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Its happening often enough now that theres a new routine in San Bernardino when it comes to dealing with Central American asylum seekers dropped into the community by federal agents.

First, two or three vans painted in the familiar colors of the U.S. Border Patrol, white with green striping, pull into the parking lot of a Greyhound Bus station, where they drop off at least 20 or more migrants. Next, immigrant rights advocates arrive and escort those migrants to a local Catholic Church, where they got a hot shower, some food and a bed for a night or two. Finally, after travel arrangements are settled, the migrants are again on the move, riding or flying to families throughout the United States.

In the past two weeks, more than 400 people, most from Guatemala, have passed through the city of San Bernardino in this fashion. Most have said they came to the U.S. border on their own, not with caravans, according to advocates. Many speak indigenous dialects as well as Spanish. Most are men traveling with children.

RELATED: As border detention fills up, asylum seekers are being dropped off in the Inland Empire

Though it spiked recently there, this transit pattern isnt limited to San Bernardino. Since fall, in neighboring Riverside County, advocates say more than 4,000 migrants have been dropped off by border agents, helped by local volunteers, and sent on to meet families around the country.

This under-the-radar flow of humanity which has been acknowledged by federal officials is straining the resources of advocates throughout the Inland Empire. Many volunteers, including some working virtually round the clock, question how long help can be extended to the new arrivals.

It seems this may go on for a long, arduous endeavor and we dont have the capacity to take care of these folks but for a few weeks or a month, said Fernando Romero, executive director of the Pomona Economic Opportunity Center.

But, then, we may have a human crisis in San Bernardino.

The sudden drop-offs in San Bernardino, which caught advocates there by surprise, has led to considerable speculation as to why Border Patrol is transferring the travelers to their community.

Some believe its related to the Trumps administration public threat to release immigrants into so-called sanctuary cities. Others said the administration is trying to build a case that they are at capacity because it is seeking more funds from Congress.

But San Bernardino might be a landing spot for more practical reasons.

The community has numerous organizations to help immigrants. And the Catholic Diocese of San Bernardino includes Riverside County, where the church already is heavily involved in helping migrants being dropped off there.

Border Patrol assumed the Diocese, or Catholic Charities, would provide some help in San Bernardino, said Emilio Amaya, executive director of the San Bernardino Community Services Center.

Usually, people apprehended by the Border Patrol are turned over to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. But in October, facing an unprecedented number of asylum seekers at the U.S. border, the Border Patrol began dropping off migrants in places like Blythe and Coachella.

Now, in Coachella, the places that can offer shelter are at capacity. Meanwhile, the Greyhound station in Indio, where many migrants hoped to catch a bus to get to their families didnt have enough capacity to transport so many people. After that, Amaya said, agents started taking people further north, to San Bernardino.

Its a capacity issue more than a political issue, he said.

Immigration authorities say their facilities at the border are simply full, as record-number of Central American migrants are making their way to the United States to escape poverty and violence. More than 460,000 people were apprehended at the Mexican border from October through April. Including those who were immediately refused entry about 71,000 people the seven-month number surpasses the total for the last fiscal year, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency has reported.

Most of the people apprehended, 64%, are families. And because border facilities arent built to house youth or adults with children, the flood of young arrivals is straining resources and creating unsafe conditions, authorities say.

There also are federal laws that limit how long the Border Patrol can detain migrant children in custody.

For the first time in Border Patrol history, nearly half of the adults we apprehended in April brought children, said Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost, on May 8, during testimony before a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on border security.

The migrants, she believes, received the message loud and clear: Bring a child. You will be released. The result, she added, is a humanitarian and a border security crisis.

Provost said the flood of families also creates a security problem.

The focus on processing families leaves federal agents with less capacity to watch out for potential criminal single adults. Over the past fiscal year, Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 3,500 people who, Provost said, had gang affiliations and criminal histories. She added that assaults on border agents were up 20 percent.

We need to know who and what is crossing our border, Provost testified. But that is nearly impossible when our manpower is diverted.

Ericka Flores, right, with the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, helps migrants connect with their relatives in the U.S. after Border Patrol agents dropped them off in San Bernardino last week. She takes a group to a Greyhound bus station where they begin their journey on Sunday, May 20, 2019. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Ericka Flores, with the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, helps migrants connect with their relatives in the U.S. after Border Patrol agents dropped them off in San Bernardino last week. She takes a group to a Greyhound bus station where they begin their journey on Sunday, May 20, 2019. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

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Ericka Flores, left, with the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, helps migrants connect with their relatives in the U.S. after Border Patrol agents dropped them off in San Bernardino last week. She takes a group to a Greyhound bus station where they begin their journey on Sunday, May 20, 2019. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Joaquin Covarrubias with Hispanos Unidos, covers the eyes of Gustavo,11, to surprise him with a birthday cake and presents on Sunday, May 19, 2019. Immigrant-rights agencies have stepped in to help Central American migrants with temporary housing, food and other assistance after Border Patrol agents began dropping them off last week in San Bernardino. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

A child plays in the hallway of temporary housing provided by immigrant-rights agencies after Border Patrol agents began dropping off migrants last week in San Bernardino. The agencies are helping the Central Americans with temporary housing, food and other needs. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Ericka Flores with the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, helps migrants connect with their relatives in the U.S. after Border Patrol agents dropped them off in San Bernardino last week. She holds bus tickets that will be used to get some to relatives living in the U.S. on Sunday, May 20, 2019. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

All the migrants dropped off in San Bernardino have come after being processed at the Border Patrols El Centro Sector in the Imperial Valley, home to Border Patrol stations in El Centro, Calexico, Indio and Riverside, said Ralph DeSio, a spokesman for the San Diego office of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. All people who are apprehended by Border Patrol agents at places other than official points of entry are considered to be breaking the law, even if they are asylum seekers who turn themselves in, DeSio noted.

But the border stations are temporary processing facilities not designed to hold people for long periods. DeSio said they are not equipped to house large numbers of people, especially children.

In the U.S. Customs and Border Protections El Centro Sector, the migrants are released only after being processed and told to reappear in immigration court on a specific date. Because of the backlog in the courts, and the flood of new arrivals, those appearance dates typically one to three years in the future.

Meanwhile, the San Diego Sector is receiving three planes a week, each carrying up to 125 migrants, sent from the Border Patrol in Texas. Those migrants are not being released into the community but are transferred to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in San Diego for further processing or possible deportation, DeSio said.

Theyre catching 3,000 to 4,000 people across the whole southwest border a day, DeSio said. You could fill a stadium with these people in a few days.

The enormity of this is flying over many peoples heads.

Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst with the DC-based Migration Policy Institute think tank, said the transfers by Border Patrol might be a sign that our immigration enforcement system is breaking down at the border.

The government also is sending some asylum seekers to Mexico to await the long process through the much-touted Migrant Protection Protocols program also known as Remain in Mexico. The program is ongoing, pending court hearings, but its only being implemented in certain areas. And even in areas where the program is in place, Pierce noted, not every migrant is being sent back to Mexico.

In San Bernardino, in addition to the Catholic Diocese, dozens of community organizations are mobilizing volunteers and seeking donations to help the new, temporary arrivals.

Some volunteers show up to drive a family to the airport, or pitch in for a few hours to sift through donated clothes, backpacks and blankets. Others take longer shifts, sometimes through the night, to stay with the migrants who stay either in a local Catholic Church or a budget motel, which is their last stop before traveling to their American-based relatives.

The process, which appears orderly in many ways, sometimes includes some twists.

Some migrants, for example, have been stopped at Ontario International Airport by Transportation and Security Administration agents, who told the travelers that they lacked proper documentation to board a plane, advocates said. And in a bizarre incident on Wednesday, May 22, some advocates drove after two Border Patrol vans because they feared the agents might drop off migrants far away.

We wanted to make sure the people inside the vans were safe, said Anthony Victoria, a spokesman for the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, based in Jurupa Valley.

But Amaya said that the Border Patrol agents thought the advocates were anti-immigration protesters, and they drove away from the trailing cars simply because they wanted to avoid any potential conflict.

Theres already been online talk from groups talking about doing something soon, Amaya said.

Advocates are meeting with local and state officials, and calling various foundations, looking for funding to help get the migrants to their relatives across the United States.

To address the drop-offs in Riverside County, Gov. Gavin Newsom recently transferred $521,000 from a state Rapid Response Reserve Fund to Catholic Charities of San Bernardino and Riverside counties. (Last month, Newsom traveled to El Salvador to discuss the issues that are driving people to flee to the U.S.)

Unless the city and the county step forward, we dont have the capacity to continue (to help people) indefinitely, Amaya said.

The only reason we responded is because we had no choice. But this is not sustainable.

Continued here:
Migrant crisis spreads from border into Inland Empire ...

Anders Knape warned that the Swedish municipalities may not be able to handle the costs of so many new migrants taking residency in Sweden as part of the family reunification programme, and, according to areportin the newspaper Aftonbladet, said, [Sweden is] facing the second wave of refugee reception, the family migration.As we dont know how big it gets.It can be extremely powerful and mean that we are approaching the figures we experienced in 2015 and 2016.

Much of the family migration will end up, at least initially, in places that already have a strained situation, Knape explained. Several municipalities in Sweden are already feeling the effects of mass migration, with some leaders, such asUrban Hansson Brusewitz, head of theNational Institute of Economic Research (KI), saying that the local governments could be forced to raise taxes as a result.

Fredrik Sderberg Bruce, Head of Press at the Migration Board, resisted Knapes claims, however, saying: In 2019, we estimate that approximately 27,000 people will be received in the countrys municipalities, then reduce to about 20,000 people in 2020 and 2021. This can be compared with 2016 and 2017 when approximately 68,000 people were received in the countrys municipalities annually.

Knape responded that, while he did not want to mislead people, the Migration Board had also been wrong in the past: The regulations facilitate family migration.This may mean that over time, a large group will come and we must be prepared for it in our operations, he explained.

Sweden, with a population of only around 10 million, is expected to receive far more family reunification migrants this year, withSwedish Minister of Migration Morgan Johansson arguing that the increase would be good for integration efforts.

I think it is a very good humanitarian measure, it is about 90 percentwomen and children who have long lived in refugee camps who can now be reunited with their father or husband in Sweden, Johansson claimed.

Read the rest here:
Swedish Municipalities Head: Chain Migration Causing New Migrant Crisis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday opened the door to President Donald Trumps proposal for emergency funds to address a migrant surge at the southern U.S. border, saying some money to alleviate the humanitarian crisis could be included in pending disaster relief legislation.

FILE PHOTO - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks at her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., May 2, 2019. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

Pelosi was not talking about money for the border wall Trump wants, which Democrats oppose. Republican Trump on May 1 requested $4.5 billion for programs that house, feed, transport and oversee record numbers of Central American families seeking asylum and straining capacity at migrant shelters in border cities.

Democrats initially questioned whether the administration was seeking more funding to expand the detention of migrants entering the United States illegally. But now they are willing to spend several billion dollars on humanitarian needs at the border, according to a House Democratic aide.

Pelosi told reporters on Thursday she hoped some assistance for the humanitarian crisis at the border could be inserted in a bill congressional leaders are working on to help Americans rebound from a string of natural disasters, from wildfires to floods and hurricanes.

What is happening at the border is tragic and we hope to address some of that in the supplemental, the disaster supplemental, to provide some of the resources that are needed there, Pelosi said. She provided no details.

Democrats made a thoughtful offer to Republicans on Thursday evening of several billion dollars for humanitarian needs at the border, the House Democratic aide said. He did not reveal the specific amount.

Some parts of the administrations request - like increasing ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detention beds - are nonstarters, which is why we have excluded them from our offer, said the aide. He said Democrats also sought oversight provisions to protect the dignity and rights of migrants.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency said this week that the number of people apprehended at the border since Oct. 1 was nearly 520,000, the highest level in a decade. In the past week, there was an average of 4,500 arrests a day.

Trump earlier this year declared the immigration influx a national emergency, which allowed him to circumvent Congress to redirect more than $6 billion in funding to start building the border wall that he campaigned on. His move has been challenged in courts.

Republicans welcomed Pelosis comments and said they hoped this would speed things along in the lengthy negotiations over disaster aid. Previously the sticking point was Republican resistance to Democratic requests for additional money for Puerto Rico, devastated by a hurricane in 2017. Those arguments have been largely resolved, Democrats said.

Reporting by Susan Cornwell, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien

Excerpt from:
U.S. Speaker Pelosi opens door to more funds for border migrant crisis ...

Refugee families camped in central Budapest, Hungary, in 2015. The same location was nearly empty this month. Mauricio Lima for The New York Times; Akos Stiller for The New York Times

LAMPEDUSA, Italy On the beaches of Greece, thousands of migrants landed every day. In the ports of Italy, thousands landed every week. Across the borders of Germany, Austria and Hungary, hundreds of thousands passed every month.

Three years after the peak of Europes migration crisis, Greek beaches are comparatively calm. Since last August, the ports of Sicily have been fairly empty. And here on the remote island of Lampedusa the southernmost point of Italy and once the front line of the crisis the migrant detention center has been silent for long stretches. Visitors to the camp on Monday could hear only the sound of bird song.

Its the quietest its been since 2011, said the islands mayor, Salvatore Martello. The number of arrivals has dramatically reduced.

Arrivals to Italy, Greece and Spain by Sea

Arrivals to Italy, Greece and Spain by Sea

Arrivals to Italy, Greece and Spain by Sea

By Sarah Almukhtar | Source: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

It is the paradox of Europes migration crisis: The actual number of arriving migrants is back to its pre-2015 level, even as the politics of migration continue to shake the Continent.

On Thursday, leaders of the European Union are gathering in Brussels for a fraught meeting on migration that could hasten the political demise of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and unravel the blocs efforts to form a coherent migration policy.

Unauthorized Crossings Into Europe

Width of arrows represents the number of crossings.

Unauthorized Crossings Into Europe

Width of arrows represents

the number of crossings.

Unauthorized Crossings Into Europe

Width of arrows represents the number of crossings. For example, there were almost 160,000 unauthorized crossings on the eastern Mediterranean route in 2016 compared with about 15,500 crossings on the same route in 2018.

Unauthorized Crossings Into Europe

Width of arrows represents the number of crossings. For example, there were almost 160,000 unauthorized crossings on the eastern Mediterranean route in 2016 compared with about 15,500 crossings on the same route in 2018.

Unauthorized Crossings Into Europe

Width of arrows represents the number of crossings. For example, there were almost 160,000 unauthorized crossings on the eastern Mediterranean route in 2016 compared with about 15,500 crossings on the same route in 2018.

Unauthorized Crossings Into Europe

Width of arrows represents the number of crossings.

By Sarah Almukhtar | Source: Frontex. Note: Unauthorized crossings show totals for each route from January to April of each year.

The precipitous drop in migrant arrivals doesnt mean that Europe is without real challenges. Countries are still struggling to absorb the roughly 1.8 million sea arrivals since 2014. Public anxiety has risen in countries like Germany after high-profile assaults involving migrants, including the killing of a 19-year-old German student and the terrorist attack on a Christmas market that killed 12 people.

And leaders still have sharp disagreements about who should take responsibility for the newcomers border states like Greece and Italy, where most migrants enter Europe; or wealthier countries like Germany, which many migrants subsequently attempt to reach.

But what is striking is how many leaders, particularly in far-right parties, continue to successfully create the impression that Europe is a continent under siege from migrants, even as the numbers paint a very different picture.

We have failed to defend ourselves against the migrant invasion, Viktor Orban, the far-right prime minister of Hungary, said in a recent speech. He has made it a jailable offense for Hungarians to assist undocumented migrants.

Nor is Mr. Orban alone in taking a hard line. Since the start of the month, Matteo Salvini, the Italian interior minister, has closed Italys ports to charity-run rescue boats. Horst Seehofer, the German interior minister, has threatened to turn back refugees at his countrys southern border. And across the Atlantic, President Trump has claimed, wrongly, that migration led to a crime epidemic in Germany.

The tactics seem to have worked. Data released this month by the European Union showed that Europeans are more concerned about immigration than about any other social challenge. Mr. Salvinis party is now leading in Italian polls, up 10 percentage points since an election in March. Mr. Orban won re-election in April with an increased majority, after a campaign in which he focused almost exclusively on migration.

Even on Lampedusa, Mr. Martello won the mayoralty last year by promising to focus more on local issues than on burnishing the islands international reputation as a place of sanctuary for migrants.

But the reality on the ground is that, despite the rhetoric, migration is back to pre-crisis levels and has been for some time.

Lampedusa, Italy, in May 2017 and in 2018. Chris McGrath/Getty Images; Kyodo, via Associated Press

More than 850,000 asylum seekers arrived in Greece in 2015, with most of them eventually making their way to northern European countries like Germany. So far this year, little more than 13,000 have made the same journey. More than 150,000 people arrived in Italy in 2015; the number so far this year is less than 17,000. In 2016, when applications were at their highest, more than 62,000 people sought asylum in Germany, on average, every month. This year, that average has fallen to little more than 15,000 the lowest since 2013.

On Lampedusa, more than 21,000 migrants landed in 2015. So far this year, the figure is less than 1,100. Only in Spain have arrival numbers risen, from more than 16,000 in all of 2015 to just over 17,000 so far in 2018. But the increase is still comparatively small more people would arrive in a single week on the Greek island of Lesbos at the height of the crisis than are likely to arrive in Spain this year.

Its an invented crisis, said Matteo Villa, a migration specialist at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies. The high flows of the last years have bolstered nationalist parties, who are now creating a crisis of their own in order to score cheap political points.

Mr. Salvini and Mr. Orban have cultivated popular support by creating the impression that they are the only leaders willing to make the tough decisions needed to reduce migration. Yet the European establishment, under pressure from the likes of Mr. Orban and Mr. Salvini, has been quietly working for some time with the main gatekeepers along the migration trails to Europe, including with authoritarian regimes, to bring the numbers down.

In Italy, arrival numbers plummeted after Mr. Salvinis predecessor controversially persuaded several militias to halt the smuggling industry in northern Libya, and to keep thousands of would-be migrants in dangerous conditions in makeshift Libyan detention centers.

The measures implemented by the previous government, which Salvini was so critical of, have actually been effective, said Andrew Geddes, director of the Migration Policy Center at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.

At the same time, several European governments have made deportation agreements with Sudan, whose leader, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has been charged with war crimes charges. A deal with Niger has helped a crackdown on smuggling in the Western Sahara. And most controversially, the German and Dutch governments brokered a European Union deal in 2016 with the authoritarian government of Turkey that led to an immediate and drastic drop in migration to Greece.

Lesbos, Greece, in 2015, and in March 2018. Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times; Mauricio Lima for The New York Times

The paradox is that, in this narrative that Merkel opened the E.U.s borders, it was in fact Merkel, with the Dutch, who negotiated the most effective agreement on the borders of the E.U., said Gerald Knaus, director of the European Stability Initiative, a Berlin-based research group that first proposed the deal, and that drafted early versions of it.

Now Europes challenge is largely about process: How to house asylum seekers waiting for decisions on their cases; how to integrate them into the economy and into society if their applications are approved; and how to deport them if not. These challenges remain as officials also have yet to fully address the squalid migrant camps of Greece, which house roughly half of the countrys 60,000 asylum seekers, or the underground economy of Italy, where many of the countrys 500,000 undocumented migrants are exploited.

The European Union summit meeting that opens on Thursday is a reminder of how much the political landscape has shifted. Ms. Merkel, the German chancellor who was once the Continents unassailable leader, now needs to secure an agreement with other European leaders to stave off a political crisis at home.

Her rebellious Bavarian interior minister, Mr. Seehofer, has threatened to close Germanys border with Austria to asylum seekers who have already registered elsewhere in Europe, usually in Greece or Italy. Ms. Merkel wants to avoid this, as it would most likely set off a domino effect of stricter border controls across the Continent. That would obstruct the movement not just of refugees but also of European Union citizens, endangering one of the blocs core values: free movement between member states.

Mr. Seehofer has agreed to wait while Ms. Merkel tries to negotiate at the summit meeting an improved asylum system for the European Union, but this seems a distant prospect, as no one can agree what that system should look like. Some leaders, like Mr. Orban in Hungary, say that Europe should simply protect its borders without worrying about the complexities of its asylum system.

The Keleti train station in central Budapest, Hungary, in 2015 and this month. Mauricio Lima for The New York Times; Akos Stiller for The New York Times

If we defend our borders, the debate on the distribution of migrants becomes meaningless, as they wont be able to enter, he said in a speech this month.

Others, like Ms. Merkel, want to reduce migration but acknowledge it cannot be ended entirely unless Europe abandons the right to asylum that was enshrined in the international conventions that emerged in the aftermath of World War II.

To uphold this right while also curbing migration, officials in Brussels want to set up offshore hubs to process asylum applications in Africa, while some analysts argue it would be easier and cheaper to invest in more efficient asylum systems in Greece and Italy and to secure more deportation agreements with the countries migrants are originally from.

Meanwhile, anti-immigrant leaders, if capitalizing on the migration issue, are hardly unified. Italy wants to scrap the Dublin regulations, which stipulate that asylum seekers must stay in the European Union country in which they first register, and distribute migrants throughout the bloc. But hard-liners like Mr. Orban, Mr. Seehofer and Chancellor Sebastian Kurz of Austria refuse to share Italy and Greeces burden.

Their proposals are fundamentally contradictory, Mr. Knaus said. Salvini and the Italians want to get rid of Dublin and share everyone throughout Europe. The Bavarians want to push everyone back to Austria. And Kurz says thats fine well then send them to Italy and Hungary.

And far away on Lampedusa, this makes the debate seem less about the specifics of migration management, and more about the widening chasm between liberal and illiberal forces in Europe.

It is an ideological war, said Mr. Martello, the mayor. Europe is divided into two main blocs: One is defending the borders, and the other is actually doing something about the situation.

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Migration to Europe Is Down Sharply. So Is It Still a Crisis?

They are ready to do the most menial jobs as long as they are paid in Euros when you change that into Nigerian Naira its big money. And they are unconcerned about racism and the rise of right-wing parties in Europe.

All Africans tend to be lumped together in the popular Moroccan imagination as diseased criminals, and women as sex workers, says Arroud of ASTICUDE.

The November 2012 cover of the weekly newspaper Maroc Hebdo was infamously headlined the black peril.

Although there seems to be a growing state-led attempt to promote integration, social interactions among migrants and Moroccans remain limited, notes Katherina Natter of Oxford Universitys International Migration Institute.

Earlier this month, one migrant died and another was seriously injured when police evicted non-nationals from the Boukhalef district of the port city of Tangier. Those rounded up were forced on to buses south to Rabat and Taroudant.

GADEM condemned the discriminatory evictions and hateful online articles that appeared a few weeks before the police operation, attacking migrants. Its statement said it was concerned by the increasingly intolerant climate in Morocco, as well as by the hatred directed towards black non-nationals.

Moroccan authorities seem to assume that all black residents of Boukhalef are squatting, while some are legal leaseholders or at least have informal agreements with their landlords, the statement added.

Last year, a Senegalese student was murdered in Tangier in tensions between local communities and migrants.

The Spanish human rights worker points to the illegality under international law of Spains hot return of migrants to Morocco; the absolutely disproportionate use of violence by the security forces on both sides of the border; and the bussing of those detained in Morocco to south-western cities regardless of whether they have refugee status or asylum claims.

Regularisation cant be used to hide the lack of human rights, he tells me. The constant pressure from Spain and Europe conditions the political response from Morocco towards migrants.

There is a contradiction in the liberalism of the reforms announced by the king and the raid on migrant camps in Mount Gourougou, the official language of cleaning the northern border, and the ever-tightening security protocols with Spain, notesNatter.

The government announced in February that all Carte de Sjour willautomatically be extended when they expire. But Arroud doesn'tbelieve thegovernment will allow anotherregularisation roundfornew applicants, orrevisit the cases rejected last year by the opaque vetting tribunals.

I think its done if the king makes a general amnesty, thats the only way forward, he tells me. This Islamic government introduced the criteria for regularisation. The government is racist, and it thinks all migrants are Christians and is afraid of them.

But migration is also a domestic political issue, and the reforms and new language of integration came out of the blue, in a country in which migrants had previously been portrayed as a threat.

Two important new laws, on migration - which should integratethepolicy approaches -and asylum, are yet to be tabled in parliament.

Natter argues the confusion on the way ahead reflects the characteristic ambiguity of Moroccan migration policies, which seek to simultaneously satisfy European, African and domestic policy interests.

The frustration of the almost endless waiting,the anxiety generated by poverty and circumstances, are common burdens for migrants to contend with, says Vaquero, the psychologist.

Im really surprised how [mentally] strong they are. When they leave their countries they believe they have to do what they have to do [to reach their destination]. They wont take a step back until they have no more strength left. And they are not fighting for an impossible dream

Its important to give them hope, she adds, because crashing here [with only limited mental health services] is completely different from crashing in Italy.

Beneath the bravado of the men on Selouane the no surrender, only the strong survive is a realisation of the wasted years. Those conversations usually begin with If I had known , and after a litany of tribulations, the conclusion is invariably, resignedly, that the journey was not worth the pain.

But also that there can be no turning back.

I wont say that I made a mistake, because this is school, says Arnold. We have a belief that we will get to Europe, and if we dont fulfill it, well never have rest.

There is solidarity among the migrants, eager for anyone among them to make it to Europe. Its good for the morale, says Lamine. If you spend one or two months and nobody crosses, you see everybody depressed. But if you hear that someone you were with yesterday is in Europe, it tells you that you can make it as well.

oa/ha

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Morocco: The forgotten frontline of the migrant crisis IRIN