Growing fury at Channel migrant shambles as hundreds are encouraged to leave Manston ‘without undergoing basic checks’ to ease overcrowding while MORE are abandoned in London and local Kent children are told there are no school places
- Migrants allegedly allowed to leave Manston without basic checks completed
- A second group of migrants was dumped in London and forced to sleep rough
- Minister said it was ‘a bit of a cheek to start complaining about the conditions’
Political anger was mounting at the sheer scale of the migrant chaos today amid a slew of further debacles.
Ministers face calls to get a grip as it emerged that people who crossed the Channel in small boats were being allowed to leave an arrival center without undergoing basic checks, to ease overcrowding.
Hundreds of people have been encouraged to leave Manston in northern Kent after simply providing a forwarding address, the Telegraph reported today.
It came after it was revealed a second group of migrants was dumped in London this week and forced to sleep rough on the streets of the capital.
Some 14 council leaders in Kent have written to Home Secretary Suella Braverman, saying: ‘We have hundreds of mostly Albanian [migrants] not claiming asylum and being bailed and dropped at mid-Kent train stations with no follow-up where they go or if they leave Kent.’
Meanwhile ministers are also facing pushback from locals in Kent who are at the forefront of the arrival of more than 40,000 people in small boats this year.
Ashford MP Damian Green, a Tory former minister and the MP for Ashford, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘Kent itself is really under strain because it is not just all the points of accommodation, it’s the fact that you need to find school places for these children.
‘There are (local) children in Kent being told there are no school places around town. This is completely unacceptable, we have to spread the burden around the country and we have to make the whole system faster and more efficient.
‘If we don’t do that this will become a long-running problem which will really affect people in their daily lives.’
Ministers face calls to get a grip as it emerged that people who crossed the Channel in small boats were being allowed to leave an arrival center without undergoing basic checks, to ease overcrowding.
Hundreds of people have been encouraged to leave Manston in northern Kent after simply providing a forwarding address, the Telegraph reported today.
The Home Secretary toured immigration centres yesterday while battling to grip the migrant crisis amid threats of legal action, sexual assault allegations at a hotel housing asylum seekers and international criticism of her use of language.
Braverman, who was reinstated to her ministerial post just over a week ago, met Border Force teams in Dover to discuss Channel crossings operations before visiting the scandal-hit Manston processing centre via RAF helicopter to hear updates from staff.
The Home Secretary toured immigration centres yesterday while battling to grip the migrant crisis amid threats of legal action, sexual assault allegations at a hotel housing asylum seekers and international criticism of her use of language.
Braverman, who was reinstated to her ministerial post just over a week ago, met Border Force teams in Dover to discuss Channel crossings operations before visiting the scandal-hit Manston processing centre to hear updates from staff.
She has come under mounting political pressure over the illegal conditions at the site near Ramsgate, where at one point as many as 4,000 people were being detained for weeks in a site intended to hold 1,600 for a matter of days.
Downing Street said the number has since reduced to 2,700, after more than 1,000 were moved in the last few days, and that the Prime Minister was receiving twice daily updates on the situation.
Home Office minister Chris Philp said the groups of migrants from Manston left stranded in London had told immigration officials they had addresses to go to and suggested something may have been ‘lost in translation’.
He told Sky that Manston was legally compliant days after immigration minister Robert Jenrick suggested it was not.
And he later told Times Radio: ‘If people choose to enter a country illegally, and unnecessarily … it’s a bit of a cheek to then start complaining about the conditions.
‘And you don’t even have to come here, they were in France already and previously often passed through Belgium, Germany, and many other countries on the way.’
Mr Philp added that the UK is a ‘generous country’ in accommodating asylum seekers.
He said: ‘We’re spending something like two or three billion pounds a year looking after people who have entered the country illegally and unnecessarily. I think, frankly, that is pretty generous, actually … our asylum accommodation is better than most European countries.
Home Office minister Chris Philp said the groups of migrants from Manston left stranded in London had told immigration officials they had addresses to go to and suggested something may have been ‘lost in translation’.
‘In terms of people who are genuinely in need of protection, we are a generous country … this is a very generous country that looks after people in genuine need.’
Stephen Evans, chief executive of Norwich Council, has said the Home Office did not give its local officials any warning that migrants from Manston were being bussed into the city on Thursday.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, Mr Evans said he first read about the group coming to Norwich in a news article.
‘We hadn’t been told. I checked back with colleagues at City Hall – they hadn’t been told. So, we don’t know who they are and we don’t know where they’ve gone to in the city,’ he said.
‘I think that’s part of the problem here. As a sector, councils are asking for early engagement from the Home Office and for us to be consulted.’
He added that ‘of course’ councils need to know where migrants are in terms of safety and safeguarding, and often the Home Office usually give local leaders just a few days’ notice when it comes to opening a hotel for migrants in their area.
‘If the Government engaged councils earlier in the process, we could be on the front foot and it would be a better system for sure,’ he said.
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