Posted on 04/28/2008 3:55:37 PM PDT by kiriath_jearim
CALAIS, France: It is midnight, and eight hooded figures slip around the side of a freight truck at a gas station on the outskirts of this northern French port. They wait in the orange half-light while one tries the locked truck door. It doesn't give, and seconds later the figures vanish among the dozens of semi-trailers at this, the last truck stop before England.
Most weeknights, a smuggler leads clandestine migrants across the maze of motorways that encircle Calais to parking lots like this, where drivers sleep before catching a ferry to Dover, 33 kilometers, or 21 miles, away.
Truckers like Juan Antonio Santiago of Spain, sipping coffee at a gas station at 1 a.m., face hefty fines or even jail if stowaways are found hidden inside their vehicles, or clinging to the ledge behind the axle. "It's a fear we all have," he said. "But the greatest risk is taken by the migrants, because of the danger of falling off."
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Is that the new term for illegal immigrants? “Clandestine migrants”? Duly noted.
‘Clandestine migrant’ Ping!
Shoot - the article opens like a Robert Ludlum or Alistair MacLean novel...
Lol, thanks, it turned out cute!
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