If you walk to the end of the cul-de-sac behind the sports hall in Coquelles, a village just outside Calais, you'll find a hole cut in the green chain link fence that blocks access to the A16 motorway. It may not look like much, but for thousands of illegal immigrants this 1m-by-50cm diagonal gash is the first gateway to a promised land: Britain. Hundreds of them pass through it every night, dodging the few strands of barbed wire and the heap of horse manure left there by French authorities in an ineffectual attempt at dissuasion. Once they've made it through the...
