Illegal immigration
October 28, 2009
The European Union has seen a sharp drop in the number of illegal migrants caught entering the bloc this year, a senior official of security agency Frontex said on Wednesday.
A total of 51,600 illegal border crossings were detected during the first six months of 2009, 17 percent less than in the same period last year, Frontex deputy director Gil Arias Fernandez told a news conference in Madrid.
Fernandez said that Frontex sea patrols had helped to drastically reduce the number of would-be migrants, but he acknowledged that the global economic downturn had also had a significant effect.
No job to come to
The recession is discouraging migrants from heading to the EU because they are less confident of finding a job in the 27-nation bloc, which posted a 4.8 percent drop in gross domestic product in the second quarter of 2009. At the same time it is harder for them to pay for the crossing, which can cost several hundred euros.
"Nobody puts their life at risk if they do not have the prospect of a better one," said Fernandez, who predicted the fall in the number of migrant arrivals would continue during the rest of the year and into 2010.
But although illegal arrivals were down overall, sea arrivals in Greece rose to 14,000 during the first half of 2009 from 9,500 during the same time last year, mostly due to larger detections of nationals from Afghanistan and Somalia.
Seventy percent of the EU's illegal border crossings this year occurred into Greece, while Italy accounted for 13 percent and Spain around nine percent, according to Frontex statistics.
Working with Senegal
Fernandez also praised the EU's cooperation with the government of Senegal, which is working harder to prevent illegal immigrants from leaving the country.
For the first time, more migrants are being prevented from leaving Africa than are arriving in the Canaries. About 2,280 migrants have reached the Canaries so far this year, while 2,360 have been stopped in or off Africa.
Only two migrant boats had set off from Senegal over the past nine months, while nearly 8,000 migrants landed in the islands in 2008.
Frontex has been operating since October 2005, and patrols 42,000 kilometers (26,000 miles) of the EU's sea borders and 8,800 kilometers of land frontier.
bk/dpa/AFP
Editor: Chuck Penfold