Two other elements make all of this far worse. Many – and sometimes most – of the people arriving deliberately bring no paperwork with them because being unidentified is an advantage. Amid the demands on the time of the agencies people can pretend to be other ages, other people or even from another country. When it became known that a particular group were being put to the front of the asylum queue – Syrians, for instance – then a large number of people would claim to be Syrians, even though some of those working with the refugees noticed they were neither speaking any Syrian dialect nor knew anything about the country they claimed to be from.

This phenomenon is at least partly caused by NGOs that advocate for any and all migration into Europe as part of the ‘borderless world’ movement. As the flow of migrants grew in the 2010s, some NGO groups decided to help migrants before they even got to Europe. They provided easily accessible information on the web and on phone apps to guide would-be Europeans through the process. This included advice on where to go and what to say once there. Front-line workers notice that as time goes on the awareness of the migrants about what will happen to them and what they should expect becomes ever clearer. In part this is the result of word filtering back to their countries of origin from people who have successfully made the journey. But it is also because a movement exists that seeks to teach migrants how to stay in Europe whatever the justice of their application. All these groups are correct in their assumption that in the twenty-first century Italy has neither the money, time nor will to painstakingly go through every application. Of course, there are people who are refused asylum, at which point they can appeal the decision. But even if their appeal is turned down it is rare for anything further to happen. It is hard to find any cases of someone arriving in Italy, being refused the right to remain and then being sent back to their home country. Very occasionally someone who has been convicted of a crime in Italy is repatriated. But even then the bar is set exceptionally high. It is easier to let everyone dissolve into Italy and then into Europe than it is to hold the line of the law. The truth is that once you survive Lampedusa’s waters you are in Europe for good.