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back to article EU menaces migrants with border biometrics, dragnets

The Brussels government is working on plans for a range of aggressive new border-control measures designed to prevent mass migration into Europe - particularly from points south and east. The Wall Street Journal reports today that draft EU laws will be put forward for consideration by member states which would implement …

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  1. David Farrell
    Alien

    Why bother?

    If the EU spent half the amount of time and money on trying to find solutions to the problems that cause third-world poor people to want to find better lives in rich countries instead of trying to create ever more imaginative ways of playing with their big boy toys, perhaps we could stop wasting all of this taxpayers money.

    In any case, I still fail to see why biometrics are necessary for a system to record people's entries to and exits from a country. I've been to many third-world countries where passenger entries and exits are recorded quickly and effeciently into a computer system linked to a central database from a simple scan of a machine-readable passport. If these countries can create successful exit/entry recording systems, why has it taken the EU this long to even propose it?

    Cynics might even question the motives of those in their ivory towers who wish catalogue, cross-reference and generally categorise us like museum exhibits. Fingerprints, facial scans, et al are quite frankly nothing more than unnecessary distractions and completely and utterly unnecessary.

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  2. Andy Bright

    Will we get..

    our own Towers of Sauron?

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I can't see the reason for excluding US visitors

    I mean, it's not like an 'alien' gets a better treatment when he/she/it tries to enter the US, no?

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    UK Cancer crossing Europe

    See, there's that biometric influence spreading like a cancer across Europe. All the benefits list already happen.

    Embassies already take other applications into account, they already have the visa information sharing system, already stamp a mark in the passport. They already should not be issuing visas to people without the proper local id paperwork.

    You already put an entry stamp in a passport, and can already fine Americans if you wanted to. You don't, that's just to play on anti-US sentiment.

    All this is is a fat boondongle budget given to a bunch of biometric companies whose products don't work properly anyway. Tax payer has to pick up the bill and we're all supposed to believe it will cut immigration?

    Let me guess, will it be CSC and other American corps that get the contracts to take all these biometrics? How stupid is that contracting out the ID to a US company at the different office like the UK does?

    And no doubt the UK would use it to increase the visa barrier within Europe? And EU will do nothing as usual to enforce the treaties?

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  5. William L. Whited

    Normandy

    Tell you what anonymous coward..you have it pretty good right now when you come to the US. We could just start punishing all those European corporations the way you pick on ours. Would be a lot of fun to see all those Benzs and BMWs with a 200% tariff on them. You could of course retaliate, but we can spend our worthless money here as well as over there. You were plenty glad to see us 64 years ago..except for the group that was trying to take over the place...

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    I'm afraid it's little use

    As there are still too many weapons sold to the those countries from where the people are trying to escape. The criminals have them and are using them there is no central government control over these sales probably due to corruption until they run down nothing will ever be accomplished. In other words you shit in your back yard expect the stink and flies. You make it impossible for normal people to control their environment they have to move,if it sucks for you change the policies.

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Been there done that...

    I'm so glad I've done my obligatory UK, Europe and Americas travelling. No border issues back in them days. There used to be both kinds of travel back then; Free & Easy.

    As for the Seppos in WW2, don't make me laugh.......

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  8. Clyde

    @ William L. Whited

    And we just a few months ago finished paying you with interest for your assistance. War is a financial affair, start to finish, with you US types. Us various Europeans paid in blood sweat tears and total destruction for decades for the madness of last century, but you guys made a financial profit out of all that. And then confiscated all the technology you could find, like super duper destruction bombs. And you got a foot in the door for your next campaign.

    The neo Roman Empire is brutal against everything outside its borders.

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    @ William L. Whited

    yeah it was real nice of you to turn up.

    3 years late and only after you got bombed too.

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  10. Robert Grant

    @ William L Whited

    200% markup on BMWs? Try buying a 360 over here. Without the massive price fixing ($200 == £200) that goes on with US products, people in the UK would be swimming in US-made luxury goods right now.

    And let's face it, what with fuel inefficiency being positively a badge of honour with the US car industry, even if you bought a BMW at 3 times the price you'd still be saving overall thanks to reduced fuel costs.

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  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Travelling...

    Does this mean that EU countries will no longer allow Australian visitors entry without a visa even though France dispensed with this need several years ago in recognition of the Aussie's contribution to WWII especially as Aussies originate South and West of the EU?

    On another note, could anyone in "merica" please explain why on a domestic flight (SF to LA & return) why I (UK passport) and my husband (AU passport) were not allowed to sit next t o each other - entry was from London.

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  12. Michael
    Joke

    @Normandy

    Nur fur voort zum kreig ( Don't mention the war!)

    I did once, but i think i got away with it!

    oh and @ travelling , visas are required for a stay longer than 3 months , i think ,

    as long as you're not on the list of countries for which a visa is required for entry

    Nigeria , afghanistan....etc.

    Australia is ok on this as far as I know. Separate visas are required for the uk

    and ALSO for ireland , as they aren't in schengen .

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  13. Nuke
    Thumb Down

    @ David Farrell

    You wrote :

    ###>

    If the EU spent half the amount of time and money on trying to find solutions to the problems that cause third-world poor people to want to find better lives in rich countries instead of trying to create ever more imaginative ways of playing with their big boy toys, perhaps we could stop wasting all of this taxpayers money.

    <###

    Well that should be easy then. Solve World Hunger - come to think of it they were going to show how that could be done in a Monty Python episode. I missed it myself, but it was to be the week after they showed you how to play the flute.

    But what makes you think that making the Third World richer would make them less inclined to come to Europe? They would simply arrive Business Class instead in boats. The immigrants I know were all relatively well off before they came here, and some complain that they are now <i>worse</i> off ("Used to have four servants back in India!").

    There is a plethora of cultural, historical and economic reasons why adventurers, vagabonds, go-getters, crooks, professionals, pimps, casual workers, and beggars tend to gravitate to what is seen as the "Centre", just as it was to Rome 2000 years ago and to London 200 years ago. Tossing money to the third world won't stop it but border controls can.

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  14. John A Blackley

    @David Farrell

    "If the EU spent half the amount of time and money on trying to find solutions to the problems that cause third-world poor people to want to find better lives................, perhaps we could stop wasting all of this taxpayers money."

    David, do you have any idea, at all, of how much money the EU spends on foreign aid?

    "In any case, I still fail to see why biometrics are necessary for a system to record people's entries to and exits from a country."

    Taking into consideration your considerable experience of travelling to and from other countries, let me try to explain. Say I'm a 'third world poor person' and I enter an EU country on a visitor visa. Say I find the conditions in that EU country much more palatable than my home, third world country. Say I decide to throw away my passport and visa stamp, walk across an EU (non-existent) border and claim refugee status.

    Clearer now?

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  15. On the beach

    @John A Blackley

    What the EU spends on foreign aid it more than recoups in biased trade agreements. with 3rd world countries. Not too far from from going into the souk and haggling the natives down when you're saving pennies and they're trying to save their next meal.

    @William L Whited

    You were late but you were welcome.

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  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good idea, slightly late

    I personally think it's a bloody good idea. Seeing how many illegal immigrants commit crimes, rip off benefits systems and such it's high time to introduce this.

    And before somebody starts shouting "Human rights" BS - it's nobody's human right to come to Europe. P**S OFF!!!

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  17. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @ Anonymous xenophobic daily mail-reading coward

    "Seeing how many illegal immigrants commit crimes, rip off benefits systems and such it's high time to introduce this"

    (no mention of the British born and bred spongers then?)

    So how many illegal immigrants do commit crimes and rip off the benefits system? Certainly in terms of ripping off the benefits system I would hazard a guess at a miniscule number.....

    If you are here illegally you cannot claim anything (and if you were why would you risk drawing attention to your illegal status) - if you are here legally you frequently have "no recourse to public funds". If you are an asylum seeker (yes, that means a refugee if you are able to distinguish that term) you are not allowed to work and are obliged to take government benefits (unless you want to return to your own country - possibly to be killed).

    I'm sure you don't know but I'm sure you're happy to have Britain's xenophobic scaremongering media tell you without you questioning it. How many Britons commit crimes or rip off the benefits system? Or is that OK because they're British?

    If we are going to lock (non-EU) immigrants out let's lock small-minded people like you in - after all it's nobody's human right to go anywhere else and human rights?... BS

    When your human rights get taken away who will you blame? The government/s who happily whip up ignorant resentment of immigrants whilst eroding our human rights?....or immigrants? Sadly probably the latter

    Are you actually Jon Gaunt by any chance?

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  18. Michael
    Alien

    Just a quick footnote re Schengen etc

    http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/Launch%20of%20new%20Immigration%20Bill

    Ireland (Eire to you ...er... easterners) just introduced a new bill ...er guaranteeing the rights and ...er ... responsibilities of entrants to ROI . There's a bit about "vexatious litigation in the appeals process" (= pay your own fees if youre going to filibuster) that may be of interest.

    ps.. If britain DOES have a referrendum, pulls out of europe and we get razor wire back along the border in northern ireland, these regulations just MIGHT apply to you, and the half million estimated retired english people living in ireland ...

    Bet the Daily Mail won't cover that.

    Too F@cking right they won't.

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