Not many stowaways actually make it to Britain says Franck Düvell, an academic at the University of Oxford. While Britain has lots of irregular migrants, most arrive legally and overstay their visas, or else use stolen or fake passports. But jumps in the number of asylum applications from Syrians, Eritreans and Sudanese nationals suggest that at least a few are entering by more unusual routes (see chart). Such people will never get visas and are unlikely to be able to acquire convincing documents, says Mr Düvell. In Calais, migrants claim to know compatriots who have got themselves aboard lorries.
Those who get to Britain tend to be picked up by police not long after arriving, in port or often at motorway service stations. On August 19th, police found more than a dozen people in a German lorry at services in Somerset. Watford Gap on the M1 north of London is a particularly common pick-up place, probably because many lorries driving north from Dover stop there. Those caught are handed over to the Home Office border force and sent to detention centres.
They then face a gruelling interrogation. Under European rules, refugees must apply for asylum in the first safe country they reach. This explains why the young Africans camping at the edge of Calais live in such penury and do their utmost to avoid any interaction with the French state. If they are fingerprinted, it can count as evidence that they have been in a country other than Britain. So too can the possession of foreign coins or bus tickets. Only those without incriminating traces of their travels can avoid deportation.
What inspires such hopeless journeys? In Calais, most sense that in Britain there are better opportunities, particularly to work. “In England, I make a life, have a job, build a family,” says Sabri. Others say they have heard that in England they will be housed and given money. A few claim to have friends and relatives there. Britain’s loosely regulated labour market, and the absence of ID cards, means that there is some justification for the belief that life will be easier than on the continent.
