The total number of those aboard remains unclear although 31 have been rescued; the incident is the latest in a string across the region
Eleven people were killed and dozens were rescued after a boat capsized near Puerto Rico on Thursday, authorities said.
It was not immediately clear how many people were onboard the boat when it turned over, said a US coast guard spokesman, Ricardo Castrodad. He said a “mass rescue effort” was still under way.
Continue reading...Minister also refuses to say whether Ukrainians who cross Channel in small boats could be sent to Africa
Undocumented people who travel from Ukraine to the UK via Ireland could be considered for removal to Rwanda, a senior Home Office official has told MPs.
During the same select committee hearing, a minister refused to say under repeated questioning whether Ukrainians who arrive in the UK across the Channel by boat could also be sent to the central African country.
Continue reading...Home secretary attacks ‘specialist lawyers’ as Labour calls delayed plan little more than a press release
Priti Patel has admitted that it will take time to establish the government’s high-profile plan to send people who arrive in the UK without authorisation to Rwanda, amid growing suspicion that it will not solve the migration crisis in the Channel.
In a further attack on the legal profession, the home secretary blamed “specialist lawyers” as the main reason for the delays in setting up the scheme.
Continue reading...Home secretary is violating international law, the UN refugee convention and data protection rules, say lawyers
The first legal action has been launched against Priti Patel’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda as the UN’s refugee agency raised concerns that the UK is “inviting” other European countries to adopt the same divisive immigration policy.
Lodged last Tuesday, the legal challenge states that the home secretary’s proposals run contrary to international law and the UN refugee convention, as well as breaching British data protection law.
Continue reading...Survey of asylum seekers in northern France finds three-quarters will try to reach UK despite government’s offshoring plans
Deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda is unlikely to deter those in northern France hoping to cross the Channel in small boats, according to a survey that found that three-quarters said they would still try to make the journey.
The snapshot survey of more than 60 asylum seekers in Calais and Dunkirk was carried out by the charity Care4Calais, which provides practical support to asylum seekers in both northern France and across the UK.
Continue reading...Hollywood actor and UN envoy met refugees in the western city of Lviv on Saturday, its regional governor said
Hollywood actor and UN humanitarian Angelina Jolie made a surprise visit to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Saturday, the Lviv regional governor said on Telegram.
According to Maksym Kozytskiy, Jolie – who has been a UNHCR special envoy for refugees since 2011 – had come to speak to displaced people who have found refuge in Lviv, including children undergoing treatment for injuries sustained in the missile strike on the Kramatorsk railway station in early April.
Continue reading...Ease of finding accommodation and work lures 10 times the number who have made it to Britain
When it became clear to Liliia Fomina that the war raging outside her hometown of Zaporizhzhia would continue not just for days, but months or even years, she decided that she wanted to flee to the UK. A sponsor in Windsor was found, and on 18 March the 29-year-old applied for a British visa for herself and her five-year-old son Lev.
The pair sheltered with friends of friends in a village near Chernivtsi, in western Ukraine, and waited: one week, two weeks, three weeks. By the time her visa finally came through, after almost a month of uncertainty, the lawyer had changed her mind.
Continue reading...Investigation suggests Frontex’s database recorded incidents of illegal pushbacks in Aegean Sea as ‘prevention of departure’
The EU’s border agency has been involved in the pushbacks of at least 957 asylum seekers in the Aegean Sea between March 2020 and September 2021, according to a new investigation.
Frontex, the EU’s best-funded agency with a budget of €758m, is being investigated over previous allegations of complicity with Greek authorities in illegal pushbacks of asylum seekers, something the organisation has denied.
Continue reading...Charity Freedom from Torture says it has ‘serious concerns’ about lawfulness of policy
Priti Patel’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda is facing its first legal challenge after a charity instructed lawyers to demand the disclosure of documents because of fears the policy is contrary to international law.
In a pre-action letter to the Home Office, which is expected to lead to a judicial review claim, the solicitors Leigh Day stated that the charity Freedom from Torture “has serious concerns about the lawfulness of the policy”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: poor healthcare and conditions at sites such as Napier worsen mental and physical illness, Doctors of the World says
Asylum seekers’ accommodation is “unsafe” due to inadequate healthcare, while poor living conditions are exacerbating or creating mental and physical health problems, according to a new report by Doctors of the World.
The charity’s research, published on Wednesday, details the barriers to medical care and medication for asylum seekers in initial accommodation across the UK.
Continue reading...Government lawyers confirm Home Office plan to force small boats back to France has been abandoned
Priti Patel’s refugee pushback policy has been officially withdrawn by the government days before a judicial review of the tactic was due to be heard in the high court.
The government’s legal department acknowledged in a letter on Sunday that the plan to try to force people in dinghies back to France has been abandoned after Boris Johnson’s announcement that the Royal Navy would take over operations in the Channel.
Continue reading...Worker claims confused staff are ‘making up response’ to applications and visas are withheld to keep numbers down
A whistleblower working on Britain’s Homes for Ukraine scheme has revealed that he and his colleagues “don’t know what we’re doing”, and claims the scheme has been “designed to fail” in order to limit numbers entering the UK.
Amid criticism over the numbers of Ukrainians so far allowed to come to the UK, the insider revealed that confusion, poor morale and lack of guidance meant staff contracted to the scheme frequently resorted to “making up” their response to cases.
Continue reading...Only handful of rebels vote against government to support Lords amendments
The actor Juliet Stevenson has made an 11th-hour plea to Conservative MPs voting on the government’s controversial immigration bill on Wednesday to “be brave and vote with your heart, not with your party membership card”.
Stevenson has urged MPs who are backing the nationality and borders bill to instead back Lords amendments in support of refugees.
Continue reading...Latest updates: the prime minister apologises for breaking Covid lockdown rules but Labour says the public ‘don’t believe a word he says’
Boris Johnson must have known parties were taking place in Downing Street in breach of lockdown rules, Emily Thornberry, the shadow attorney general, told the Today programme this morning. Asked to justify Labour claims that Johnson was lying when he told MPs that the rules had always been followed and parties had not taken place, she replied:
The sheer number of parties going on at Number 10 on a regular basis make it perfectly clear to any reasonable person, let alone the person who made the rules, that those rules were being broken and they were being broken consciously.
The fact that Dominic Raab said that when he was in charge there weren’t any parties shows that people knew there were parties going on and he made sure that, when he was in charge of Number 10, when the prime minister was in hospital, that those sorts of things stopped, I think, again makes it clear.
Whatever means we take, the difficulty we will always have is that, since the 2019 election, the Conservatives have an 80-seat majority when there is a vote.
Unless Conservative MPs can look at their consciences and vote the right way, we are not going to get the sort of result that we should get.
The Stormer vehicle launches Starstreak anti-aircraft missiles which can be used to target planes and helicopters.
Boris Johnson is expected to speak to allies including the US president, Joe Biden, today to discuss western support for Ukraine as Russian forces focused on capturing the Donbas region.
Continue reading...UK home secretary attacks critics of plan to give unauthorised asylum seekers one-way tickets to African country
Priti Patel has defended plans to send unauthorised asylum seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda, saying critics of the scheme have failed to offer any alternative solution to the migration crisis.
The proposal, announced last week, has been widely condemned as inhumane, illegal, unworkable and prohibitively expensive. Critics have included Conservative MPs and peers, the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) and a former and the current archbishop of Canterbury, who said, in his Easter Sunday sermon, that the scheme “does not stand the judgment of God”.
Continue reading...Unions say civil servants could stage mass walkouts after home secretary overruled their concerns
Priti Patel could face a Home Office mutiny over plans to process migrants 5,000 miles away in Rwanda after overruling officials to push through the scheme.
The home secretary issued a rare ministerial direction to overrule concerns of civil servants about whether the scheme would deliver value for money.
Continue reading...Wooden vessel launched from Sabratha, a major departure point for Europe, says UN migration agency
A boat carrying 35 people has capsized off the Libyan coast, , the UN migration agency has said.
The incident took place on Friday off the western Libyan city of Sabratha, a major launching point for the mainly African people making the dangerous voyage across the Mediterranean, said the International Organization for Migration.
Continue reading...Asylum seekers say there is no freedom in Rwanda and fear for their lives if sent to Africa
Small boat arrivals on the Kent coast have expressed fears that they will be removed from the UK and transferred to Rwanda, after hearing the government’s announcement that asylum claims will be processed offshore.
“If they send me to Rwanda, I will not go. I will die here, I will take my life,” Jemal, a new arrival from Eritrea, said. “Do you know how many thousands of miles I travelled to be here? How long I was in [the] desert …? To reach this point, to be here, we all had to make so many sacrifices. A lot of [people] lost their lives on the sea. I left my country now – I cannot go back to Africa.”
In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org.
Continue reading...Claim about long-term benefits disputed by MP Andrew Mitchell who describes reported cost of £30,000 a person as ‘eye-watering’
Britain will save money in the “longer term” by sending some asylum seekers to Rwanda, a minister has said after the reported cost of about £30,000 a person was described as “eye-watering”.
Defending the decision to fly out many of those who arrive on the Kent coast to a country more than 4,000 miles away, the Home Office minister Tom Pursglove said it would “crush” the business model of people smugglers.
Continue reading...Politicians, legal experts and refugee groups condemn Johnson’s plan to ‘offshore’ Channel crossing crisis
Boris Johnson’s plans to send unauthorised asylum seekers on a one-way ticket to Rwanda have been roundly condemned amid warnings that it will be challenged in the courts and could result in further deaths in the Channel.
After the prime minister outlined plans to hand an initial down-payment of £120m to the Rwandan government in the hope that it will accept “tens of thousands” of people, politicians and refugee groups condemned the move as inhumane, unworkable and a waste of public money.
Continue reading...