Why record Channel drownings are unlikely to deter migrants

Desperate migrants are vowing

Desperate migrants are vowing to continue attempting
dangerous sea crossings despite the drowning of at
least 27 people in the deadliest day in the English Channel
since records began, according to reports. 

After visiting a makeshift camp on the outskirts of Dunkirk
following Wednesday’s tragedy, The Guardian^[1]’s security editor Dan
Sabbagh reported that “everybody says they still have the same
plan, to try to get on a boat to the UK”. 

“Everybody knows the risks,” he wrote. But the crossings
will continue “because they do not believe that death will come to
them – and because of their hope for a better life”.

An Iraqi Kurd migrant named only as Mira told the paper that he
had left his home in the city of Sulaymaniyah because “there is no
life” there. That phrase, said Sabbagh, was “repeated by many in
and around the camp” who are “ready to make the perilous
journey in the hope of eventually making money to send back
home”.

Another migrant, Muhammed, said Britain was his favoured
destination because he has “friends in Nottingham, in London and
Birmingham”.

An Iraqi Kurd at the same camp told the Daily Mail^[2] that he has tried to
cross the channel 11 times so far and would continue trying, even
in a fragile dinghy. “If I don’t get in this year, I’ll try again
next year – it’s very dangerous but we’re obligated to try again,”
he said.

A source told the paper that the “thousands of migrants in
France” are” in a state of collective hysteria”, because “by the
time they reach France, they are exhausted”.

“They are not thinking straight,” the source said. “They
can’t go back, only forward”.

People-smugglers are also reported to be determined to ensure
that the crossings do not stop. Criminals charging up to
£6,000 for each crossing “put guns to the heads of anyone who
dithers about getting on a boat”, because “the more seats they fill
on a vessel, the more money they make”.

The “lure” of the UK is down to a “few main factors”,
said The Times^[3] – namely “work,
family ties and the English language”. Informal work in the black
market is “easier to find in Britain”, and many people who
make it across will have family and contacts here who can “smooth
their path”. And most migrants are more likely to already speak at
least some English than other European languages.

Home Secretary Priti Patel has claimed that 70% of people
crossing the Channel in small boats are economic migrants, but this
figure been disputed by the Refugee
Council^[4]. 

Undocumented economic migrants “do not generally deliver
themselves into the hands of Home Office officials as soon as they
reach UK soil”, The Guardian^[5] noted. The paper
pointed out that Patel and the then immigration minister Chris
Philp rejected recommendations to make payments of £12.11 a week to
asylum seekers in UK hotels for essential living needs because they
“did not want to further increase any possible pull factors”.

Patel has also proposed a “turn back the boats” policy. But the
policy has “triggered a heated battle inside the government amid
fears that people on the boats could puncture them as UK vessels
try to turn them around, meaning they would have to be rescued”,
The Telegraph^[6] reported.