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Its member states are holding off on announcing how many Afghan asylum seekers they will offer shelter to amid fears of a new migrant crisis. This leaves the bloc flagging behind its international partners, who have already declared they will regime huge numbers of refugees from Afghanistan. The UK has already vowed to take in 20,000 vulnerable Afghans threatened by the Taliban.

In recent days, Slovenian prime minister Janez Jansa insisted that the EU should not open its doors to Afghan migrants.

The EU will not open any European migration corridors for Afghanistan, he fumed.

Mr Jansas intervention is crucial because he currently holds the EUs six-month rotating presidency.

It means Slovenian ministers and officials are in charge of the inter-governmental negotiations in Brussels because EU member states.

He said there could not be a repeat of the strategic mistake of the 2015 migrant crisis, when the EU introduced a mandatory migrant resettlement scheme despite huge opposition from Hungary and Poland.

European Parliament President David Sassoli quickly lashed out at the Slovenian leader in what soon became a bitter Twitter clash.

Its not up to the Slovenian Presidency to say what the position of the EU is on the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, Mr Sassoli said.

The EU Parliament chief has previously called for refugees to be equally shared out across the bloc.

Mr Jansa fired back: It is up to the EU member states to decide if they want to take another wave of migration or not.

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Meanwhile, EU member states are busy erecting anti-migrant fences and barriers across the blocs borders to stop refugees entering illegally.

Greece, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia have all begun construction to bolster defences on the EUs frontiers with Turkey and Belarus.

The building comes despite previous criticism of former US President Donald Trump, who used the pledge of a wall to keep migrants out on American border with Mexico to help propel himself to the White House in 2016.

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EU crippled by infighting over Afghan refugees while global UK accepts 20,000 - Daily Express

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted that the European Union cannot expect Ankara to take on the blocs international responsibilities to resettle asylum seekers. In a phone call, the strongman leader told EU Council President Charles Michel: Turkey cannot handle an additional burden of migration. Third countries cannot expect Turkey to take on their international responsibilities.

Eurocrats had been banking on an agreement with Turkey to prevent a fresh wave of asylum seekers from reaching Europes shores.

Veterans of the 2015 crisis, which saw more than 1.2 million travel to the bloc from war-torn nations in the Middle East and Africa, say simply allowing a repeat is not a solution.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell recently said that Turkey would play a key role in managing the risk of a large wave of Afghan refugees arriving in the bloc after fleeing the Taliban.

The diplomat said: We need to ensure that the political situation created in Afghanistan by the return of the Talibandoes not lead to a large scale migratory movement towards Europe.

He added: "They are and will be coming to Europe via Iran, Iraq or the eastern Mediterranean.

This shows that we need to work hard with transit countries. A humanitarian crisis must be prevented. Here, Turkey will play a very important role."

But Turkey immediately rejected the approach and warned Brussels it is not willing to act as Europes refugee warehouse.

Ankara has also said it will not become the border guard or refugee camp of the EU.

Britain has pledged to take in 20,000 Afghans but the EU has been reluctant to open its borders.

There is a sense of panic amongst EU governments that they will not be able to prevent a repeat of the 2015 migrant crisis.

The United Nations has said that 400,000 Afghans have been internally displaced within the country this year alone.

And EU leaders believe many of them will head for Europes shores in the coming months.

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EU commissioner Ylva Johansson said: We have learned the lesson from 2015 so that we will not see a new migration crisis in the EU.

We should not wait until we have Afghan refugees at our external borders. We have to intervene much earlier and that also, of course, includes money.

The EU must make sure that we dont end up in a situation where a lot of people embark on dangerous smuggling routes ending up at our external borders.

And this is an important gender issue because we know that those that are going on the irregular routes are mainly men. But we also know that those that are in most danger now in Afghanistan are women and girls. And thats why we need to protect women and girls.

President Erdogan vowed to put a complete stop to migrants entering the country and has ordered the construction of a 150-mile wall on its border with Iran.

Meanwhile EU leaders have refused to make claims about the number of Afghans they may take in.

Mrs Merkel said Germany would fly 10,000 people out of Afghanistan and Spain has offered to become a hub for 400 migrants that worked for EU member states.

But beyond that, most pledges have been left vague or even non-existent.

Armin Laschet, the favourite to replace Mrs Merkel as chancellor after next months elections, said: We should not send the signal that Germany can take everyone in need.

Italian premier Mario Draghi said: We have begun to outline what will be the fundamental lines of co-operation at a European level.

Greece has told its EU colleagues that it does not want to become a gateway to Europe.

Its migration minister Notis Mitarach added: The EU is not ready and does not have the capacity to handle another major migration crisis.

Athens has already started work on an anti-migrant fence on its border with Turkey to keep would-be asylum seekers out.

Austria has refused to take in any Afghan asylum seekers and will instead continue deporting those whose applications fail.

Interior minister Karl Nehammer said: Illegal migration, which runs through a dozen safe countries and where migrants simply choose a destination country, must be stopped.

There is no reason why an Afghan should come to Austria now.

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Turkey throws down gauntlet as Erdogan warns nation will not be 'warehouse' for refugees - Daily Express

Haydi Consuelo thought she had arrived in the promised land when she walked across the US-Mexico border into Texas with her two-year-old son and other Central American migrants.

She thought she would be given shelter but instead she was put on an airplane and sent back to Mexico, where she was shepherded onto a bus and driven to Guatemala without ever passing through a migration check point.

It was a trick because we were given the impression we would be able to pass. And, suddenly they put us in airplanes and we were deported, said Consuelo, 23, from the Migrant House in El Ceibo near the Mexican border, some 550 kilometers (340 miles) from Guatemala City.

Mexico is using this deserted border area to return migrants who have been deported to its territory from the United States.

Humanitarian organizations helping these migrants say that up to 600 a day are brought in from Mexico over the unguarded crossing.

Missionaries who run the Migrant House in El Ceibo are struggling to cope with the sudden influx.

In order to make space for new arrivals, migrants are allowed to spend just one night in the courtyard, surrounded by their suitcases, rucksacks and shoes.

Hondurans, Nicaraguans, El Salvadorans are returning. There is a perverse strategy of hiding population groups, because we noticed that firstly the Guatemalans were brought and then in the last buses came Hondurans and Nicaraguans, Leonel Dubon, executive director of the Refugio NGO, told AFP.

It seems to be bad faith on the part of the Mexican government.

In El Ceibo, there is no migration infrastructure or health measures to test new arrivals for Covid-19.

The Guatemalan foreign affairs ministry has requested official information from Mexico and the United States about these migratory movements, said the government of Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei, which was taken by surprise.

The government said it has two authorized deportation centers: one at the international airport in the capital, and another at a land border in Tecun Uman, some 300 kilometers southwest of Guatemala City.

The migrant crisis in Central America has worsened due to increased unemployment triggered by the pandemic.

After the hardline immigration policies of former president Donald Trump, Central Americans had hoped for a softening stance under the Joe Biden administration, but it has sent out a clear stay away message.

Honduran teacher Gloria Amador Gutierrez, 32, left on July 30 with a group of around 20 migrants by land heading for the United States. On August 19 she was deported to Guatemala.

Amongst those being deported there are also lawyers, graduates. Theres no work and we decided to fight for our children and to give them a better education by going abroad, said Gutierrez, who vowed to regroup in Honduras before trying again.

We have family members in the US that are still waiting for us.

Everything was going well when we arrived in Guatemala, but it was a different story when we reached Mexico, said Onan Gutierrez, 32, a cousin of Glorias who was traveling with his daughter.

Its really not easy pursuing the American dream. We were 15 minutes from achieving our objective but they caught us out in the open, he added, saying he was not sure if he would try again.

Guatemalan farmer Jose Jimenezcrossed into the US with his son but was caught and deported.

He had saved up $1,300 and borrowed another $5,5000 to pay people traffickers, known as coyotes, for his passage into the US. He lost everything.

The coyotes tell you the passage into the US is open and all they do is demand money to cross the river into the US while threatening to kill you, said Jimenez.

If you dont pay, they hand you over to the mafia and the deal is done.

He will not try again.

Its tough, we all suffer, most of all the children, he said.

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The shattered dreams of migrants sent back from US to Guatemala : - The Tico Times

In Chile, tensions between the central government and the border regions are increasing due to the increase in the flow of irregular migrants. From the Tarapac region they denounce the failure of the government of Sebastin Piera to address the migratory crisis, specifically with the deployment of the armed forces at the transitory point of Colchane.

The governor of Tarapac, Jos Miguel Carvajal, maintains a quite critical opinion and maintains that the decision to launch the program to bring order to the border did not generate any impact within its territory: We believe that the plan has been a failure of the Piera government, he says.

Javier Garca, mayor of Colchane, one of the municipalities most affected by the current crisis, believes that the Colchane plan does not exist. He says that the border has been militarized, but what the army has done in practice is control mobility or movementof the Chilean settlers and denounces that there is no concrete action that prevents the entry of immigrants.

In addition, irritation with Pieras policy has been exacerbated by the death of a Venezuelan migrant who tried to cross the border near Colchane on foot. The 56-year-old man died while trying to enter Chile from Bolivia through this cold highland region.

In total, there are already 11 migrants who have died in this non-authorized step so far in 2021.

In addition, it is worrying that of the 6,000 migrants estimated to have entered the country irregularly since the beginning of the year, more than 2,000 are children, many of them unaccompanied.

The situation is affecting the local population, as the journalist Rodrigo Martnez denounces, who tell how moved by the need to cover basic needs, such as hunger or cold, some migrants are entering houses of the local inhabitants.

Although most occupy the public space: the streets, avenues, squares or beaches. There is no basic service for them, there are no bathrooms, they cook outdoors. This is what, in one way or another, is causing the population some concern and there is outrage at the lack of response from the authorities, both the regional and national government in this regard, says Martnez.

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Regional authorities denounce the failure of the Piera government to stop the migration crisis on the Chi... - Market Research Telecast

Greece has been stepping up work on new facilities to house asylum seekers on its Aegean islands. The Migration Minister said his government had 'delivered on its promises' on migration.

Greece's Migration Minister Notis Mitarakis says that his country will be ready "to face the next crisis when it comes" and will offer more dignified living conditions to asylum seekers on the Aegean islands.

As construction work continues on several new reception centers which Greek authorities say will be "closed and controlled," developments in Afghanistan have prompted concerns that progress needs to be swift in anticipation of potentially large number of people seeking protection in Europe throughTurkey.

Mitarakis visited the site of the Vial Reception and Identification Center migrant camp, where clearing works are underway outside the perimeter of the facility.

"We are here at Vial with the Mayor of Chios, Mr Stamatis Karmantzis, to oversee the clearing of areas outside the perimeter, which in the past were used for the needs of residents," said Mitarakis. "Clearly, Vial is now in a completely different situation, as there are only 293 asylum seekers remaining here at a site which can host 1,014 people."

"You all saw the shantytown-style structures we have destroyed; [they were] unacceptable living conditions, you will agree," he added in a media statement.

The new facility to be built on Chios island will cater for up to 1,800 people, while all other sites on the island will be shut down.

"The new structures will offer dignified living conditions for all, but also greatly increased security measures for both residents, employees, and for local communities. The government has implemented everything it has promised to do. We can look at the public with confidence and tell them that we will face the next crisis when it comes," Mitarakis said.

Mitarakis added that 71 asylum seekers left several apartments in the city and on the outskirts of Chios on Wednesday as the government's efforts in decongesting the migrant populations on the Aegean islands continues.

"For the first time in eight years, Chios will have less than 500 asylum seekers in total; this shows that we have delivered on what we promised," continued Mitarakis.

He added: "The guarding of our borders, with the reduction of the flows of people to our islands being reduced by 97% in the last 12 months, and with the complete decongestion of the structures in our islands, this means that in total in all the Aegean islands we now have less than 5,000 asylum seekers."

Asked by reporters whether he anticipated opposition and strong reactions - which has been the case on some islands with locals resisting the plans - to the new camps being built, Mitarakis insisted he was not worried.

"There are no reasons for such reactions, since trust between Greek citizens and the government has been restored because of the fact that the government has delivered on our pre-election promises on migration."

As well as the new site on Chios, which will be opened in 2022 as part of the government's new national migration reception system, a new facility in Samos will be inaugurated on September 18, with the old site to be closed 12 days later. A similar plan is in place for Leros and Kos by the end of this year, as well as for Lesbos in 2022.

"This is all especially important as we see that there are still tensions in the wider region, and so we must be prepared, so that our islands - and this is a commitment of ours - never have to relive images of chaos that we saw in 2015."

Mitarakis and other Greek government officials have been at pains to hammer home the message that Greece is focusing on bolstering defences at its borders. Over the weekend, Greece's head of the country's Armed Forces claimed that Greece's northeastern border with Turkey is "impregnable," following a visit to the Evros region along with Defence Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos.

Such comments have drawn widespread criticism, including from the Greek opposition party Syriza, for their perceived insensitivity at a time when a humanitarian crisis is developing in Afghanistan.

Mitarakis had previously hit back at such claims, however, saying: "Syriza does not stop reminding us of its past, with painful results in all areas. The effects on immigration were devastating for our islands and the country in general."

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Greece's new camps to offer 'dignified living conditions' - InfoMigrants