What to do about all this migration, how to avoid the social upheavals it generates, which regularly shake the countries of the 'golden billion' and our own country? Developed states are busy searching for the optimal answer to these questions.
The authoritative international publication International Herald Tribune published public opinion poll data according to which the majority of Britons, Italians, and Germans (67% and 55% respectively) believe that 'there are too many immigrants'. Including those who have settled in the Old World legally. Approximately the same number spoke out for the ruthless expulsion of illegal immigrants regardless of marital status. True, in Spain and France people are more generous: only 45% and 32% of respondents respectively consider the number of immigrants excessive. According to the majority of respondents, foreigners should not receive assistance from social funds until they become citizens of their countries of residence. At the same time, almost everyone realizes that without immigration Europe would hardly survive.
The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance is alarmed by this trend. 'Europe was built on certain values, including tolerance,' its chairperson Eva Smith-Asmussen noted in her speech in Strasbourg. 'And suddenly security becomes paramount, and everything else must be sacrificed to it.'
GERMAN SOLUTION?
In terms of the number of immigrants in Western Europe, Germany leads (approximately 7 million). As Bundestag deputy Lale Akyün recently stated, Germany 'is as much an immigrant country as the USA or Israel.' Moreover, the influx of illegal immigrants into this country has always depended on one or another political upheaval on the planet. At the very beginning of this century, for example, a so-called 'Russian wave' emerged: about 50 thousand women fraudulently recruited for various kinds of 'black' jobs, and several hundred servicemen who had previously deserted from the group of Soviet troops in Germany. As for our compatriots, not all of them were forced into prostitution, as is commonly believed back home. According to some estimates, over 100 thousand women from Eastern Europe and Asia still remain in Germany as underground domestic workers and caregivers. After all, systematic care for the infirm, even with insurance, is very expensive in Germany – it costs up to €8 thousand per month. And 'our women,' even without permission to work in Germany, without social and medical insurance, but with free room and board at the employer's expense, usually receive monthly €800-1,000.
However, after another surge of illegal immigration caused by the civil war in the Balkans, Germany did step up its countermeasures. It, in particular, provided real assistance to the Southern European service Frontex, which is trying to stem the onslaught of the current 'black wave' from Africa. Now helicopters and boats of the Bundeswehr are taking part in guarding and patrolling the Mediterranean coast.
A unified interstate database on illegal immigrants has also been created, whose status in Germany has become noticeably clearer after the German Federal Supreme Court ruled: 'Entry into the country with a visa obtained by improper means cannot be a criminal offense.' One can now be imprisoned only in the case of an attempt to extend such a fake visa already inside Germany. But it is much safer to be here with the status of Duldung – 'Extension'.
As of today, there are over 200,000 former illegal immigrants who have reported to the authorities and received Duldung in Germany. Theoretically, each of them can be deported to their homeland at any moment. However, in practice, more than 100,000 of them have been living in Germany for about 10 years, and many have fully assimilated and started families.
DESTINATION – EUROPE
But not all illegal immigrants can reach such prosperous countries as Germany. At the end of May, sailors of the French frigate 'Motte-Picquet' discovered two dozen lifeless and already decomposing bodies in the Mediterranean Sea. They were illegal migrants who tried to swim from North Africa to the shores of any EU state. About 200 miles remained to Malta. There was no vessel nearby. Probably, it perished in a storm. Soon, not far from this place, a Maltese reconnaissance aircraft spotted and photographed some old boat in which 53 people were packed like sardines. Then the vessel along with the people disappeared...
Such tragedies follow one after another. In search of happiness, Africans cross the Sahara and embark on a dangerous voyage, aware that the chance is illusory and the stake is life. Europeans still do not know how to solve this problem. They want to limit uncontrolled immigration, but run into their own moral principles, the European tradition of helping the poor and persecuted. The strategic plan to increase aid for the development of the poorest African countries, discussed these days at the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, if it promises results, is in the very distant future. For now, Europeans want to erect barriers for uninvited seekers of shelter and bread, but they cannot throw back into the sea those who have reached the shore.
But what to do with the rescued? Captains do not want to take them on board because they cannot get rid of them afterwards. In July of last year, a Spanish freighter picked up 51 immigrants at sea and was forced to carry them around for more than a week. Malta, Italy, and Libya refused to accept them in their ports. According to EU rules, the country on whose shore illegal immigrants set foot must decide their further fate: whether they can claim refugee status with all the consequences for that country.
It cannot be said that Europeans have become xenophobes. In Belgium, for example, it is not uncommon for groups of illegal immigrants who have been ordered by the authorities to leave the country immediately to take refuge in a church. And Belgians brought them food and clothing, set up pickets to prevent forced deportation, and petitioned the authorities to review cases. Especially if it was about neighbors and families with children. However, the picture is gradually changing, and not for the better.
CANNOT COPE ALONE
On the eve of World War I, Russian peasants flooded Sweden, wandering around farms and villages offering to sharpen knives and saws. The sharpeners, who suspiciously often appeared near strategic objects, be it military units, bridges, or railway junctions, attracted the attention of the security police. 'These supposedly illiterate peasants are actually officers of the Russian General Staff! Where do they get so much money and military maps of Sweden?' wrote newspapers. To expose the 'spies,' a university professor, a well-known Slavist, was invited. During the interrogations, the expert was supposed to determine which social stratum the sharpeners belonged to, whether a St. Petersburg pronunciation would slip into their Novgorod or Vologda dialect. But the operation to expose the spies failed. The sharpeners did not slip up, taking their secret back to Russia.
Nevertheless, the old method of exposing uninvited guests has become relevant again in Sweden. This time, language experts from the migration agency are trying to catch refugees from exotic corners of the world lying, who pose as representatives of tribes and peoples inhabiting countries considered dangerous for return. First and foremost is Iraq.
According to statistics, 90% of all asylum seekers in Sweden arrive in the country without any documents. Usually, passports and other papers that allow identification are destroyed in the airplane toilet on approach to Stockholm. The police tried to at least screen out those already in the database by taking fingerprints from refugees. The answer was the appearance in the country of 'people from nowhere' with fingertips burned with acid or cut off with a knife.
Most newcomers pose as representatives of peoples inhabiting Iraq. Sweden grants asylum to residents of this country, which has expelled about 2 million people. 70,000 Iraqis have already settled here, and according to the Migration Agency, another 20,000 applicants for residence permits are expected this year.
Moreover, refugees came to Scandinavia with a set of 'secondary' documents confirming their Iraqi origin. Based on these papers, the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm, which also serves Norway, issued real Iraqi passports to all applicants. These IDs automatically entitled them to Swedish asylum. The scandal erupted in January this year when the Norwegian police broke up a criminal group that provided 'the whole East' with Iraqi papers. Turks, Iranians, Syrians, Lebanese, and representatives of dozens of other countries, including Central Asian CIS states, flocked to the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm, where they were given the coveted documents. Rumors spread in Sweden and Norway that the passports were actually sold. The Ministry of Justice summoned the Iraqi ambassador, but he stated that the passports were issued on the basis of quite reliable documents…
In any case, neither Sweden nor any other country can stop such a practice alone. The Swedes themselves see the main danger in the 'hole in the south.' From North Africa and Eastern countries, the largest flow of illegal immigrants goes to Spain, to which Madrid periodically grants amnesty. Currently, about a million illegal immigrants live 'underground' in Spain. Upon receiving a residence permit and subsequent Spanish citizenship, many of them head to northern Europe for better social conditions. The EU is trying to patch the 'Spanish hole' by offering a whole package of measures. Among them are the creation of a united European border guard to catch illegal immigrants at the border, as well as the organization of Employment Centers in problematic countries of the Middle East and North Africa. In these centers, local residents will be able to sign contracts to work on farms and in construction companies of European states, thus no longer swelling the ranks of illegal immigrants.
Sergey LOPATNIKOV, Alexander MINEEV,
Sergey ZOLOVKIN, Alexey SMIRNOV.
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