how to solve the Canary Island problem
Reader comment on item: West Africa - Europe's New Border

Submitted by Mark (United Arab Emirates), Mar 20, 2006 at 00:35

Australia had the same problem. Exactly. With Christmas Island which is closer to Indonesia than to Australia but is Australian territory. Once a load of 'boat people' actually set foot on Australian soil they had to be processed. So there was a constant stream of boats loaded with, imagine Afghans, Iraqis etc landing there. (Yeah it is a long way from Iraq but they got there somehow).

Australia more or less solved the problem by using the navy to turn away boats before they entered Australian waters. When the boat people threw their kids overboard to get sympathy the Australian navy boarded the boats and transfered the people to Nauru. (Not part of Australia) . Some of the refuges eventually made it to Australia but not as many as were coming before.

The other thing the Australian government has is mandatory detention for illegal immigrants. Now I know that these measures are not popular with some but the word has got out and illegal immigration has reduced from the huge flow of a few years back..

So here is the answer for Canary Islands:

1) turn the boats around, forcefully if necessary
2) any boats that actually do land should be destroyed, the crew fined, imprisoned then deported.
3) Find an African country, e.g. Moroco and enter an agreement where they will keep the illegal immigrants who do land in the Canarys or who are turned back in a detention then deport them back to their origins. This will cost Spain money but will pay for itself by stemming the tide of unskilled, non spanish speaking immigrants. Eventually the stream of immigrants will dry up also once they find they can't get in..

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