Latest news with #OrganizedImmigrationCrimeSummit
Arab News
03-04-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Britain's PM urges nations to smash migrant smuggling gangs ‘once and for all'
LONDON: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged dozens of countries to collaborate to dismantle migrant smuggling gangs 'once and for all' when he opened an immigration crime summit on Monday. Starmer is seeking to crack down on would-be asylum seekers arriving in England on flimsy small boats and has brought together delegates from more than 40 nations for the two-day London meeting. The interior ministers of France and Germany were among those attending the Organized Immigration Crime Summit. China and the United States also sent representatives. The UK government is struggling to stop undocumented migrants embarking on dangerous boat journeys across the Channel from France. 'This vile trade exploits the cracks between our institutions... and profits from our inability at the political level to come together,' Starmer said. He argued that resources and intelligence must be shared and that governments need to 'tackle the problem upstream at every step of the people-smuggling routes.' 'There's nothing progressive or compassionate about turning a blind eye to this,' Starmer added. Britain's Home Office (interior ministry) billed the gathering as 'the first major international summit in the UK to tackle the global emergency of illegal migration.' Representatives from across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, as well as North America were due to attend. In a video message played to delegates, Italy's far-right prime minister Giorgia Meloni hailed her country's agreement with Albania to process asylum claims at detention centers in the non-European Union country. She claimed that countries 'criticized (it) at first but that then has gained increasing consensus.' Italian judges have repeatedly refused to sign off on the detention in Albania of migrants intercepted by Italian authorities at sea, ordering them to be transferred to Italy instead, and the European Court of Justice is reviewing Rome's policy. Joint action plan The summit is designed to build on talks interior minister Yvette Cooper held in December with her counterparts from Belgium, Germany, France and the Netherlands. The five countries signed a joint action plan designed to boost cooperation to dismantle migrant smuggling gangs. Also attending were delegates from countries from where would-be asylum seekers set out, such as Vietnam and Iraq, and countries they transit, such as those in the Balkans. It also brings together the heads of UK law enforcement agencies and their counterparts from Interpol, Europol and Afripol. The Home Office said the summit would discuss the equipment, infrastructure and fraudulent documents that organized criminal gangs use to smuggle people. They would also look at how supply routes work and discuss how to tackle the online recruitment of migrants, including with representatives from social media platforms Meta, X and TikTok. The UK announced on Sunday it was launching adverts on Zalo, the Vietnamese instant messaging system, to warn people of the dangers of people smugglers. Vietnamese nationals are among the top nationalities making the perilous sea voyage across the Channel to Britain. Similar UK campaigns have already been launched in Albania and Iraqi Kurdistan. UK officials are also keen to speak to China about how it can stop exporting engines and other small boats parts used in crossings. According to the Home Office, the UK's National Crime Agency and global law enforcement partners have seized 600 boats and engines since July. 'No right to be here' Starmer told the meeting that since his Labour government took power in July, more than 24,000 people with 'no right to be here' had been returned. But the number of would-be asylum seekers arriving across the Channel set a new record last week for the first three months of the year — at more than 6,600. At least 10 people are dead or missing after attempting the treacherous crossing so far this year, according to the International Organization for Migration. More than 157,770 people have been detected trying to enter Britain in dinghies since successive governments began collecting data in 2018. In February, Starmer's government announced it was toughening immigration rules to make it almost impossible for undocumented migrants who arrive on small boats to later receive citizenship. On Sunday, it said it would tighten rules to legally require UK gig economy employers to carry out right-to-work checks. Starmer is under pressure, in part from rising support for Nigel Farage's anti-immigration Reform UK party, which won roughly four million votes at July's general election — an unprecedented haul for a hard-right party. Rights group Amnesty International stresses: 'Seeking asylum is a human right. This means everyone should be allowed to enter another country to seek asylum.' 'The people are not the problem,' it says on its website. 'Rather, the causes that drive families and individuals to cross borders and the short-sighted and unrealistic ways that politicians respond to them are the problem.'
Forbes
02-04-2025
- Politics
- Forbes
U.K. Leader Announces Further Measures To Reduce Irregular Migration
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on July 16, 2024 in London, England. (Photo by Benjamin Cremel - ... More) The U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has pledged to do more to reduce the amount of people arriving irregularly, particularly across the English channel. It comes as a summit of 40 countries on the subject concludes in London. Despite the new government's pledges to reduce irregular migration, and many new measures announced including the creation of a 'Border Security Command' with enhanced policing powers, people continue to arrive in the U.K. to seek shelter. This is a political problem for Starmer, as he has focused his electoral and governing strategy on looking 'tough' on migration, for fear of losing voters to more right-wing parties. Despite previously criticizing, while in opposition, the anti-migration strategies of the formerly long-reigning Conservative government, Starmer has since taking office pursued strategies that many say closely resemble them. He scrapped the notorious Rwanda deal, in which asylum seekers would be sent to the small African nation for processing, but has praised Italy's similar deal with Albania. At the same time, his rhetoric has echoed his predecessors. Speaking at the Organized Immigration Crime Summit in London - which was convened specifically to discuss irregular migration - Starmer said he was 'angry' that so many people continued to arrive, and suggested the international community should pursue smugglers the same as they do terrorists. Before the summit began, the government announced a raft of new measures. These include over $40m in fresh funding for the Border Security Command and prosecutors, the expansion of right-to-work checks in British businesses, a focus on reducing people applying for asylum after being on a student visa, an advertising campaign in Vietnam to dissuade people from trying to come to the U.K., and a review into a clause in the European Convention on Human Rights (which the U.K. is signatory to) which allows refugees to be reunited with family members. All these measures are broadly designed to keep the number of irregular migrants, as well as migration numbers overall, down. Experts and researchers on migration say the strategies pursued by Starmer's Labour government, as well as its Conservative predecessors, fail to take into account the actual dynamics of how irregular migration works, at best being ineffective and at worst putting vulnerable people in even more dangerous situations. More strict policing of maritime borders, for instance, has been seen to increase the use of more dangerous routes. At the same time, a focus on smuggling gangs as a large coherent network of organized criminals fails to see the much more diffuse way that irregular migration networks develop. Measures like right to work checks too have been criticized, as creating an environment in which ordinary citizens are compelled to act as immigration officials. The government and Prime Minister Starmer, for their part, have stated their belief that irregular migration is out of control, and acts as 'a massive driver of global insecurity.' They argue that the situation as it is now is both unfair to British citizens, who they say must shoulder the burden of people seeking shelter in the country, as well as asylum seekers themselves, who they say are exploited by people smugglers.
