Fortress Europe: Inside the War Against Immigration.

• Author: Sharma, Ananya
• Position: Book review

Fortress Europe: Inside the War Against Immigration

By Matthew Carr

London: Hurst & Company, 2012, 313 pages, [pounds sterling]9.99 ISBN: 9781849046275

Fortress Europe: Inside the War Against Immigration is a powerful report from the fortress's front lines. Mathew Carr portrays the barbarian repression being enacted by developed countries, which is marketed as the 'Common European Asylum Policy.'

Carr segments the book into 12 chapters in two parts; he points out the irony between theoretical liberalization and the practical hardening of border policy, which has increased human trafficking, abuse, assaults and organized crime. Carr also paints a realistic view of European media, politicians, and writers who have strongly criticized the war on immigration, which they liken to the war on terror.

As a professional journalist, Mathew Carr travels to most of the fortress borders, including the Schengen borderlines, and remote detention centers such as the Spanish-Morocco border and Abuja in Nigeria. He bases his analysis of the hardening of Europe's borders on a series of journeys he took to these areas. He describes the physical and political as well as the bureaucratic problems rampant in undocumented immigration, including the misuse of laws, and the abuse of geographical position. His objective, as stated in an introductory chapter, is to expose the discrepancies in the immigration policies of Europe and other countries.

Carr describes the actions of signatory countries that aspire to join the EU; these countries have implemented a rigorous plan to deter immigrants before reaching the mainland. Though Turkey is also interested to join EU, the author didn't mention about the country's migration policies. For example, Carr mentions a Turkish detention center in Istanbul where security gourds are afraid of the media and observers who might make a report against Turkey. Author intended to visit several countries' detention center. And he was barred from visiting those detention centers by the authorities of those countries. Though he only mentioned about the prohibition to enter into Istanbul detention center, Turkey only. Carr might forget to mention that the EU has been irregular in its reimbursement of promised funding for signatory countries; he omits to mention the financial reimbursement of signatory countries where these countries are accepting regular immigrants.

Carr describes the Schengen agreements, which are structured to make a...