【英语语言学习】移民滞留英国

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We turn our attention now to Europe where migration¹ from war-torn countries is changing the face of many cities, like Calais, France. Migrants use Calais as a staging ground to reach Britain where they believe asylum² conditions are more favorable. But few succeed in crossing the English Channel, and Calais has been turned into a migrant bottleneck³. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley sent us this report.

ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE⁴: Once known for lace making, tourism and being the nearest French port to England, Calais has now become the face of illegal immigration.

(SOUNDBITE OF CAR DOOR)

BEARDSLEY: Merci.

BEARDSLEY: Philippe Mignonet is Calais' deputy mayor in charge of security. He drives me close to the ground's ferry terminal.

DEPUTY MAYOR PHILIPPE MIGNONET: There are an average of 5,000 trucks crossing a day through the ports of Calais. And that's an average. Sometime it goes to 12,000.

BEARDSLEY: Mignonet stops in an intersection⁵ where a couple dozen migrants are sitting beside a fence.

MIGNONET: They just are waiting for trucks coming from the petrol station because the trucks have to stop right there, and they turn right to get to the port. And when the truck stops, they get into the trailer.

BEARDSLEY: While migrants have been coming to Calais for the last 15 years, the problem has worsened over the last six months. An estimated 2,000 people are here, including some women and children from countries such as Eritrea, Sudan and Afghanistan. They live in squalid, makeshift camps and roam the town. An official Red Cross center for the migrants was shut down in 2002. But that didn't stop the flow. Mignonet says the migrants are actually a European and even an international problem, but no one is doing anything.

MIGNONET: The image that is given of the city and what the citizens are feeling now is that Calais is sacrificed and left alone to face that situation, blamed for that situation.

BEARDSLEY: During the day, migrants come to a center run by a Catholic aid group where they can drink tea and play dominoes.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOMINOES)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #: Un.

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Un.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #: Deux.

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Deux.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #: Trois.

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Trois.

BEARDSLEY: Some are taking French lessons. The migrants come all the way to Calais in the hopes of reaching Britain which they think has more favorable asylum policies and offers better economic prospects⁶. Migrants are able live and work illegally easier in Britain than France because there is no system of national ID cards. But European law allows migrants to apply for asylum only in one country, so many migrants remain in limbo⁷ for years in France hoping to eventually make it to Britain to seek asylum there. Some eventually give up the struggle and try to settle in France.

KHIALI MAROFKHAL: (French spoken).

BEARDSLEY: Khiali Marofkhal came to Calais 8 years ago from Afghanistan when he was only 14 years old.

MAROFKHAL: (French spoken).

BEARDSLEY: He says he broke his arm trying to jump into a truck and spent months in the hospital. He has requested asylum in France and has a paper to prove it, but the request expired two years ago. Marofkhal stays on in a kind of limbo, sleeping in a migrant camp known as the jungle. He says life is very hard in Calais, but it's still better than going home.

(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)

BEARDSLEY: Local residents recently marched through Calais demanding to take their city back. Unemployment is 18 percent here, and the migrant population makes it difficult to attract investment.

BRIDITTE LIPP: (French spoken).

BEARDSLEY: Calais resident, Briditte Lipp, says her neighbors are scared. She says most people feel the migrants should be helped, just not here. That's clearly not Lipp's philosophy.

LIPP: (French spoken).

BEARDSLEY: Walking through her house, Lipp shows where she charges the migrant's cell phones. She reckons up to 100 a day. Every corner of her house is filled with extension cords, and there are telephones plugged in everywhere.

LIPP: (French spoken).

BEARDSLEY: All day long, Lipp meets migrants at her front gate taking in and returning cell phones - their only lifeline to families left behind. Lipp says if people knew what the migrants had been through, they'd be more sympathetic.

LIPP: (Through translator) The ones who make it here have already escaped death several times crossing war-torn Sudan, then the Libyan desert, then packed into rickety boats on the Mediterranean⁸ Sea. So what can they possibly be afraid of in Calais?

BEARDSLEY: The French and British governments recently pledged more money and greater cooperation in Calais, but Lipp says more security and higher fences won't do anything to keep desperate migrants from coming. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Calais.

1 migration   

n.迁移，移居，（鸟类等的）迁徙

参考例句：

• Swallows begin their migration south in autumn.燕子在秋季开始向南方迁移。
• He described the vernal migration of birds in detail.他详细地描述了鸟的春季移居。

2 asylum   

n.避难所，庇护所，避难

参考例句：

• The people ask for political asylum.人们请求政治避难。
• Having sought asylum in the West for many years,they were eventually granted it.他们最终获得了在西方寻求多年的避难权。

3 bottleneck   

n.瓶颈口，交通易阻的狭口；妨生产流程的一环

参考例句：

• The transportation bottleneck has blocked the movement of the cargo.运输的困难阻塞了货物的流通。
• China's strained railroads already become a bottleneck for the economy.中国紧张的铁路运输已经成为经济增长的瓶颈。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 intersection   

n.交集，十字路口，交叉点；[计算机] 交集

参考例句：

• There is a stop sign at an intersection.在交叉路口处有停车标志。
• Bridges are used to avoid the intersection of a railway and a highway.桥用来避免铁路和公路直接交叉。

6 prospects   

n.希望，前途(恒为复数)

参考例句：

• There is a mood of pessimism in the company about future job prospects. 公司中有一种对工作前景悲观的情绪。
• They are less sanguine about the company's long-term prospects. 他们对公司的远景不那么乐观。

7 limbo   

n.地狱的边缘；监狱

参考例句：

• His life seemed stuck in limbo and he could not go forward and he could not go back.他的生活好像陷入了不知所措的境地，进退两难。
• I didn't know whether my family was alive or dead.I felt as if I was in limbo.我不知道家人是生是死，感觉自己茫然无措。

8 Mediterranean   

adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的

参考例句：

• The houses are Mediterranean in character.这些房子都属地中海风格。
• Gibraltar is the key to the Mediterranean.直布罗陀是地中海的要冲。