“Doesn't it make you feel proud that they choose us?”
No it does not. It makes me feel an idiot for being taken for a ride (albeit courtesy of the government).
The people in Calais are not asylum seekers. They lost that privilege when they failed to report to the authorities in their first safe haven. Asylum seekers are seeking safety from war, danger or persecution. There is none of that in in France. No, they are migrants seeking to enter – illegally – their destination of choice. There are many reasons why they want to come to the UK, most of which have been mentioned. But, tough as it is, that is not an option open to them.
Europe has spectacularly mishandled the migrant crisis. In particular Frau Merkel, in offering her open invitation to all and sundry has enabled all the chancers to jump on the bandwagon (such as the gentleman who “fled” from a house and a job which he had enjoyed in Turkey for more than three years and placed his family in a rubber boat to cross to Greece. Tragically his young son drowned and pictures of his body on a Greek beach were posed as a “game changer” in the migrant crisis).
Whether they want to or not those in Calais and Dunkirk should be compelled to apply for asylum in France or get out. In fact, under the Dublin Treaty they should have been compelled to apply in their first port of call. The fact that the EU’s own rules were ignored when the solids hit the air conditioning is scarcely the UK’s fault. The EU’s “right to roam” (aka the Schengen Agreement) has exacerbated the problem no end and the folly of this arrangement is now being realised. Meantime the French can keep their guests because the answer to the problem is theirs to find, not ours.