Calais Migrant Camps (FB 29th August 2015)

For clarity, the definitions used here are:
Migrant - noun - a person or animal that moves from one region, place, or country to another. [Collins]
Illegal immigrant - noun - a person who has entered a country illegally [Collins]
Refugee - noun - a person who has fled from some danger or problem, esp political persecution [Collins]

Can we please remember that the people who are camping near Calais and attempting to board lorries etc. to reach England are willfully illegal immigrants and are only a tiny minority of the refugees and other people currently legally present in and wishing to settle in the EU. This is an important distinction.

This tiny minority is made up exclusively of those who refuse to apply for residency in the EU in the proper manner, who have entered and crossed a number of countries without regard for their laws and who intend to break both French and UK laws in order to cross from France to the UK. They are not model citizens.

It is their free choice not to have applied for asylum in any EU country they have set foot in before reaching Calais. If they had applied via the correct channels and had achieved a legal right to be living and working in the EU they could get on the train like anyone else.

All the people camped in Calais, some of whom may be refugees and all of whom are illegal immigrants, can apply to the French government and would be entitled to exactly the same as the many tens of thousands already in the system. Were they to do that I might respect them a little more.

I am appalled at the calls to take supplies to this tiny minority, the small criminal element doing more to damage the reputation of genuine, law abiding asylum seekers than anything else. I have even received an invitation via social media to contribute to a collection for these people which, unsurprisingly, I shall not be doing.

No one needs to buy food or supplies in Brighton and take them by van to France, it is a daft idea and a waste of money. If you are that concerned, pop over as foot passenger and walk to the local supermarket and save yourself a bundle. I am slightly concerned that a local politician bigged-up the idea.

The camps in Calais are not populated by desperate people who have just escaped a war zone and who seek safe settlement in the EU, those people applied when they arrived and are already in the system. The camps in Calais are populated by those who have been safely in the EU for a while but who refuse to abide by the rules.

It isn't about being racist or capitalist or nationalist or any such nonsense, it is about respect for the law and giving support to those who properly apply for it and qualify for it, which is as available in Calais as it is in Dover or Folkestone.

It is the simple selfishness of these few thousand criminals, I assume that to be the term for someone who is committing the offence of being where they are not legally entitled to be, that incurs massive cost and causes frequent delay, not just to the service through the tunnel but across Kent and in the Pas-de-Calais as traffic backs up.