A friend of mine works in a surgery in London where lots of asylum seekers go for treatment. The caseload is a snapshot of current trends in illegal immigration, and at present that means lots of Albanians.
Yep, that’s the migrant influx across the Channel we’ve been hearing so much about, and which the Albanian PM, Edi Rama, has been blaming on the British government: ‘It’s not about Albanians or aliens or gangsters, but it’s about failed policies on borders and on crime,’ he said this week.
Three cases give an idea of what’s going on. One patient was a nurse from Tirana, Albania’s capital, but had found it impossible on a nurse’s wage to buy somewhere to live. So she saved up her money to pay the people traffickers; the going rate to get to Britain starts around £3,000-4,000 and can go up to £10,000. Getting across Europe isn’t hard; it’s getting from France that’s the issue.
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