Days after an immigration centre was attacked with firebombs, Britain’s interior minister received criticism on Tuesday (local time) for calling the migrants arriving in small boats across the English Channel a “invasion.”
Suella Braverman, the home secretary, used the phrase to defend the circumstances at a processing centre for new arrivals, where almost 4000 individuals have been confined in a space meant for 1600.
On Monday (local time), Braverman described small-boat crossings as “the assault of our southern coast” and declared that “illegal immigration is out of control.”
She urged people to avoid acting as though all of the migrants crossing the Channel were refugees in need.
Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, her deputy, expressed distain for her statements.
He told Sky News, “In a profession like mine, you have to choose your words extremely carefully.
And I would never demonise anyone who emigrate to this nation in search of a better life.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak assured his Cabinet that the country “would always be a kind, welcoming one” when he appointed Braverman after taking office last week, according to his spokeswoman.
Braverman — a leading figure on the right wing of the governing Conservative Party who supports expelling people who enter the UK without authorisation — did not respond to the criticism on Tuesday (local time).
The number of people trying to enter Britain by boat has steadily climbed, and the process for reviewing applications has slowed to a crawl amid turbulence inside the Conservative administration, which this year has had three different prime ministers and three different home secretaries.
Manston, an ex-airfield in southeast England, is meant to be a temporary processing facility where new arrivals spend 24 hours before moving on to longer-term housing, but according to refugee charities, some people have been trapped there for weeks. There have been incidents of scabies and diphtheria, and some families are sleeping in tents.
Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, reported seeing “tonnes and lots of individuals in a room, all crammed in together” when he recently visited the facility.
For a few hours, that would be okay, but in places where people are spending extended amounts of time, it simply isn’t, he told Sky News.
By refusing to reserve hotel rooms for asylum seekers, critics charge that Braverman intentionally made the conditions at Manston worse.
In order to ease pressure, the administration claimed that “huge numbers” of individuals were being relocated from Manston. It stated that a factory that was firebombed over the weekend and located 32 kilometres distant in the port city of Dover has reopened.
The firebombing, which left two staff members with minor injuries, was being investigated, according to the police, by counterterrorism officers.
“Several crude incendiary bombs” were thrown by the suspect, a 66-year-old man from a town some 160 kilometres distant, before he drove off and killed himself.
Counter Terrorism Policing South East’s Detective Chief Superintendent Olly Wright stated that the incident was “likely to be inspired by some type of hate-filled grievance.”
The Manston issue, according to Mishka Pillay, the campaigns consultant for the organisation Detention Action, started because “the government has failed to process asylum petitions properly,” leading to a significant backlog.
“This is a crisis of the home secretary’s own making,” Pillay said..
UK minister faces criticism for referring to migrants as a “invasion”
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