THE flotsam of a wrecked world washes up regularly on the shores of southern Europe. Afghans and Syrians land on the Aegean islands. Somalis and Eritreans fetch up in Italy. They come in dinghies and rickety boats, and often perish at sea. This month saw one of the most wretched incidents yet: the deaths of more than 300 people drowned when an overladen fishing boat capsized off the Italian island of Lampedusa.A week after the tragedy divers were still pulling bodies out of the hull almost 50 metres below the surface. They spoke of having to prize the dead from a mass of agglutinated humans. “We cannot accept that thousands of people die on Europe’s borders,” declared José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, who visited Lampedusa to show solidarity. Pope Francis put it more bluntly: “It is shameful.”At such moments the confusion of Europe’s migration and asylum policies becomes evident. The Italian government called a day of mourning, gave honorary citizenship to the dead and promised a state funeral. At the same time prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into the survivors under laws that subject clandestine immigrants to fines of €5,000 ($ …
