Karla Adam, William Booth -
LONDON — A young girl’s plaintive message in a bottle tossed over the fence of a migrant processing center has become the latest event roiling British public opinion over the system handling illegal migration.
Henry Nicholls/Reuters
The call for help on Wednesday, from the overcrowded center which she described as a “prison,” came after a newspaper reported that a busload of recently arrived migrants, wearing blankets and flip flops, had simply been dumped off at night by authorities at a London train station.
The incidents took place against a backdrop of a man on Saturday throwing at least two gasoline bombs at the walls of another migrant processing center near the port city of Dover on the English coast. The assailant was later found dead in a nearby parking lot. Anti-terrorism police assigned to the case said the attack appeared driven by “some form of hate-filled grievance.”Migration row intensifies between U.K. and France after English Channel deaths
The British government is struggling to produce a cogent strategy to humanely slow the flow of illegal migrants, as the number of attempted entries surge. Criminal gangs smuggle migrants via shipping containers, trains and ferries, and in dangerous small rubber rafts that motor across the rough English Channel.
Around 38,000 people have been detained so far in 2022 crossing the narrow but perilous channel in boats from French beaches, the highest number since record keeping began.
Last year, the total was 28,526 people, while in 2020 it was 8,404. In August, on a single day, 1,295 people attempted the trip in 27 boats.
The trip has proven deadly for some. In a single incident in November 2021, at least 27 migrants died while attempting the crossing. Most of them were from the Kurdish region of Iraq.
Public sentiment about immigration has changed dramatically since the 2016 Brexit vote when politicians promised the United Kingdom would be able to “take back control” of its borders and curb both illegal and legal immigration.
At the time of the vote, Brits said that immigration was the most important issue facing the country — today they are more likely to tell pollsters that the economy, health care and the environment are priorities.
An aerial view shows the Manston short-term holding center for migrants, near Ramsgate, south east England on Nov. 2, 2022.© William Edwards/AFP/Getty Images
Related video: UK government slammed for 'wretched' migrant centre conditions
The British government is under particular pressure over conditions at Manston, a former Royal Air Force base in southeast England that is running at more than double its capacity, and where the girl with the message is living.
Her letter was shoved into a bottle and thrown to a photographer working for Press Association, the British news agency, on the other side of the fence.
The migrants are supposed to be processed within 24 hours, but the message said there over 50 families who had stayed there for over 30 days.
“We are in a difficult life now … we fill like we’re in prison … Some of us very sick … We really need your help. Please help us,” she wrote in broken English.
Local leaders have said there were close to 4,000 migrants at the center over the weekend even though the facility was designed for 1,600.
Meanwhile, the Guardian newspaper reported that a bus load of migrants from the same center were dropped off at Victoria train station during the night, with many having nowhere to go.
Danial Abbas, a volunteer with the homelessness charity Under One Sky, told the BBC his charity happened to be at the station when they saw a group of people who appeared “highly distressed, disoriented and lost … and simply turning to anyone and everyone on the street to help.”
The Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who is in charge of immigration, visited both centers in Dover and Manston on Thursday but news reporters were not invited on the trip.
People onboard a bus are driven away from an immigration processing center in Manston, Britain, Wednesday.© Henry Nicholls/Reuters
After getting the migrants clothes and food, his charity contacted staff at the Home Office who then took them by taxi to hotel accommodation.
Britain’s Home Office officials said in an emailed statement that “the welfare of those in our care is of the utmost importance and people are only released from Manston when we have assurances that they have accommodation to go to.
“We worked at pace to find accommodation for the individuals as soon as we were notified, and they are now in accommodation and being supported.”
Currently, the British government wants to send refugees and migrants to Africa, in a controversial move embraced by many in the Conservative Party but denounced as cruel and illegal by critics.
In April, the former prime minister, Boris Johnson, announced his government had signed a $160 million deal with Rwanda to accept Britain’s illegal migrants.
The idea is to put all or most adult migrants who arrive illegally on British shores — including asylum seekers — onto planes to fly 4,000 miles away to East Africa, where they could live and work while their claims were assessed or leave if they preferred to return to their home countries. They would not come to Britain.
Johnson hailed the policy as a “world model” and said other Western nations would adopt it. He said the government’s goal was “to break the business model” of the smuggling gangs, which can make $400,000 for each launch of an unseaworthy dinghy. He said he was sending a message that people who cross illegally “risk ending up not in the U.K. but in Rwanda.”
The new government, led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, has vowed to pursue the Rwanda strategy.
The first flight to Rwanda was canceled in June, after a last-minute order by the European Court of Human Rights. The policy is now being reviewed in British high courts.
People holding signs attend a vigil calling for the immigration processing center to be closed in Manston, Britain, Wednesday.© Henry Nicholls/Reuters
British government admits Manston migrant detention center is operating illegally
Daniel Stewart - Yesterday
The UK authorities have admitted Thursday that the Manston migrant detention center in the county of Kent has been operating illegally, a statement that comes after all the alarms were raised due to the overcrowding suffered by thousands of people inside.
Rescue of migrants in the English Channel -
Daniel Stewart - Yesterday
The UK authorities have admitted Thursday that the Manston migrant detention center in the county of Kent has been operating illegally, a statement that comes after all the alarms were raised due to the overcrowding suffered by thousands of people inside.
Rescue of migrants in the English Channel -
GENDARMERÍA NACIONAL FRANCESA
The center was created to house a maximum of 1,600 people for periods of only 24 hours while the first steps were taken to apply for asylum in the country. However, the center currently holds up to 4,000 migrants who report inhumane conditions and have been in the center for weeks.
The Secretary of State for Climate, Graham Stuart, has acknowledged that "no one is comfortable" with what has happened and has assured that the Home Office is working to resolve the situation even though the Government claims to be meeting "all the basic needs" of the migrants in Manston.
Speaking to Sky News television, Stuart said the asylum system is "overstretched" with the large number of cross-Channel arrivals in small boats. "It's not where we want them to be right now, but we have to look at how to sort it out. Thousands of hotel rooms have been made available, but it is unacceptable to the British people and we need to do more to tackle the people smugglers to stem what has become an unprecedented wave of migration," he asserted.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman is scheduled to visit Dover this afternoon. Braverman has come under heavy pressure in the face of criticism of her for allegedly allowing the conditions for migrants at the center in question to worsen.
Braverman has been accused of allowing the situation to spiral out of control after a dozen asylum seekers from Manston were left with no place to stay. Her words have also raised controversy after she spoke of an "invasion" of migrants and alluded to "Albanian criminals".
The Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, has condemned these statements and has accused the United Kingdom of "falsely" attacking the country's citizens and pointing to them as the cause of "the problems of crime that the United Kingdom has", according to statements reported by the BBC.
Although he admitted that the territory "was once a model to follow when it came to integrating minorities", he warned that it has now become a "madhouse".
The center was created to house a maximum of 1,600 people for periods of only 24 hours while the first steps were taken to apply for asylum in the country. However, the center currently holds up to 4,000 migrants who report inhumane conditions and have been in the center for weeks.
The Secretary of State for Climate, Graham Stuart, has acknowledged that "no one is comfortable" with what has happened and has assured that the Home Office is working to resolve the situation even though the Government claims to be meeting "all the basic needs" of the migrants in Manston.
Speaking to Sky News television, Stuart said the asylum system is "overstretched" with the large number of cross-Channel arrivals in small boats. "It's not where we want them to be right now, but we have to look at how to sort it out. Thousands of hotel rooms have been made available, but it is unacceptable to the British people and we need to do more to tackle the people smugglers to stem what has become an unprecedented wave of migration," he asserted.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman is scheduled to visit Dover this afternoon. Braverman has come under heavy pressure in the face of criticism of her for allegedly allowing the conditions for migrants at the center in question to worsen.
Braverman has been accused of allowing the situation to spiral out of control after a dozen asylum seekers from Manston were left with no place to stay. Her words have also raised controversy after she spoke of an "invasion" of migrants and alluded to "Albanian criminals".
The Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, has condemned these statements and has accused the United Kingdom of "falsely" attacking the country's citizens and pointing to them as the cause of "the problems of crime that the United Kingdom has", according to statements reported by the BBC.
Although he admitted that the territory "was once a model to follow when it came to integrating minorities", he warned that it has now become a "madhouse".
