London. The British government has promised to significantly increase repatriations of rejected asylum seekers and illegal residents and to sign agreements with local bodies to support reintegration.
The Home Office last week published a contract, reported on Thursday by the Financial Times, aimed at finding “service providers” to support the “reintegration” in their country of origin of people repatriated because they do not have the right to reside in the United Kingdom.
Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government plans to spend a total of 15 million pounds ($19.7 million) on the scheme over three years.
Eleven countries are concerned by these plans: Albania, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Iraq, Jamaica, Nigeria, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Vietnam.
Service providers are to provide them with food aid, help them find their relatives and find work, the contract states.
Last week, British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced that the government was aiming to reach the highest level of deportations of rejected asylum seekers since 2018 in the next six months. This would be, according to the Times, almost 14,000 deportations.
Some 300 officers were assigned to “examine thousands of files of rejected asylum seekers and returns, including forced and voluntary returns,” according to the ministry.
Reducing immigration levels, both legal and illegal, was one of the priorities of the previous Conservative government, which was in power until July. The Labour government that succeeded it shares this objective, although it calls for a more “humane” policy to achieve it.
Since taking office, Starmer has abandoned the controversial plan to expel illegal migrants from Rwanda (an initiative of his predecessors) and promised that the United Kingdom will tackle the activity of “gangs of human traffickers.”
Illegal crossings across the English Channel from France to the UK have hit a record since the start of the year, with 20,434 reported, according to an AFP tally based on figures from British authorities.
#vows #increase #migrant #repatriations
– 2024-09-06 00:33:16
