Europe looks to beef up border security as illegal migration surges

“You can only claim asylum if you arrive in Europe,” Luigi Scazzieri, senior research fellow on migration and security issues at the Centre for European Reform, told Yahoo News. “If the thrust of Europe’s immigration policy becomes to keep people from arriving in the first place, then that right is being eroded.”

...“The EU is obsessed with the return of failed asylum applicants, but the rates of return are very low,” said Geddes. “Many countries are reluctant to take them back.” Scazzieri agrees.

“Countries in Africa normally have very, very low rates of co-operation,” he told Yahoo News. “It can be politically toxic for them to do so — especially since migrants tend to send back money to their families.”