friedman23 Mar 2018, 9:30 AM PDT0

FREIBURG (GERMANY) (AFP)An asylum seeker claiming to be from Afghanistan was Thursday sentenced to life in jail in Germany for the rape and murder of a student that stoked a public backlash against a mass influx of migrants. Hussein Khavari,

by Breitbart London22 Mar 2018, 10:03 AM PDT0

German Chancellor Angela Merkellaid out a six-point plan this week to prevent a future migrant crisis, including a common asylum system across all European Union (EU) member states.

by Chris Tomlinson22 Mar 2018, 2:14 AM PDT0

Statistics collected by theOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) show that nearly one-third of children in British schools are immigrants, higher even than the EU average.

by Oliver JJ Lane20 Mar 2018, 11:40 AM PDT0

The Italian government has detained a ship belonging toProactiva Open Arms claiming that the migrant rescue NGO broke international agreements and laws by refusing to hand over migrants to Libyan authorities.

by Chris Tomlinson20 Mar 2018, 7:26 AM PDT0

Three quarters of Germans said that Islam does not belong to Germany in a new poll, in direct opposition to recent comments by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

by Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.17 Mar 2018, 10:26 AM PDT0

The European Union has threatened countries with limiting the issue of work and travel visas if they refuse to take back failed asylum seekers and illegal migrants.

by Chris Tomlinson15 Mar 2018, 2:23 AM PDT0

Link:
Europe Migrant Crisis Articles - Breitbart

Mar. 26, 20186:55 AM ET

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) The head of the United Nations food agency warned Monday that the relocation of Islamic State group members from the Middle East to Africa could trigger a massive new European migrant crisis.

World Food Program executive director David Beasley talks during an interview at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra, Australia, Monday, March 26, 2018. Beasley says the collapse of the Islamic State movements self-described caliphate across Syria and Iraq has led to extremists mounting a recruitment drive in sub-Sahara Africa which threatens to trigger a new European migrant crisis. (AP Photo/Rod McGuirk)

World Food Program executive director David Beasley talks during an interview at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra, Australia, Monday, March 26, 2018. Beasley says the collapse of the Islamic State movements self-described caliphate across Syria and Iraq has led to extremists mounting a recruitment drive in sub-Sahara Africa which threatens to trigger a new European migrant crisis. (AP Photo/Rod McGuirk)

David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Program, said many of the militants who fled Syria amid the collapse of the Islamic State group's self-described caliphate had ended up in the greater Sahel region, a belt of semi-arid land spanning east-west across Africa and home to 500 million people.

Islamic State militants are now collaborating with other extremist groups, including al-Qaida, al-Shabab and Boko Haram, to create "extraordinary difficulties" across the Sahel, Beasley said in an interview with The Associated Press.

He said he has warned European leaders that they could face a far larger migrant crisis from the Sahel than the Syrian conflict generated if they do not help provide the region with food and stability.

"You're talking about the greater Sahel region of 500 million people, so the Syria crisis could be like a drop in the bucket compared to what's coming your way," Beasley said he told them.

"What they're now doing is coming into an already fragile area, a very destabilized area because of climate impact and governance, and they're infiltrating, recruiting, using food as a weapon of recruitment to destabilize so that they can have mass migration into Europe," he said.

"Mother after mother will tell you that 'My husband did not want to join ISIS or al-Qaida, but we had no food,' and if you haven't fed your little girl or little boy in two weeks and the alternative is signing up with ISIS, you sign up," Beasley added, referring to the group, also known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

The World Food Program wants to provide stability, economic growth and sustainable development as well as food to the region, said Beasley, who was in Australia for talks with the government on funding strategies.

The Sahel which includes Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, Mali and Mauritania is vulnerable to droughts and floods and faces constant food insecurity.

Five nations have also been grappling with a growing menace from extremists, including groups linked to al-Qaida's North Africa branch.

In February 2017, the so-called "Group of Five" agreed to assemble a 5,000-strong force to combat extremist groups, organized crime and human trafficking.

U.N. experts monitoring the implementation of sanctions on Mali warned this month that the conflict-wracked West African nation and its neighbors "face intensified terrorist threats," especially in the border area between Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

The experts' interim report said the militant group calling itself the official al-Qaida branch in Mali and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara extremist group have declared that "jihadist groups are working together" to fight the 5,000 troops.

In January, the U.N. Security Council threatened sanctions against parties in Mali who obstruct or delay the full implementation of the peace deal agreed to by Mali's government, Tuareg separatists and armed groups.

The experts concluded after their Mali visit in February that "all parties to the agreement are responsible for delays."

Mali has been in turmoil since a 2012 uprising prompted mutinous soldiers to overthrow the country's president. The power vacuum that was created ultimately led to an Islamic insurgency and a French-led war that ousted the jihadists from power in 2013. But insurgents remain active in the region.

The U.N. panel said "insecurity continues to rage and is now shifting increasingly toward the center of the country" from the north.

Across the country, it said, "an estimated 4.1 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance."

The experts said the extremist group Jama Nusrat Ul-Islam wa Al-Muslimin, which positioned itself as the al-Qaida branch in Mali, and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara have claimed attacks not only in Mali but in Niger, in the Tahoua and Tillaberi regions.

In Burkina Faso, the experts said, "the terrorist group Ansar Al-Islam has multiplied attacks in the last months against the government, including two attacks against Burkinabe security forces in Soum province on Dec. 2 and Dec. 21."

Beasley told the Security Council last week that the number of people around the world in danger of dying unless they get food urgently surged to 124 million last year mainly because "people won't stop shooting at each other."

He said by video link that almost 32 million of those acutely hungry people live in four conflict-wracked countries: Somalia, Yemen, South Sudan and northeastern Nigeria, where famine was averted last year.

Globally, Beasley said, 60 percent of the 815 million chronically hungry people who don't know where their next meal is coming from live in conflict areas.

Go here to read the rest:
AP Interview: UN food agency boss warns of migrant crisis

In this edition of Insiders our reporter Claudio Lavanga travels across Italy speaking with voters, campaigners and activists about migration. Italy has borne the brunt of the migrant crisis, and because of its proximity to the North African coast has taken in the largest share of migrants compared to other European countries. The resultant humanitarian crisis has been used by some parties, particularly those right-of-centre, to blame the countrys tattered economy and alleged growing crime rate on migrants.

The leader of Italys nationalist Brothers of Italy party pointed out that migration is going in both directions and spoke of a brain-drain of Italian graduates as well as an influx of illegal immigrants. But our reporter also caught up with civil society activists that are trying to help migrants find a home in Italy. A group of guerrilla artists were keen to draw attention to the plight of migrants, who embark on risky journeys during which, as one migrant put it, you can die at any time. Meanwhile in Castel Volturno, near Naples, NGOs are helping migrants, mostly for Sub-Saharan Africa, get access to health services and their children better integrate.

Read more:
Italys migrant crisis fuels election campaign | Euronews

Mobile phones lie idle, drawers dangle from chests and documents scatter the rooms. On the walls hang photos of weddings and children, all left behind in the rush to leave when the police stormed in.

Six months ago the former office block in Via Curtatone, overlooking Piazza Indipendenza in central Rome, became a flashpoint of Italys migrant crisis when police evicted the 800 Eritrean and Ethiopian refugees who had been living there for four years.

We cant afford new arrivals

They told us to go with them in buses because they would provide a solution for us, says Bereket Arefe, an Eritrean refugee who has lived in Italy since 2005. But when we arrived at the police station, they said: The building is evicted, our job is done. I asked: And where do we go now? and they said: Go on the street or book a room in a hotel.

There was no plan B for us.

The building was one of 100 disused structures in Rome inhabited by migrants, often without heat, water or electricity.

There are just over 180,000 asylum seekers and refugees in Italy, its stated maximum capacity, with most in or near Rome. Many are housed in emergency accommodation, with around 10,000 living in inhumane conditions, according to a new report by Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF).

At the end of the asylum process, many migrants find themselves homeless, and congregate in informal, illegal settlements in abandoned factories, derelict office blocks and car parks. When those are evacuated by police, people form new ones, further out of sight.

Last summer authorities in Rome stepped up their efforts to remove squatters, conducting three major evictions. The mayor, Virginia Raggi, is the highest-profile elected official of the populist Five Star Movement, which is attempting to position itself as tough on migrants and Italys party of order.

In June she requested a moratorium on new arrivals in the capital in response to the strong migratory presence and the continuous flow of foreign citizens. We cant afford new arrivals, she insisted, echoing the hardline anti-migrant rhetoric of the interior minister Marco Minniti.

The evacuation of the Via Curtatone building was one of the most high-profile.

The police arrived at 5.30am, while everyone was asleep and unprepared, says Eferm Ali, an Eritrean former occupant. We took what we could carry and got in the buses to the police station, while the police broke every door, the windows and the toilets. Everything was destroyed.

With nowhere else to go, most people slept in the Piazza Indipendenza outside the squat. Five days later, riot police arrived to disperse them with water cannon and batons.

Amateur footage shows one woman held by the neck by police, another beaten, and people being targeted with water cannon from one direction and clubbed from behind. MSF said it treated 13 people for injuries at the scene.

The violence was very, very harsh. I could not believe there could be such disorder in Europe, recalls Ali. It was inhumane.

Meanwhile, ahead of the Italian elections in March, the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has pledged to deport 600,000 of Italys 630,000 migrants leading Rula Jebreal, a high-profile television news anchor, to argue that Italy is being driven into the arms of fascists.

In this political climate, Romes migrants have few options. Those squatting in the citys empty buildings cannot request residence permits, undermining their right to stay and access to public services.

We do not like to occupy buildings and live illegally but its better than living on the street,

Baobab Experience, an informal migrant camp, was set up in a car park near Tiburtina station by activists and volunteers in 2015 to provide a temporary solution. In the past two years, it has been cleared 20 times.

Many of the people who live there are recently arrived migrants from north Africa who have not been assigned a reception centre and have received no linguistic or legal support. Increasingly some have been returned to Italy under the Dublin Regulation, which allows European Union member states to return people to the country where they were first registered; others have been in Rome for years and drift between camps when squats are evicted.

Even for those who have obtained the residence permit, there is no social inclusion, so they find themselves without a home or work, says Roberto Viviani, an organiser at the camp. These are the same migrants who are forced to occupy abandoned buildings, like Piazza Indipendenza, to have a roof over their heads.

Another 1,000 people live in Palazzo Selam, the palace of peace, a former university building that is reportedly the largest refugee ghetto in Europe. Bathrooms are overcrowded, living conditions are austere, and inhabitants live hand to mouth but it is a functioning shelter.

The global crisis is highly visible across Rome. Inside the Santi Apostoli church, home to around 50 migrants, a single mother sits in a two-person tent. Francesca Agostinho and her three-year-old son were evicted from an abandoned building in the Cinecitta neighbourhood in August, along with more than 40 other families.

The lack of support from the authorities is influenced by public opinion, she says. They dont help us because that would damage their position. For many Italians the violence against us is normal: we deserve it, we are not human beings, we are animals, pieces of shit. Were just black people.

Humanitarian organisations are increasing the pressure on the Italian government and Europe to better help migrants and refugees, not harm them.

Instead of long-term policies that respond to the basic needs of the relatively manageable number of people now living in inhumane conditions, we increasingly witness the criminalisation of migrants and refugees, says Tommaso Fabbri, head of MSFs projects in Italy.

That drives Romes migrants into the shadows.

We do not like to occupy buildings and live illegally but its better than living on the street, says Yemane Senai, an Eritrean who also lived in Via Curtatone. We are refugees and we have rights. I love Rome, but Rome doesnt love us.

Some names have been changed to protect identities

Follow Guardian Cities on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to join the discussion, and explore our archive here

Read more from the original source:
Rome faces new migrant crisis - theguardian.com

And some are former residents of the Jungle, the camp near Calais, Frances main ferry port for travel to Britain, that became a symbol of the global migration crisis in 2015, home to migrants from the Middle East, Africa, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

When the French government closed the camp in October 2016, evacuating thousands and offering to resettle them around the country, many made their way to Brussels, another international transit hub. Over the summer, tents and makeshift shelters appeared in Maximilian Park. Migrants who might once have headed for Calais continue to arrive in the city, hoping to journey onward.

Mr. Khater certainly does not want to stay in Belgium. I am afraid here, he said, because I dont have an education, I dont have money, I dont speak French.

Most important, he added, Belgium doesnt understand the politics of Sudan; if I ask asylum here, Belgium may send me back to Italy immediately, or worse, even to Khartoum.

European Union law requires migrants to apply for residency or asylum in the first country in the bloc they reach. In the past three years, tens of thousands of Sudanese have crossed the Mediterranean by boat, landing in Italy, Greece or Spain. Most applied for asylum, and only a few hundred have been deported, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Many Sudanese, however, seek to move on, in secret and without papers, to Britain. Often that involves camping for months near bus stops, truck stops, train stations or seaports.

So what do countries owe such transitory migrants? Belgiums state secretary for asylum policy and migration, Theo Francken, has argued that the state cannot take responsibility for those who do not claim asylum.

His reasoning is that if Belgium allows a few hundred migrants to reside illegally on its territory, it could attract millions of others, potentially plundering Belgiums generous social security system.

Seeing unauthorized migration rise in Brussels last summer, the Belgian government ordered a series of heavy-handed raids on informal camps and homeless shelters. Those raids along with falling temperatures have largely succeeded in breaking up camps in public parks, and received wide popular support.

Even so, hundreds of Belgian families have reacted by inviting migrants into their homes. (Last month, the government proposed police raids on the houses of citizens suspected of sheltering unauthorized migrants.) Medical charities are providing food, clothes and assistance, and volunteers have set up shelters like the one where Mr. Khater sleeps, in a former office building. The total cost of sheltering one migrant is about 10 euros per night, organizers estimate.

There have been several demonstrations against the government policies, and about 3,000 people formed a human chain around migrants at the Gare du Nord last month to prevent a police raid.

The crackdown has also exposed Belgium to the possibility of rebuke on human rights grounds.

In September, the government invited Sudanese officials to help identify and expel people in the country illegally who did not want to apply for asylum. Ten Sudanese were subsequently sent to Khartoum, and accounts quickly surfaced that at least three had been abused upon their return.

The Belgian government ordered an investigation of the allegations. It concluded earlier this month that Brussels had not done enough to assess the risks faced by those deported, and warned that migrants who had not applied for asylum still had the right to be protected from torture.

The report said it was impossible to establish whether the abuses had taken place.

At the Gare du Nord, Mr. Khater and several fellow travelers showed wounds and scars that they said had been inflicted by the Belgian police. One had a dislocated thumb, another a fresh cut across his jaw, yet another a stitched eyebrow. Several had open wounds. All said they knew Sudanese men who had recently been deported to Khartoum and then dropped out of contact.

Why arent the police kind to us? Mr. Khater asked. I am running for my life. I did do nothing wrong. I dont understand the politics here.

Mr. Kassou, the shelter organizer, agreed that certain officers in certain towns, not all police could be pretty violent with migrants. We very regularly have people who enter with wounds, even bites from police dogs, he said.

Sarah Frederickx, a spokeswoman for the Belgian police, said that officers treated transitory migrants in a very empathic and humane way. That being said, she added, it is possible that during certain operations, for instance when people fiercely resist police actions, officers use force, but in proportion.

Many aspects of what is happening are familiar, according to Johan Leman, an emeritus professor of anthropology at the Catholic University of Leuven who is an expert on Belgian migration policy and has worked with migrants in Brussels for decades. Irregular migration from Africa to Europe isnt new, he said. Tough return policies have existed in Europe since the 1980s, and the continent experienced a refugee crisis in the 1990s after the breakup of Yugoslavia.

What is new, he said, and what I have never seen before in Europe to this extent, is, first of all, that ministers are pounding their chests, saying, Look at me, how many people I have deported now. And secondly, that people are being deported back to a country of which we manifestly know that the government is violating human rights I am thinking of Sudan here.

Sudans president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, is wanted by the International Criminal Court for trial on charges of war crimes and genocide.

When police officers arrested several Sudanese migrants, including three minors, around the Gare du Nord last year, Mr. Francken, the state secretary for asylum policy, described the operation on Facebook as a cleanup. After a public outcry condemning the remark as xenophobic, he offered his apologies to the prime minister, who did not accept them.

Continue reading here:
How the E.U.s Migrant Crisis Reached the Streets of ...