'Fortress Europe shines a light on Europe's hidden war against immigration, whose devastating human cost is often ignored. Through powerful first-hand reporting from the front lines, Matthew Carr reminds us that migrants are not barbarians at the gates but human beings who, like us, aspire to a better life.' - Philippe Legrain, author of Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them 'With a relentless blade, Matthew Carr's Fortress Europe exposes layer after layer of the dark side of the new Europe: the proliferation of militarised borders, brutal camps for immigrants and asylum seekers, and a burgeoning racism and xenophobia. This is a crucial book for anyone seeking to understand how dreams of unfettered personal freedom and mobility for all transformed into a Europe dominated by ranks of gates, cordons, biometrics and camps.' - Professor Stephen Graham, Newcastle University 'In this expose of European immigration policy and its devastating effects, Carr investigates the contradictory character of the 1985 Schengen Agreement, which opened borders between 25 European states with the idealistic aim of transforming the European Union into a common area of freedom, security, and justice. However, according to Carr, Schengen required countries on the outer edge to seal their borders against unwanted visitors and enforce the E.U.'s immigration restrictions to address concerns about national security. The grimly ironic result for undocumented immigrants, refugees, and victims of human trafficking has been people drowning in the Mediterranean, shot trying to cross border fences, mutilating themselves in detention centers, or reduced to destitution. Carr travels to remote borderlands of Poland, Spain, Greece, and Malta; Schengen-bordering countries like Turkey and Morocco that collaborate in enforcement; and the heart of western Europe and Britain to meet immigrants stuck in remote detention centers or living rough on city streets for years, as well as temporary workers and sex slaves abused by their handlers and abandoned by governments. But Carr also depicts ordinary Europeans who have gone to great lengths to help these stranded travelers. This disturbing but hopeful book humanizes the face of 21st-century immigration.' - Publishers Weekly 'The disappearance of internal border checks within most of the European Union, domestic political pressure to restrict immigration, and heightened concerns about security during the past decade have led the countries on Europe's edges to seal their borders more tightly. Carr argues that this combination of internal liberalisation and external hardening has increased criminal, abusive, and often deadly human trafficking, while only modestly reducing immigration. The unique virtue of the book lies in Carr's reporting from the brutal frontiers of the new Europe: Ukrainian border towns where illegal trafficking thrives, Spanish territories in Morocco where would-be immigrants are shot dead or left to die in the Sahara after attempting to scale razor-wire fences, Italian and Maltese islands where overfilled boatloads of Africans drown by the hundreds.' - Foreign Affairs
