British media is reporting that the UK has sent its first asylum-seeker to Rwanda under a voluntary scheme, just a week after the UK government adopted a controversial law allowing irregular migrants to be deported to the East African nation.
UK's Home Office is resuming operational responsibility for tackling boats carrying migrants across the English Channel, after eight months under the leadership of the Royal Navy.
Paraguayan authorities Thursday denied press reports that British Home Secretary Suella Braverman had been brokering a deal whereby migrants arriving in the United Kingdom through the English Channel would be relocated to the South American country.
Over 25,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel to Kent so far in 2022, according to the latest figures from the Ministry of Defense. while a total of 915 people reached Kent in 19 small boats on Saturday, according to a report from BBC. Women and children were among a group brought ashore by an RNLI lifeboat at Dungeness.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has vowed to continue deploying the Royal Navy to tackle people making crossings of the English Channel in small boats if she becomes the next prime minister.
The Royal Navy is taking over operational command from Border Force in the English Channel. The service will be responsible for intercepting boats carrying migrants. The decision follows the understanding with Rwanda to have migrants arriving in boats to UK, sent to the African country.
More than 20 people are feared to have died after their boat capsized while trying to cross the English Channel. These are the asylum seekers some Britons have considered sending over to the Falkland Islands earlier this week as scores of mostly Iranians, Iraqis, Eritreans and Syrians keep rafting in.
According to UK news reports, the British government is becoming quite desperate about the asylum seekers braving the English Channel, a record 25,000 so far this year, and all sorts of radical measures to contain the increase in arrivals are being considered, including sending the refugees south to the Falkland Islands.
The United Kingdom and France will deploy more police and invest in detection technology on the French coast to try to stop boats carrying irregular migrants from reaching British shores.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday sought to sound a note of calm saying he was working as fast as possible to unblock trade across the Channel after France shut its borders to UK haulers in a bid to contain a new variant of the coronavirus.