Over 600 migrants were detected attempting to cross the English Channel on Sunday, the highest number in 2023, according to the latest figures published by the Home Office on Monday.
Around 616 people were detected making the crossing in 12 small boats, with the total number of migrant crossings in 2023 so far being 8,380.
These are the type of small boats the UK’s Illegal Migration Bill is working to stop. Under the Bill, asylum claims can be revoked if refugees arrive in the UK through unauthorised means, such as crossing the Channel by boat.
“The government has gone further by introducing legislation which will ensure that those people arriving in the UK illegally are detained and promptly removed to their country of origin or a safe third country,” a Home Office spokesperson said back in January, according to their last press release on the matter.
On Sunday, the cross-party Joint Committee on Human Rights published a report on the Illegal Migration Bill. In their inquiry, they wrote that some of the evidence they received not only showed that the Bill was “not the right approach” but would “ultimately lead to the UK failing to play its part in the global system of refugee protection that relies on international cooperation and responsibility sharing.”
Last week, EU home affairs ministers reached a migration deal described as historical, and that would have EU states pay €20,000 for each migrant they refuse to host.
The agreement was reached after demands for ‘mandatory relocation’ of migrants from frontline countries such as Italy, Greece and Malta were abandoned in favour of a €20,000 financial contribution for each migrant that a member state says it cannot host.
(Sofia Stuart Leeson | EURACTIV.com)
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Dutch present long-awaited measures to buy out largest nitrogen pollutersThe Dutch government presented its long-awaited efforts to entice the country’s largest nitrogen polluters in the agricultural sector to sell their farms, allowing about 3,000 farmers near nitrogen-sensitive nature reserves to be eligible to receive compensation if they give up their business.
Source: euractiv.com
