Monday, April 10, 2023

Workers attack ‘incompetence’ as 1,000 migrants reach UK in small boats in a week

Kayla Russell
April 11, 2023

The opposition Labor Party has accused the UK government of “incompetence” and claimed its new policy aimed at stopping small boat crossings of the English Channel is not working, after official data showed that more than a fifth of all illegal crossings in the UK are made this year in the UK last week.

A month after ministers promised that some of the measures in the new law on illegal migration would come into force immediately and act as a deterrent, in the seven days to 9 in 2023.

The bill now going through Parliament would bar almost anyone arriving in the UK by small boat or other illegal route from applying for asylum and refugee protection in the UK. It obliges the government to take them out of the UK to a ‘safe’ third country in almost all circumstances. Britain has reached an agreement with Rwanda to house migrants.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made stopping illegal small boat migration one of his five priorities for the year.

Official data showed that 1,057 people were spotted crossing the Channel in small boats from France last week, bringing the total for the year to 4,850. No daily figures are available for 2022, but on a quarterly basis the 3,793 arrivals recorded in the first three months of 2023 are 16 percent fewer than in the same period last year.

Referring to the Government’s estimates of the cost of putting people up in hotels while their asylum claims are being processed, Shadow Immigration Secretary Stephen Kinnock said: “Nothing they do works and their incompetence is costing taxpayers £6million a day in emergency hotels.”

Kinnock said Labor would tackle the problem of illegal migration by reaching an agreement to return to the EU migrants who had passed through safe European countries en route to the UK. The UK had such an agreement under the Dublin Regulation when it was a member of the EU but lost it after Brexit.

A record 45,755 people were spotted secretly arriving in the UK on small boats in 2022, more than 60 per cent more than the year before.

When asked about Kinnock’s comments, the UK government called the number of people making the crossing “unacceptable” and said it had placed an “unprecedented” strain on Britain’s asylum system.

“Our priority is to stop this illegal trade,” it said. “The Government has gone further by introducing legislation to ensure that anyone entering the UK illegally is arrested and promptly deported to their country of origin or a safe third country.”

A leading immigration lawyer, Colin Yeo, said the figures suggested the new measures were not having a deterrent effect.

“Whether those arriving since March 7 know they will never be granted asylum and that the [government] will be obliged to bring them to Rwanda is unclear,” Yeo said. “Anyway, it’s clearly not stopping her from coming.”


Migrant arrivals in Italy have more than tripled from last year. Why?

Giulia Carbonaro
EURONEWS
Mon, 10 April 2023 


Better weather and a crackdown on sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisia might be the reasons why more people are embarking on the perilous journey through the Central Mediterranean.

The number of migrants arriving on Italy’s shores between January and March was more than three times what the country reported during the same period last year, according to a recent report by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

According to the UN agency, some 26,800 migrants reached Italy by sea in the first three months of the year, compared to 6,400 in 2022. On Sunday alone, nearly 1,000 people landed on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, often considered Europe’s gate in the Mediterranean Sea. The day before, 679 migrants arrived on the island -- while 23 drowned before reaching its shores.

Lampedusa’s immigration centre, which has the capacity to host about 400 people according to the Italian news agency ANSA, was overwhelmed with more than 1,880 migrants at its facility over the Easter weekend.

It’s not the first time that the tiny Italian island, which at the height of the 2015 Mediterranean migrant crisis saw thousands of arrivals, finds itself stretched for capacity. But the uptick in the number of migrants landing on the island and the overcrowding of its facilities is still a challenge that Lampedusa -- and the Italian government -- is struggling to handle.

But why are more migrants embarking on the perilous journey through the Central Mediterranean to Italy now?

While it’s hard to find the exact reasons that lead hundreds of individuals to seek a better life in Europe every day, there are some key determining factors that might be contributing to the surge in migrant arrivals to Italy.

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Better weather conditions

One crucial factor is the weather, which was likely exploited by smugglers to organise departures from countries like Libya and Tunisia. According to the UNHCR report, some 58% of all sea arrivals to Italy between January and March came from Tunisia; followed by Libya with 38% of arrivals. Last year, 51% of migrant sea crossings departed from Libya; and 31% from Tunisia.

Since the beginning of the year, weather conditions have been ideal for crossing the Mediterranean, with higher-than-expected temperatures and calm winds blowing in the right direction encouraging migrant crossings from North Africa.

Frontex, Europe’s border agency, recognised these ideal weather conditions for migration in a report released in March, which stated that “the Central Mediterranean was the most active route in the first two months of this year with nearly 12,000 irregular border crossings, double the figure from a year ago.”

According to the agency, “in February, the number of detections on this route tripled from a year ago to 7,000.” The number of arrivals in the Central Mediterranean in January and February this year was up 118% from 2022 during the same period. Most migrants arrived from Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Pakistan.

Tunisia: Misleading and racist content goes viral on social media leading to attacks on migrants

An uncertain political situation

While in recent years most of all sea arrivals to Italy came from Libya, the fact that Tunisia has now taken over as the main point of origin for migrant journeys might be a tell-tale sign of the changing political and economic situation in the country.

“In the past Libya was the main country of departure that tells us that there is an influence of what is happening in Tunisia in terms of the economic crisis and the crackdown on sub-Saharan nationals,” UNHCR senior public information associate Federico Fossi told Anadolu earlier this month.

In February, Tunisia’s President Kais Saied attacked the many sub-Saharan nationals in the country, accusing them -- without any evidence -- of plotting “a criminal plan to change the composition of the demographic landscape in Tunisia” and weaken the country’s Arab Islamic identity.


Tunisia's President Kais Saied ordered officials to take "urgent measures" to tackle irregular migration. - FETHI BELAID/AFP

Talking during a national security council on the subject of migration, Saied claimed that the “hordes of illegal migrants” in the country were responsible for “violence, crime and unacceptable acts” in Tunisia. The tone of the Tunisian president’s attack against sub-Saharan migrants recalls the so-called “great replacement” theory promoted by right-wing extremists in Western countries like the US and France.

There are an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisia, according to NGOs. Many, after arriving in Tunisia with the idea of working there, leave for Europe due to the poor economic situation in the North African country and the mistreatment suffered.

As racist and hate speech against sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisia continues to rise, encouraged by the country’s president, more people are expected to leave the country for Europe’s shores.

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