Amnesty International accuses UK Government of ‘reheating’ old migration messaging

A senior human rights activist has accused Whitehall of “reheating” old messaging after the Home Secretary announced a crackdown on organised immigration crime.

Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International’s refugee and migrant rights programme director, described Yvette Cooper’s new package as “dismaying”, and warned a “securitised” approach could put off genuine asylum seekers from crossing borders if they needed to.

Conservative shadow home secretary James Cleverly said he welcomed the Labour Government’s promise to pump more resource into the National Crime Agency (NCA), but urged ministers to be more ambitious with their plans to drive down cross-Channel migration.

Ms Cooper fronted plans unveiled on Wednesday to bolster the NCA with up to 100 new specialist intelligence officers to disrupt immigration gangs, and warned that the Home Office would target businesses and individuals who employed people who did not have the right to work in the UK.

Return flights

Her department has also promised a “surge in enforcement and returns flights” to reach the highest rate of removals since 2018.

This announcement followed nine “successful returns flights in the last six weeks, including the largest-ever chartered return flight”.

According to the Home Office, the removal of failed asylum seekers had dropped 40% since 2010, the start of the Conservatives’ 14-year period in Government.

The Home Office also revealed NCA officials had around 70 active investigations into the highest-harm people-smuggling and trafficking groups.

Ms Cooper committed to open 290 beds at immigration removals centres which had closed down between 2015 and 2019 – at Campsfield near Oxford and Haslar in Gosport, Hampshire.

The PA news agency understands this is the first phase of a long-term plan to open a total of 1,000 beds across the two sites, a scheme which began under the previous Conservative administration.

“By increasing enforcement capabilities and returns, we will establish a system that is better controlled and managed, in place of the chaos that has blighted the system for far too long,” Ms Cooper said.

“We are taking strong and clear steps to boost our border security and ensure the rules are respected and enforced.”

Dismaying

But Mr Valdez-Symonds said: “It’s dismaying to see the new Government reheating the last government’s rhetoric over ‘border security’ and ‘smashing gangs’ even while neglecting the pressing need to provide safe asylum routes and a clear guarantee of asylum to refugees arriving here.

“People in urgent need – including those fleeing war and persecution in places like Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria and Iran – will keep coming to the UK and other countries, and the Government needs to establish safe routes that reduce the perils of dangerous border crossings and the risk of exploitation by ruthless smuggling gangs.

“This ‘securitised’ approach to asylum and immigration will simply deter and punish many of the people most in need of crossing borders, people who are therefore often most vulnerable to criminal exploitation.”

Enver Solomon, of the Refugee Council, suggested most people whose asylum applications were rejected left the UK voluntarily, if they received returns support.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “If you treat people with respect, humanity and support them to return, many more people return.

“Two-thirds of people who have their asylum claims rejected return voluntarily.”

Voluntary returns increased by 65% in the year ending March 2024 compared to the previous year, according to the Home Office.

Councillor Ian Middleton opposed the previous government’s bid to reopen the Campsfield House immigration removals centre near the edge of his Kidlington South division.

The Green Party councillor urged Oxfordshire County Council members to voice their opposition to the centre in 2022, and branded the scheme “cruel, ineffective, and (a) costly backwards step”.

Asked about Ms Cooper’s announcement, he told the PA news agency: “When it was operating previously as a detention centre, there were a number of incidents – riots, some suicides and there was a lot of disquiet about it.”

He added: “These people, I guess, they come here under very difficult circumstances, often they have been some of the people that have come across in small boats, which is not something you do on a whim – risk their lives, they’re looking to get away from oppression, war and, you know, terrible things in their own country.”

Mr Middleton said plans to speed up processing were “welcome”, so fewer people were left with questions about their immigration status.

Former home secretary and now Ms Cooper’s “shadow”, Mr Cleverly, said: “Labour clearly aren’t serious about tackling the people smugglers or stopping the boats.

“While more NCA resource and detention capacity is welcome, this is not nearly ambitious enough.

“Paired with their moves to cancel our deterrent (the plan to send asylum seekers who arrive in small boats to Rwanda), give an effective amnesty to thousands of illegal migrants, and failure to hire a head of their phantom border command, it doesn’t scratch the surface.”

Enforced removals

Dr Peter Walsh, of Oxford University’s Migration Observatory, told the Today programme the plan to raise the rate of removals to the highest level since 2018 was “not a particularly high bar”.

He said: “If we look at enforced removals, last year there were 6,000 and in 2018 there were 9,000 – so this would require 3,000 more, a 50% increase, which sounds achievable.”

In the year ending March 2024, there were 7,016 enforced returns, an increase of 70% on the previous year (4,127).

Alp Mehmet, Migration Watch UK chairman, said: “The Home Secretary’s announcement amounts to no more than giving herself a goal of doing a better job of implementing her predecessor’s plan.

“A few more beds in existing detention centres and recruiting a hundred more staff doesn’t show huge commitment. The criminal gangs will be laughing themselves silly as their bank balances bulge.”