African immigrants captured off the coast of the Canary Islands last month were detained in Spain. (AP Photo)
Like illegal Latin American immigrants in the United States, illegal African immigrants have caused contraversy in Europe. Recently, the European Union’s member states agreed on a pact that would curb illegal immigration, limit unskilled immigrants and refugees, and promote the immigration of skilled workers. The E.U. is trying to get African leaders to sign on to the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum, but so far, the Africans have yet to be persuaded.
African leaders are suspicious of the E.U. pact, noting that it does not work in Africa’s favor: the pact would encourage the exodus of skilled professionals while leaving behind the unskilled and the desperate. From the AFP story:
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade this month used the historic win of Barack Obama, the first African American in the White House, to take a swipe at the EU’s new immigration pact.
“Why did they do that? They did it to close the doors to black people except for officials, managers, engineers, doctors: the people they need. There the racism disappears,” he said.
Africans are concerned about what they refer to as “Fortress Europe,” a continent where a focus on security and new nationalist movements may create a hostile environment for non-natives.
Last week, for example, the U.K. began a controversial program to issue biometric ID cards to foreign residents. The British government is starting with foreign students and spouses of permanent residents, and will gradually expand to include all legal foreigners, then all residents. It has attracted outcry from immigrants and civil libertarians.
While the United States has long seen conflicts over immigration, this is, as the cliche goes, a nation of immigrants, and we have always been multi-ethnic. Europe, however, is struggling with what it means to be French, German or British in a united Europe. Can Turkish-born Germans or Moroccan-born Frenchmen be German or French? Europe has to figure this out.
Meanwhile, African immigrants are suffering and dying to get a shot at opportunity in Europe. On the island of Crete, 15 Africans are on a hunger strike, hoping to gain the legal status in Greece. And in the waters off Senegal hundreds of West Africans pack into wooden fishing boats, hoping to reach the Spanish-owned Canary Islands. They die regularly in the attempt.
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