The British Home Office estimates that more than 2,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel to the United Kingdom since the beginning of the year as it finalizes a tough immigration law given the record arrivals anticipated for 2023.
On Friday, 110 people in three boats crossed the Channel to reach 2,070 migrants arriving on British shores, according to estimates gathered by the Press Association agency.
A total of 1,180 people arrived in the UK in January 2023, compared with 1,339 in January 2022, while another 890 have made landfall this February.
The busiest day of 2023 was January 25, when 321 people arrived in the UK on eight boats, while the busiest day on record was August 22, 2022, when 1,295 people were rescued.
The Home Office resumed responsibility for the Channel crossings in January, after eight months in which the Royal Navy took over operations.
The news comes after violent protests broke out outside a hotel used to house asylum seekers in Knowsley, Merseyside, on Friday night. The Suites Hotel has been used to house asylum seekers on Merseyside since January 2022.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has already laid out the outlines of a new system that speeds up the detention, appeals and deportation procedure for migrants «in a matter of days or weeks, not months or years,» he said in an interview with TalkTV, reported by the Guardian.
Sunak and Interior Minister Suella Braverman have said they are prepared to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) if Strasbourg rules against the plans, according to sources in the British newspaper ‘The Times’.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
