It is not a good time to be an illegal migrant, if ever it was. Just recently more than 70 have perished on a truck found in Austria and perhaps up to 200 have drowned off the Libyan coast. Both of these are hard stories to read, and difficult stories to think about. The migrants must know the risks they are taking, given that we live in the internet age, and these stories can be easily accessed in any internet café in Africa or the Middle East. And yet still they come, still they take the risk. The conclusion is inescapable: they are determined to get away from Syria, or Somalia, or wherever, at almost any price. The risk of death, and a terrifying painful death too, is one they are quite prepared to take, both for themselves and their children. There are of course historical parallels. The ever-invaluable Wikipedia reminds us of the following oft-forgotten fact: