....why aren’t they taken straight back to France and then the French can send them back to Italy?
I thought asylum seekers were supposed to seek asylum in the first safe country they land in. Just shows you what a reputation we must have abroad as an easy touch.
Because, if we simply take them back to France and land them on some beach somewhere, we (the UK border force) would be people traffickers.
If we take them back to France and hand them over to French border control, they (the French) will simply refuse the migrants permission to enter France, because we are not part of Schengen.
Then it would be down to some court (the ECJ perhaps, although we do not want to be part of the jurisdiction of the ECJ) to argue the case for the migrants point of departure..........A long winded, perilous legal journey.
It is much more convoluted than simply taking them back to their point of departure.
As far as I can see, the only legally available route is to determine their original nationality and repatriate them to that country, or grant them refugee status, or something similar.
It's not about being seen as "an easy touch", more a land of opportunity. But that perception will reduce over time following Brexit.
Perhaps UK is their preferred destination because they already speak some English, they have relatives, friends here, etc.
Incidentally, this is not just the problem between UK and France. The same problem applies in the Mediterranean, and always has done.
That is why it is necessary to work with those countrys' point of departure, or to patrol as close as possible to that point of departure to prevent the migrants leaving, rather than trying to return them back to that point of departure.
Of course, the UK government is not going to own up to their failure to prevent the migrants leaving France, or wherever. They prefer instead to blame the French or the migrants.
Imagine, if you will, if the reverse situation were to apply
How would UK prevent small parties leaving some beach, somewhere in the UK, to sail away to some other destination.
Pretty impossible to prevent, without vast resources.