Enough already

Naina Bajekal has a Time article about rescue operations off Italy:

An Italian search-and-rescue operation of migrants attempting to reach Europe by sea is due to end this week, after rescuing around a hundred and fifty thousand people over the past year.
The Mare Nostrum operation, which involves a large part of Italy's navy (photo) and rescued on average four hundred migrants a day, was launched after a boat disaster off the Italian island of Lampedusa in October of 2013 killed nearly four hundred migrants.
The operation has since been deemed unsustainable by Italian authorities. In spite of the efforts of Mare Nostrum, around twenty-five hundred people have drowned or gone missing in the Mediterranean on 2014 alone.
Border officials from European Union countries are meeting in Brussels, Belgium on Tuesday to discuss how best to regulate the flow of migrants trying to reach Europe from North Africa. Ministers across the Union have acknowledged the matter’s importance, but have questioned the effectiveness of expensive search-and-rescue operations.
The UK’s Foreign Office minister, Lady Anelay, announced that Britain will not be supporting any future search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean, saying that they “create an unintended ‘pull factor’, encouraging more migrants to attempt the dangerous sea crossing and thereby leading to more tragic and unnecessary deaths”. Anelay said the most effective way to tackle the problem “is to focus our attention on countries of origin and transit, as well as taking steps to fight the people smugglers who wilfully put lives at risk by packing migrants into unseaworthy boats”.
The UK does not plan to take part in the new Operation Triton being launched by the European Frontex border agency on 1 November 2014. This joint EU operation will not include search-and-rescue plans but focuses on border protection, involving patrols within thirty miles of the Italian coast. Frontex spokeswoman Isabella Cooper told the BBC: “We only have a few vessels and a few aircraft. The Mediterranean is over two and a half million square kilometers, so it is virtually impossible to have a full overview of what is happening at sea.”
Human rights groups like Amnesty International and refugee organizations have criticized the new plans. Michael Diedring, Secretary-General of the European Council on Refugees, told the BBC that the EU should fundamentally change its approach to the problem by offering more safe and legal channels for migrants. “There are almost no safe and legal means to access European soil to file an asylum claim, for example.”
UK Refugee Council chief executive Maurice Wren agreed, telling The Guardian that “the world is in the grip of the greatest refugee crisis since the Second World War. People fleeing atrocities will not stop coming if we stop throwing them life rings.” He warned that withdrawing help would only lead to more people that “needlessly and shamefully dying on Europe’s doorstep”.

Rico says at least they have the Mediterranean in the way, which is harder to cross than the Rio Grande...