The British government is considering “more drastic options” in the face of the influx of migrants crossing the Channel illegally, which is overflowing the reception capacities currently in place, said Tuesday the Secretary of State for Immigration, Robert Jenrick.
The UK is facing a record number of Channel crossings in small craft – nearly 40,000 since the start of the year. The government expects the figure to reach 50,000 by the end of the year.
The Minister of the Interior speaks of “invasion”
In front of Parliament on Monday, the very right Interior Minister Suella Braverman went so far as to speak of “invasion”, a term which creates unease within the conservative majority and the government.
“In a position like mine you have to choose your words carefully”, “and I will never demonize people who come to this country in search of a better life”, declared Robert Jenrick on Sky News, distancing himself with his boss.
“I understand the need to be frank with the public about the scale of the challenge facing the government,” he told the BBC. “I fear that we now have to consider more radical options to ensure that our laws are adapted, that economic migrants are deported quickly and that we deter people from coming to the UK, ”he added. .
The center of Manston at the heart of the concerns
The United Kingdom has reached an agreement with Kigali to send asylum seekers who arrived illegally to Rwanda, a highly controversial project currently on hold after a European court ruling. The country “cannot continue to be a magnet for economic migrants”, Jenrick continued, “we don’t have the infrastructure to handle this”.
At the heart of current concerns is the center of Manston, in the south-east of England, which welcomes more than 4,000 migrants, sometimes for long periods in large white tents, while its reception capacity is 1,600. people and that migrants are only supposed to stay there for a maximum of 24 hours, before being directed to accommodation.
Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor said he saw migrants, including children, sleeping on mattresses on the floor during his last visit to the site in September. He urged the Interior Ministry to “pull itself together”.