Calais refugees are really migrants trying to get to UK, says judge

MANY living in the Jungle in Calais are “probably not refugees” but migrants trying to get to the UK, a senior immigration judge has said.

Mr Justice McCloskey said there was “no real basis” for many of the estimated 6,000 people in the makeshift camp to remain there. He said they were likely to be international migrants who plan to claim refugee status here rather than seeking shelter in France because of “perceived advantages” in the UK.

The judge spoke out as he handed down a landmark legal ruling allowing four young Syrian refugees to leave the camp and come to the UK so they can live with their brothers. The decision focused narrowly on their “special, unique” situation but paves the way for hundreds more to submit similar claims. One support group said that up to 300 people could now benefit.

One of the four Syrians said: “I’m very glad that my case is now going to open the door to so many others to get here safely, because in Calais I saw so many people of the age of 14, 15 and 16 risking their lives dealing with human traffickers and jumping on lorries and being beaten by others, which is not a way for minors to live or experience.”

Mr Justice McCloskey, president of the Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber, described the Jungle as a “bleak and desolate place”. The judge said: “It seems likely that there is no real basis for many of its occupants remaining indefinitely in the Jungle and enduring the conditions that obtain there.

“Many are probably not refugees in any general sense or any sense entitled to recognition. Rather, they are migrant nationals of a number of countries outside the European Union, who, while intending to make a claim for refugee status, decline to make the claim in France due to perceived advantages, correct or otherwise, of doing so in the United Kingdom.”

The Home Office was granted leave to appeal against the judgment.