As Africans Surge to Europe’s Door, Spain Locks Down

.MELILLA, Spain — It is easy to pick out the new arrivals at the shelter for immigrants here on this tiny patch of Spain in North Africa. One man limps by on crutches with a plaster cast on his ankle. Another has a bandaged arm in a sling. Abbdol Cisse, 19, had stitches on his face.

Ten years ago Spain spent 30 million euros building up barriers around Melilla and Ceuta, its two enclaves surrounded by Morocco on the northern coast of Africa, which offer the only land borders between the promise of Europe and the despair of Africa.

But in the past year, large groups of sub-Saharan immigrants have been charging the rows of seven-yard-high chain-link fences here with increasing frequency, or trying to swim around them, believing with good reason that if they can just get past they will ultimately end up in Europe. They often end up injured, not just from falls and the newly laid concertina wire, but at the hands of the Moroccan and Spanish authorities trying to stop them.

It is a question that has hounded Europe for years, as immigrants fleeing wars or simply wanting a better future have tried to break through its borders, sometimes dying in tiny boats headed for the Canary Islands, part of Spain, or the Italian island of Lampedusa, sometimes trying to walk from Turkey to Greece or Bulgaria. Or, as they are doing now, charging the fences of these enclaves, seeking out even the smallest doorways to Europe.

Spanish officials have now appealed to the European Union for help, including financial, saying the burden of protecting Spain’s borders should not be theirs alone. They are also considering changes in the immigration laws to make it easier to immediately eject immigrants who do make it over the fences.

It is not often one might give a grudging praise to the NYT. The article does give a graphic picture of human misery. What the NYT should do is to do an in depth study of the ramifications of unchecked illegal entry to a sovereign country.

The balance of the regular and traditional population can be disturbed by those who have but little to offer. There is nothing but further misery and strife to be expected. Sure, a very small number can be and are assimilated into any country. The do good variety of multi-culturalists are only too ready to bad mouth any objectors to the change in their once quiet neighborhood. The do gooders do not wish to entertain those undesirable newcomers in their district however. The high income houses are usually not accessible to

Italy has been hard hit by illegals and the tragic accounts of drownings in leaking vessels are well known. Now the island of Lampedusa has been selected as a holding point for illegals from Africa. I have done some amount of reading of what this means. First of all, the mainland of Italy is now spared the problem of persons silently disappearing into the interior. Small riots have occurred by dissatisfied illegals who want all the good things quickly.

What of the 5000 residents of Lampedusa? Their lives have been drastically changed. Women dare not go out alone in the evening. Persons come back to their houses and find the illegals boldly in their kitchen, helping themselves.

The Australians have used an island called Christmas Island to put illegal immigrants in hastily constructed housing.

Excuse the rant, but the established and mainly hardworking nations do have a problem.

Nah, you’re too severe.

We must all come to a social, economic and moral equilibrium by sitting all together I each other’s filthy bathwater. After all, all cultures are of equal value, ain’t it?.

It’s known as the UN syndrome.

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