Compared to the rest of 2020, more migrants crossed the Channel in August, according to Ministry of Defense statistics.
8,613 immigrants arrived in tiny boats in total in the UK this month, about 200 more than the total for 2020, when the number of immigrants crossing fell down during the epidemic.
More than 25,000 migrants have already crossed the canal this year as a result, which is more than twice the figure for 2021 (the number was not reached until November).
This month saw a new monthly record for channel crossings despite the fact that there were none for four straight days owing to unfavourable marine conditions, including waves that were over a metre tall.
The number of persons that crossed in 27 boats on August 22 was 1,295—the greatest day total ever.
Later in the week, 2,500 more migrants were sighted travelling.
According to accounts from Border Force personnel, the bulk of a record-breaking number of migrants that entered the UK came from Albania.
The ISU union, which represents employees in the law enforcement division of the Home Office, said that in recent months, more residents of the nation in south-eastern Europe had crossed the English Channel.
According to government sources, 60% of the migrants who enter Europe daily are now Albanian.
According to Home Office data released last week, there were 2,165 Albanians who crossed the English Channel in the first half of 2022 compared to 23 during the same time in 2021, a 100-fold rise in the number of Albanians who entered the UK illegally using small boats.
Priti Patel said last night that considering that their place of origin is a “secure country,” it was “shameful and ludicrous” that so many Albanian people were entering the UK through tiny boats.
During their two-day tour, the home secretary spoke with top Albanian law enforcement authorities about sharing forensic and biometric information on all Albanians who enter Britain via small boats.
According to The Times, it is a part of measures to stop Albanian criminal networks from entering the UK and joining up with organised crime organisations.
In an announcement, Patel and her Albanian colleague, Bledi Cuci, announced a pact for “quick returns” that would see them flown back to their home country aboard Home Office-chartered aircraft.
The programme will begin next week, and any Albanians who apply for asylum will have their applications evaluated right away. We will deport anybody who doesn’t have permission to be in the UK as quickly as we can.
According to the Home Office, the new alliance would allow the UK to send immigrants back to Albania who are found to be “not conducive to the public interest.”
However, proposals to promptly turn over Albanian refugees to the Albanian police upon arrival, according to Lucy Moreton of the Immigration Services Union, would violate international law.
There is no legal structure that would allow someone to be handed over to the police of the exact nation they are claiming to be escaping, the woman claimed.
We can’t simply give them back to their own nation; it can’t be that simple.
“I definitely anticipate there will be a judicial challenge,” the author said. “I would expect this to go precisely the same way as the Rwanda policy.”
Given that Albania was a reasonably stable and prosperous nation compared to countries from which the bulk of British asylum applicants come, she thought the concept of sending Albanians back there was a “good proposition.”
“That doesn’t imply no person leaving that country is worthy of international protection,” Moreton said.
According to the deal, the bulk of Albanian immigrants will be held in immigration detention, where their asylum requests may be reviewed within 30 days to hasten their deportation from the UK.
They may put off their deportation even longer, according to Moreton, by filing an appeal. Before they can be taken out, she warned that it may take more than a year.
If resources permit, we may expedite their asylum application and do so in a matter of days or weeks, according to Moreton. But there is also an internal appeal, which often takes more than a year.
According to the Home Office, the new alliance would allow the UK to send back immigrants to Albania who are found to be “not conducive to the public interest.”
She said that the quick returns would only function if the person did not request asylum, although fewer than a fifth do so.
“You get some who claim they’re here to work in a nail bar, so you can return them, but it’ll take them about 24 hours before their managers tell them to seek asylum or claim they are victims of modern slavery, both of which need international protection.”
It is disgusting and ludicrous that so many Albanian people are entering the UK through tiny boats when their home country, Albania, is a safe country, Patel said yesterday night in a statement condemning the recent spike in Albanians entering the UK illegally.
“In 2021, I signed our nation’s first-ever removals agreement with the Albanian government, outlining our combined efforts to combat organised crime, illegal immigration, and law enforcement concerns between our two nations.
“This agreement has allowed me to repatriate Albanian people on a weekly basis, and under this agreement, together with procedures put in place under the Nationality and Borders Act, their departure will now be expedited.
These Albanian people were illegally smuggled into the country by organised crime networks that travelled via many EU nations.
They are trying to get asylum in the UK with the intention of staying there and blending into the criminal underground supported by Albanian groups. We’ll put a stop to this.
According to a Home Office spokeswoman, we have deported approximately 1,000 Albanian foreign national offenders since 2021, including those who entered the UK unlawfully by crossing the Channel.
Following an increase in the number of Albanians making perilous voyages on tiny boats, the UK and Albania promised last week to speed up the expulsion of Albanians without authorization to be in the UK. The home secretary met with the Albanian State Police today to continue these conversations and establish cooperative operational strategies for how both nations would cooperate to combat illegal immigration.