The riots that engulfed France in the summer of 2023, after a teenager of North African descent was shot dead by police during a traffic stop, showcased the decades-long failure of the French state to adequately integrate millions of immigrants — particularly those with origins in Africa and the Middle East.
Disputes between member states over how to confront the challenge are raising tensions inside the EU.
Prosecutors in Spain have charged a dozen North African migrants with sedition for illegally entering the country by forcing a commercial airliner to land on Spanish territory.
Nearly a thousand migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East have attempted to cross the English Channel on small boats in just one day to illegally get into the United Kingdom.
Thousands of migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East are pouring into the European Union from Belarus, a landlocked country in Eastern Europe.
The Taliban conquest of Afghanistan is poised to trigger an unprecedented wave of Afghan migration to Europe, which is bracing for the arrival of potentially hundreds of thousands — possibly even millions — of refugees and migrants from the war-torn country.
The Danish Parliament has passed a new law that will allow the government to deport asylum seekers to countries outside of the European Union to have their cases considered abroad. The legislation is widely seen as a first step toward moving the country’s asylum screening process beyond Danish borders.
A plan by the Greek government to build new migrant camps on five Aegean islands has sparked violent opposition from local residents, who fear that the facilities will encourage yet more mass migration from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
People smuggling gangs generate profits of up to £6 billion ($8 billion) a year, with migrants often paying more than £10,000 ($13,000) to secure illegal entry into the UK, according to Britain’s National Crime Agency.
Spanish authorities have begun removing razor wire from border fences along Spain’s frontier with Morocco. The Socialist government ordered their removal after migrants who jumped the fences to enter Europe illegally suffered injuries.
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has unveiled a new plan to reform the European asylum system. A leaked draft of the proposal shows that all member states of the EU would be required to take in illegal migrants.
French police recently cleared more than 2,000 migrants from two makeshift encampments in northern Paris. The crackdown came after the government announced a series of measures to curb illegal immigration.
