The BBC has produced an interesting report showing just how easy it is for migrants wanting to come to Europe illegally to obtain valid passports and identity cards.
A pair of reporters, posing as a Syrian couple, posted on several Facebook groups – some of which have over 5,000 active members, saying they were looking to buy illegal documentation to travel within the EU.
Within hours, the reporters had received almost a dozen responses with people offering to supply them with documents and travel papers.
The fake couple then met with a broker in Istanbul who told them he had genuine passports, which he had purchased from refugees who had obtained them and subsequently left Europe.
The broker tells them it is easier to travel if the traveller looks like the person in the photograph.
“I don’t have British ones,” he tells the reporter.
“They’re very expensive and can cost up to €15,000, maybe more.”
Nawal al-Maghafi says in her report: “I don’t think I realised how simple this process is until now.”
“We went from talking to the broker on Facebook to meeting him a few hours later and now I’m holding the document in my hand.”
“In theory this allows you to travel across the EU Schengen territory.”
Last year, Westmonster reported on this scandal, writing at the time that women were being encouraged to wear headscarves because it is easier to make themselves look similar to the photographs already on the cards.
The documents all appear to come from people who are registered as asylum seekers in Germany. Some of the sellers go back to their home country and sell the documents, others go on holiday and offer their residence permit including health insurance for rent.
It is not known how many of these documents are in circulation, but users in the group claim it is easy enough to ‘lose’ their documents and get re-issued by German authorities without any problems. “I simply say I lost the card and then get a new one immediately,” said one user.
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Given how easy it is to obtain these documents, God only knows how many people may have entered Europe with them, or indeed where they have come from.
Brexit Britain needs to take back control. And fast.