LONDON — A
British cabinet minister on
Tuesday vowed “more radical” policies to counter illegal migration as record
numbers make the treacherous crossing of the Channel in small boats.
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“We ... now need to look at some more radical
options to ensure that our laws are appropriate, that economic migrants are
returned swiftly and that we deter people from coming to the UK,” immigration
minister Robert Jenrick told BBC radio.
“The UK cannot continue to be a magnet for economic
migrants,” he added.
Around 40,000 people have made the dangerous
crossing across the Channel from mainland Europe so far this year, according to
UK government figures.
Under-fire Home Secretary
Suella Braverman has been
heavily criticized for describing as an “invasion” the numbers of asylum
seekers arriving on England’s south coast.
But Jenrick defended her on Tuesday.
“’Invasion’ is a way of describing the sheer scale
of the challenge,” he told Sky News.
“It is leading to the infrastructure that we have in
terms of reception centers, like Manston, in terms of hotel accommodation, and
asylum and social housing, essentially being overwhelmed.”
Jenrick accepted that conditions at the Manston
migrant processing center in Kent were “poor”, and that people had been
sleeping on the floor on mats.
“The problem is that thousands of people are
crossing the channel illegally every day,” he added.
Braverman said on
Monday that the government was spending £6.8 million per day on housing
migrants.
She denied claims in parliament that she “ignored
legal advice” on using hotels to relieve pressure on the overcrowded processing
center.
“What I have refused to do is to prematurely release
thousands of people into local communities without having anywhere for them to
stay,” she told MPs.
Another migrant center was fire-bombed on Sunday by
a 66-year-old man said to be suffering mental ill-health, who then killed
himself.
The incident caused minor injuries to staff and was
not being treated as terrorism related, Braverman said.
Braverman is also under pressure after admitting she
used her personal phone to consult official documents six times.
The right-winger, whose brief includes policing and
domestic intelligence, has been under mounting pressure since Prime Minister
Rishi Sunak controversially reinstated her to the cabinet on taking office last week.
Braverman defended her record in parliament for the
first time since being forced out by Sunak’s short-lived predecessor Liz Truss.
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