During the journey, however, they began to say, “Would you mind if we landed in Tirana?” To which officials replied: “No, we will go to Pristina.” “We would prefer to go out to Tirana.” By the time they arrived at Stansted, all but one of the “Kosovos” had converted to Albanians. In the end, coaches had to be arranged in Pristina to take them back to Tirana. This is just a small example of the complexity of dealing with illegal immigration. The 1951 Refugee Convention, to which we are a signatory, obliges us to grant asylum to people who are able to demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution. The advent of globalization and the rise of social media, however, has given rise to massive rackets, often with tragic consequences for those who allow themselves to be trafficked. Consider, for example, the 39 young Vietnamese men who three years ago were found suffocated in the back of a lorry in Purfleet in Essex. They had no real claim for asylum. Their ruthless extortionists had sold them a vision of life in the West that bore no relation to reality. If they made it here, many of them would have ended up running hemp farms. some of the young women would have been sold into prostitution. Immigrants are not bad, but they are pathetic. Back home, their relatives will have scrambled and saved up to pay the sums – anywhere up to £20,000 – demanded by the traffickers. Their families will owe the traffickers for years to come. The problem is growing day by day. Every new crisis in Europe’s periphery triggers new waves of migration. The fall of tyranny in Tunisia has resulted in thousands of young people boarding boats and heading for Italy. The collapse of the Gaddafi regime in Libya has opened new migration routes from sub-Saharan Africa – a process exacerbated by climate change. What should be done? No one should justify the conditions in which new arrivals are being held in Kent and elsewhere, nor should we have truck with populist politicians seeking to exploit the crisis for their own ends. But my message to liberal commentary is this: the failure to address the obvious abuse of asylum is inexcusable. We must take urgent action to stop widespread exploitation of the system. If the law facilitates some of the present abuses, then the law must be changed. Claims must be processed quickly and unsuccessful applicants removed quickly. However, be under no illusions. This is easier said than done as some countries will not accept the return of their citizens, but Albanians should not be a problem. I for one cannot understand how it happened that half of the asylum applications from Albania are successful. Those who leave safe countries must be returned. Again, if the law has to be changed to do this, so be it. There are things we can do to limit the flow. Given the shortage of fruit and vegetable pickers, there is no reason why a properly regulated seasonal employment scheme could not be devised that would inject some much-needed foreign exchange into the economies of Albania and other regional countries, but without the need to offer permanent housing. We may also need to reopen legal pathways to enable applicants with a genuine asylum claim to apply without having to be at the mercy of traffickers. There are well-meaning people who argue that Britain is a rich country that can easily absorb almost everyone who comes to our shores, and that in any case other countries deal with far more immigrants than we do. Disagree. In the medium term, uncontrolled migration risks breaking down our fragile social systems. It is also driving politics across Europe into the hands of the far right. This is a serious issue. We neglect it at our peril. Chris Mullin is a former Labor MP and chairman of the Home Affairs committee. He was a minister in three departments.
