Greece planning border fence with Turkey
According to Citizen Protection Minister Christos Papoutsis, Greece is planning to build a fence to keep out illegal immigrants coming across from Turkey. In the past six months over 33, 000 illegal immigrants have been detected crossing the Greek-Turkish border. These illegals are mostly from Afghanistan, Algeria, Pakistan, Somalia and Iraq. This 206 kilometer fence would be very similar to the one built by the United States along its border with Mexico. Surprisingly, the Greeks have not heard how well that’s worked for us! In 2010, however, Papoutsis says over “200 refugees have come in per day” to Greece from Turkey.
Over 80 percent of the illegal immigrants arriving in the EU arrive through Greece. Large numbers then to go to Italy by ferry. Today over 300,000 people are living in Greece illegally. Now for the first time a team of EU Rapid Border Intervention agency have been deployed to an EU member state for the first time since 2007. Daily these individuals are being placed in detention camps that are overcrowded and poorly run. Human rights groups are severely criticizing Greece’s asylum policy and the inhumane conditions in the detention camps.