Bulgaria: Refugees Treated Like Criminals

Bulgaria's state refugee agency says the refugees must be locked up because there's no other place for them to go. Because the processing of applications for asylum is slow, refugees often spend months in the camps. To escape, some of them falsely claim to have accommodation of their own, but often wind up joining the ranks of the homeless. Due to Bulgaria's poor control of illegal migration and allegations of widespread corruption, many EU member states only want to admit the country into the Schengen area in two steps. Air and sea borders would be opened up first, with land borders to follow at a later date.