EUROPE

You cannot jail illegal immigrants, court says

A migrant scales a fence in an attempt to get to the Channel Tunnel in Calais, northern France
A migrant scales a fence in an attempt to get to the Channel Tunnel in Calais, northern France
EMILIO MORENATTI/ PA

Leave campaigners and migration watchdogs have warned that the EU’s highest court has undermined border security by ruling that France cannot jail illegal immigrants trying to reach Britain through the Channel Tunnel.

A judgment by the European Court of Justice will prevent the future imprisonment of non-European immigrants even if they have entered a country in the Schengen travel area illegally.

In the case of Selina Affum, a jailed Ghanaian who tried to use false papers to cross from Belgium to Britain via Calais in 2013, judges ruled that she should first have been freed and given 30 days to leave France voluntarily.

The decision means that the Schengen zone “returns directive” trumps French law, which rules that people who have entered the country illegally