Tag: asylum

MEPs approve plans for long-awaited overhaul to EU asylum system

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The European parliament has approved a series of proposals to overhaul the EU asylum system in a bid to end a years-long deadlock over the issue.
Voting in Strasbourg, MEPs approved plans on the distribution of refugees and migrants across the bloc, screening of people at the EU’s external borders and giving non-EU nationals long-term residence permits after three years of legal stay in a member state.
The votes open the way for MEPs to negotiate the final laws with EU ministers. All sides have pledged to aim for an agreement by April 2024 – before the European elections later that year.
After seven years of deadlock over the issue, lawmakers who will be involved in the negotiations suggested this could be the last chance to create a truly common European asylum system.
“If we miss this chance to make it right, I am very pessimistic about having any other chance to make it right and that will be an extremely, extremely disappointing, extremely sad, extremely counterproductive kind of a message,” Spanish Socialist MEP Juan Fernando López Aguilar told reporters before the vote.
Tomas Tobé, a Swedish centre-right MEP, said the EU was at a crossroad. “Either the political deadlock continues … or we will see the situation where member states will act independently and we will have more problems ahead of us.”
The crunch point is approaching as the EU grapples with the largest number of people seeking to come to Europe via irregular routes since 2016. The EU border agency Frontex reported 330,000 irregular crossings at the EU’s external borders in 2022, a 64% jump on the previous year and the highest since 2016.
After more than 1.2 million people fleeing war and persecution sought refuge in the union in 2015, triggering a political crisis for EU leaders, the European Commission proposed mandatory quotas of asylum seekers to be distributed around the bloc. But member states failed to back the idea. While Mediterranean states, such as Greece, Italy and Spain, insisted on mandatory relocation, central European countries, such as Hungary and Poland, refused to accept such a plan.

Under a new European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, the EU executive revised its ideas in September 2020, proposing that member states opposed to mandatory relocation could instead take charge of returning people denied asylum in the EU to their country of origin. The EU typically returns about 29% of people denied asylum to their home country and is seeking to boost this number by striking deals with governments in the Middle East and Africa.
The European parliament argues that a country that refuses to take in asylum seekers during a crisis situation should be obliged to make financial contributions to frontline countries – an idea that was fiercely opposed and ultimately blocked by central Europe, led by Poland and Hungary’s nationalist governments, during the last round of failed talks.
With the support of the European parliament’s largest groups – the centre-right, centre-left and centrists – that proposal, along with the other negotiating positions, passed with comfortable majorities of about three-quarters of MEPs present on Thursday.
But EU member states have made little progress on the most controversial aspects of the draft laws, the shared management of asylum seekers during normal times and crisis situations. EU governments have, however, fixed a common position on tightening up screening on asylum seekers at the external border.
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MEPs have also called for tougher monitoring of human rights abuses at the EU’s frontiers, in response to numerous reports of illegal pushbacks and beatings.
At the same time, sea crossings are claiming more lives. The International Organization for Migration said last week that 441 people died trying to reach Europe via the central Mediterranean route between January to March 2023, the deadliest first quarter since 2017. With more than 20,000 people having died on this route alone since 2014, the UN agency said it feared these deaths have become “normalised”.
Stephanie Pope, an expert in EU asylum policy at Oxfam, said the votes were a significant step, but she was not hopeful of a better asylum system. “A lot of the proposals in the pact were pretty much a race to the bottom when it comes to the protection of human rights and the right to asylum and not much has changed in that regard,” she said.
“The key sticking point, and the root of a lot of the ongoing human rights violations against refugees we’ve seen for years now is the lack of an effective responsibility sharing mechanism between member states.
“Push backs and the violence we are seeing at borders are an unacceptable symptom of this failure to agree on responsibility sharing between member states.”
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#MEPs #approve #plans #longawaited #overhaul #asylum #system
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 20, 2023
House Republicans will formally kick off their immigration and border work on Wednesday, but are sidestepping a controversial asylum proposal, for now.

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Nearly 100 people have been killed due to the conflict — and the death toll continues to rise.

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#House #Republicans #formally #kick #immigration #border #work #Wednesday #sidestepping #controversial #asylum #proposal
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 17, 2023
BBC faces celebrity revolt, political pressure amid Gary Lineker dispute

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The BBC faces a spiraling revolt by its top sporting presenters amid a row over the broadcaster’s impartiality standards, after star football host Gary Lineker was chastised for tweets criticizing the U.K. government’s new asylum policies.
Calls of hypocrisy were also leveled at the U.K. broadcaster on Saturday, as Labour leader Keir Starmer accused the BBC of “caving in” to the demands of Conservative Party members.
The broadcaster’s sporting coverage was plunged into uncertainty due to a boycott from a group of hosts and co-hosts who disagreed with the BBC for attempting to penalize “Match of the Day” presenter Lineker for his recent comments against what he called the government’s “immeasurably cruel policy” on immigration. He has been told to “step back” from his BBC presenting duties.

In a March 7 tweet, the ex-England international footballer compared the U.K. government’s new policy on illegal migrants with the language of Nazi Germany, prompting a backlash from Conservative MPs and members of the government. The BBC says the tweet violated its impartiality standards.
The U.K.’s new asylum policy would block undocumented migrants from entering the country on small vessels. The bill has been condemned by the United Nations, which said it amounts to an “asylum ban.”
“Match of the Day” — a flagship BBC football show for Premier League fans — found itself without regulars Ian Wright, Alan Shearer, Jermaine Jenas, Micah Richards and Jermain Defoe, who all pledged to stand by Lineker in the dispute. The BBC said “Match of the Day” would be aired Saturday without presenters or pundits.
Popular broadcasts “Football Focus” and “Final Score” have also been deleted from the BBC’s schedule this weekend, after Alex Scott, Kelly Somers and Jason Mohammad all backed Lineker’s corner. BBC Radio 5 Live’s football build-up transmission was ditched minutes before airing, as other leading hosts and pundits joined forces against the broadcaster’s disciplining of Lineker.
BBC Director General Tim Davie apologised for the disruptions and said “we are working very hard to resolve the situation.” In an interview with BBC News late Saturday, Davie said “success for me is getting Gary back on air.” Davie said he would “absolutely not” be resigning over the row.
The BBC boss said he was prepared to review impartiality rules for freelance staff like Lineker.
In an earlier statement, the BBC said it considers Lineker’s “recent social media activity to be a breach of our guidelines.”
“The BBC has decided that he will step back from presenting Match of the Day until we’ve got an agreed and clear position on his use of social media,” according to the statement.
A five-year contract that Lineker signed in 2020 includes guarantees to adhere to the BBC’s impartiality code. He is on a reported £1.35 million-a-year salary.
Labour’s Starmer accused the BBC of pandering to the demands of the Conservative Party on Saturday.
“The BBC is not acting impartially by caving in to Tory MPs who are complaining about Gary Lineker,” Starmer told broadcasters at Welsh Labour’s conference in Llandudno, Wales. “They got this one badly wrong and now they’re very, very exposed.”
Labour leader Keir Starmer accused the broadcaster of caving in to Tory demands | Jason Roberts/Getty Images
Conservative MP Nadine Dorries tweeted on Friday that Lineker needs to decide whether he is “a footie presenter or a member of the Labour Party.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak defended the government’s asylum policy in a statement on Saturday and said the impartiality dispute is for the broadcaster and the presenter to sort out.
“I hope that the current situation between Gary Lineker and the BBC can be resolved in a timely manner, but it is rightly a matter for them, not the government,” Sunak said in the statement.
Liverpool football club manager Jürgen Klopp backed Lineker when asked about the controversy on Saturday.
“I cannot see why you would ask someone to step back for saying that,” Klopp said. “Everybody wants to be so concerned about doing things in the right manner, saying the right stuff. If you don’t do that then you create a shitstorm, it is a really difficult world to live in,” he said.
“If I understand it right, it is a message, an opinion about human rights and that should be possible to say,” Klopp said.
The links between the BBC and the U.K.’s governing Conservative Party run deep. The corporation’s chairman, Richard Sharp, was previously outed as having facilitated an £800,000 loan for Boris Johnson, the former U.K. prime minister. On Saturday, Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey called for Sharp to resign.
The communications officer for former Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May — Robbie Gibb — has sat on the BBC board as a non-executive director since 2021. Current BBC Director General Tim Davie previously stood as a councilor for the Conservative Party in Hammersmith, a London constituency.

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#BBC #faces #celebrity #revolt #political #pressure #Gary #Lineker #dispute
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 9, 2023
Sunak and Macron hail ‘new chapter’ in UK-France ties

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PARIS — Vegetarian sushi and rugby brought the leaders of Britain and France together after years of Brexit rows.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday held the two countries’ first bilateral summit in five years, amid warm words and wishes for closer post-Brexit cooperation.
“This is an exceptional summit, a moment of reunion and reconnection, that illustrates that we want to better speak to each other,” Macron told a joint press conference afterward. “We have the will to work together in a Europe that has new responsibilities.”

Most notably from London’s perspective, the pair agreed a new multi-annual financial framework to jointly tackle the arrival of undocumented migrants on small boats through the English Channel — in part funding a new detention center in France.
“The U.K. and France share a special bond and a special responsibility,” Sunak said. “When the security of our Continent is threatened, we will always be at the forefront of its defense.”
Macron congratulated Sunak for agreeing the Windsor Framework with the European Commission, putting an end to a long U.K.-EU row over post-Brexit trade rules in Northern Ireland, and stressing it marks a “new beginning of working more closely with the EU.”
“I feel very fortunate to be serving alongside you and incredibly excited about the future we can build together. Merci mon ami,” Sunak said.
It has been many years since the leaders of Britain and France were so publicly at ease with each other.
Sunak and Macron bonded over rugby, ahead of Saturday’s match between England and France, and exchanged T-shirts signed by their respective teams.
Later, they met alone at the Élysée Palace for more than an hour, only being joined by their chiefs of staff at the very end of the meeting, described as “warm and productive” by Sunak’s official spokesman. The pair, who spoke English, had planned to hold a shorter one-to-one session, but they decided to extend it, the spokesman said.
They later met with their respective ministers for a lunch comprising vegetarian sushi, turbot, artichokes and praline tart.
Macron congratulated Sunak for agreeing the Windsor Framework with the European Commission | Christophe Archambault/AFP via Getty Images
Speaking on the Eurostar en route to Paris, Sunak told reporters this was the beginning of a “new chapter” in the Franco-British relationship.
“It’s been great to get to know Emmanuel over the last two months. There’s a shared desire to strengthen the relationship,” he said. “I really believe that the range of things that we can do together is quite significant.”
In a show of goodwill from the French, who pushed energetically for a hard line during Brexit talks, Macron said he wanted to “fix the consequences of Brexit” and opened the door to closer cooperation with the Brits in the future.
“It’s my wish and it’s in our interests to have closest possible alliance. It will depend on our commitment and willingness but I am sure we will do it,” he said alongside Sunak.
Tackling small boats
Under the terms of the new migration deal, Britain will pay €141 million to France in 2023-24, €191 million in 2024-25 and €209 million in 2025-26.
This money will come in installments and go toward funding a new detention center in France, a new Franco-British command centre, an extra 500 law enforcement officers on French beaches and better technology to patrol them, including more drones and surveillance aircraft.
The new detention center, located in the Dunkirk area, would be funded by the British and run by the French and help compensate for the lack of space in other detention centers in northern France, according to one of Macron’s aides.
According to U.K. and French officials, France is expected to contribute significantly more funding — up to five times the amount the British are contributing — toward the plan although the Elysée has refused to give exact figures.
A new, permanent French mobile policing unit will join the efforts to tackle small boats. This work will be overseen by a new zonal coordination center, where U.K. liaison officers will be permanently based working with French counterparts.
Sunak stressed U.K.-French cooperation on small boats since November has made a significant difference, and defended the decision to hand more British money to France to help patrol the French northern shores. Irregular migration, he stressed, is a “joint problem.”
Ukraine unity
Sunak and Macron also made a show of unity on the war in Ukraine, agreeing that their priority would be to continue to support the country in its war against Russian aggression.
The French president said the “ambition short-term is to help Ukraine to resist and to build counter-offensives.”
“The priority is military,” he said. “We want a lasting peace, when Ukraine wants it and in the conditions that it wants and our will is to put it in position to do so.”
The West’s top priority should remain helping Ukrainians achieve “a decisive battlefield advantage” that later allows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to sit down at the negotiating table with Russian President Vladimir Putin from a stronger position, Sunak said en route to the summit.
“That should be everyone’s focus,” he added. “Of course, this will end as all conflicts do, at the negotiating table. But that’s a decision for Ukraine to make. And what we need to do is put them in the best possible place to have those talks at an appropriate moment that makes sense for them.”
The two leaders also announced they would start joint training operations of Ukrainian marines.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 9, 2023
UK asylum bill would ‘undermine’ international law: UNHCR

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Geneva [Switzerland], March 9 (ANI): The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) on Wednesday (local time) said that the UK asylum bill would ‘undermine’ international law.
British Home Secretary Suella Braverman introduced an Illegal Migration Bill this week aimed at tackling people crossing the English Channel to reach the UK, which if passed “would amount to an asylum ban,” the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said in a statement.
The UK government has made stopping small boats arriving a top priority. Under the plans, those arriving via this route face detention and deportation. Those removed will be banned from returning.
Migrants who come to Britain illegally by boat “will be detained, removed” and “banned from re-entering” the country,” said the UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Over 45,000 people illegally crossed the Channel in small boats last year.
“That is unfair to those who come here legally and unfair on the British people who play by the rules. Today’s Illegal Migration Bill introduces new laws to stop the boats,” said Sunak.
“The Illegal Migration Bill ensures that if you come to the UK illegally you can’t stay. People must know that coming here illegally will result in their detention and swift removal – once they do, they will not come, and the boats will stop,” he added.
But the UNHCR said Tuesday the bill would be a “clear breach” of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which defines refugees as those who are seeking refuge from persecution. It also gives them the right to not be sent back home into harm’s way, except under extreme circumstances.

“Most people fleeing war and persecution are simply unable to access the required passports and visas. There are no safe and ‘legal’ routes available to them. Denying them access to asylum on this basis undermines the very purpose for which the Refugee Convention was established,” added the statement from the agency.
As per the Illegal Migration Bill, people who come to the UK illegally cannot claim asylum, benefit from UK’s modern slavery protections, make spurious human rights claims and also cannot sytay in the country.
“Today we are introducing new laws that mean if you come to the UK illegally you will be banned from ever re-entering our country. This is how we will break the business model of the people smugglers; this is how we will take back control of our borders,” said Sunak.
“If you come to the UK illegally you will be stopped from making late claims and attempts to frustrate your removal. You will be removed in weeks, either to your own country if it is safe to do so, or to a safe third country like Rwanda,” added the UK PM.
An increasing number of refugees and migrants fleeing conflict, persecution and poverty risk the perilous crossing between Britain and France every year, inflaming a national debate on the issue of migrant crossings to the UK.
Tens of thousands of people travel in dinghies unfit for the voyage, and at the mercy of people smugglers, hoping to claim asylum or economic opportunities in the UK. In 2022, 45,755 people crossed the Channel in small boats, according to UK government data. More than 3,000 people have already made the crossing this year.
Last year, the UK government announced a scheme which would see asylum seekers deemed to have entered the UK illegally sent to Rwanda to have their asylum claims processed.
The first planned deportation flight to Rwanda was blocked under the European Convention of Human Rights, a major point of contention in post-Brexit British politics.
However, the controversial policy was deemed lawful by the country’s High Court in December. (ANI)
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 9, 2023
Biden to replace Trump migration policy with Trump-esque asylum policy

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The new proposal — which immigrant advocates refer to as the “transit ban” or the “asylum ban” — is the White House’s most restrictive border control measure to date and essentially will serve as its policy solution to the long-awaited end of Title 42. Within minutes of its posting, the Biden administration faced a flood of backlash from immigrant advocates and Democrats who accused officials of perpetuating the Trumpian approach to border politics that Biden pledged on the campaign trail to end. Threats of lawsuits also began to percolate.
Former Biden White House official Andrea Flores, who now serves as chief counsel for Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), condemned the administration for resurrecting a policy that “normalizes the white nationalist belief that asylum seekers from certain countries are less deserving of humanitarian protections.”
Administration officials in their call with reporters rejected the notion that the proposed regulation was like the Trump transit ban, noting it was not a “categorical ban” on asylum seekers. Instead, they said, the administration had expanded “existing lawful pathways” through the parole programs, and that the measures were not intended to curb people from seeking asylum but to help ensure order at the southern border.
The Biden administration has repeatedly warned of an influx of migrants amid the end of Title 42, which has been used more than 2 million times to expel asylum seekers on public health grounds. Administration officials on Tuesday said the new rule will help the administration manage a bogged-down border and asylum processing system.
But for critics, those utterances and the implementation of the new rule only underscored the degree to which the administration continues to see the southern border as a political issue, and not a humanitarian challenge, facing Biden’s presidency.
Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of Lutheran Immigration & Refugee Service and a former Obama official, said the rule “reaches into the dustbin of history to resurrect one of the most harmful and illegal anti-asylum policies of the Trump administration.” Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.) called on Biden to “abandon this misguided policy now.” And Sergio Gonzalez, president of the Immigration Hub, said the move “flies in the face” of Biden’s campaign promise to “rebuild a fair, humane and orderly immigration system.”
Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and lead attorney in Title 42-related lawsuits, said in a statement to POLITICO that he’s prepared to take legal action.
“We successfully sued to stop the Trump asylum bans and will sue again if the Biden administration enacts these anti-asylum rules,” Gelernt said.

Tuesday’s proposed regulation was first floated in January, when Biden unveiled a new border measure that involved accepting 30,000 migrants a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela while cracking down on those who fail to use the plan’s legal pathways. The policy forced migrants to apply for asylum from their home country, while expelling those who try to enter the U.S. unlawfully from Mexico. Migrants were only approved if they had a verified sponsor and were allowed to enter the U.S. by air.
The number of migrants and asylum seekers attempting to cross the border has dropped by 40 percent since December, which administration officials credit to the new measures.
Administration officials on Tuesday said they were looking into expanding the humanitarian parole program for other nationalities and are “working closely with our partners across the hemisphere to encourage them to also expand their legal pathways.”
During his speech last month, Biden also unveiled a new app for asylum seekers and other migrants to schedule appointments to be considered for entry into the United States. Advocates scoffed at the administration’s pushback on Tuesday.
“While the Biden admin has launched a smartphone app for asylum appointments and expanded a temporary parole option for an extremely limited subset of four nationalities, these measures are no substitute for the legal right to seek asylum, regardless of manner of entry,” O’Mara Vignarajah said.
Administration officials also used Tuesday’s announcement to criticize Congress, arguing that the White House has been left to roll out new policies to fill the “void” left by inaction on the Hill.
“To be clear, this was not our first preference or even our second. From day one, President Biden has urged Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform and border security measures to ensure orderly, safe and humane processing of migrants at our border,” a senior administration official said.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 22, 2023
Iran’s Olympic skier Atefeh Ahmadi seeks asylum in Germany

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Iranian figure skating champion Atefeh Ahmadi left her home country and applied for asylum in Germany.
Ahmadi had travelled to Germany to be able to participate in the Courchevel-Meribel 2023 Alpine Ski World Championships that are organized in France starting February 9, 2023.
“I left Iran to achieve my goal, but my heart is with Iran. I love my Iran. I love my people. If I could, I would support the people so that together we can achieve freedom,” Ahmadi said in an interview with London-based broadcaster Iran International on Saturday.
#عاطفه_احمدی، پرچمدار ایران در المپیک زمستانی ۲۰۲۲ پکن و نفر اول اسکی ایران که به آلمان پناهنده شده در نخستین گفتگوی خود پس از این تصمیم، به آرمین قبادی‌پاشا، ایران اینترنشنال با بغض گفت: دوری از خانواده خیلی سخت است. قول می‌دهم به هدفی که برای آن از ایران بیرون آمدم، برسم. pic.twitter.com/GO0YKWbcse
— ایران اینترنشنال ورزشی (@iranintlsport) January 28, 2023
Iran’s Tasnim news agency quoted Abbas Nazarian, head of the Iranian Ski Federation, as saying that her departure “was a personal decision and seems to have been planned for some time.”
22-year-old Atefeh Ahmadi, is the only Iranian skier who has managed to be an Olympian by qualifying for the Beijing 2022 Games.
Atefeh Ahmadi is one of the best female skiers in Asia . She has won five medals at the Asian Winter Games, including a silver at the 2018 Super-G, and has participated in several World Ski Championships.
Iran’s Atefeh Ahmadi learned to ski soon after she could walk, but the road to the Winter Olympics hasn’t been an easy one for the youngster. As she explained to AFP in 2021, she was only three years old when her parents put her on skis for the first time.
Atefeh Ahmadi is not the first female athlete to leave Iran. In early January, chess player Sara Khadem fled to Spain after participating in an international tournament without wearing a headscarf.

In 2020, taekwondo player Kimia Alizadeh, the only Olympic medalist in the history of the sport in Iran, left her country for the Netherlands.
Protests have raged against the Iranian leadership since mid-September, when the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, died at the headquarters of the morality police, who detained her for wearing improper headscarf.
Laws requiring compulsory headscarf have become a flashpoint during the unrest, with a number of female athletes competing abroad without wearing headscarves in public.

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#Irans #Olympic #skier #Atefeh #Ahmadi #seeks #asylum #Germany
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

January 29, 2023
Revealed: scores of child asylum seekers kidnapped from Home Office hotel

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Dozens of asylum-seeking children have been kidnapped by gangs from a Brighton hotel run by the Home Office in a pattern apparently being repeated across the south coast, an Observer investigation can reveal.
A whistleblower, who works for Home Office contractor Mitie, and child protection sources describe children being abducted off the street outside the hotel and bundled into cars.
“Children are literally being picked up from outside the building, disappearing and not being found. They’re being taken from the street by traffickers,” said the source.
It has also emerged that the Home Office was warned repeatedly by police that the vulnerable occupants of the hotel – asylum-seeking children who had recently arrived in the UK without parents or carers – would be targeted by criminal networks.
About 600 unaccompanied children have passed through the Sussex hotel in the past 18 months, with 136 reported missing. More than half of these – 79 – remain unaccounted for.
The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, described the revelation as “truly appalling and scandalous” and called on the government to reveal how many children had disappeared and what was being done to find them.
She added: “Suella Braverman [the home secretary] has failed to act on the repeated warnings she has been given about totally inadequate safeguards for children in their care.
“It is a total dereliction of duty for the Home Office to so badly fail to protect child safety or crack down on the dangerous gangs putting them in terrible risk. Ministers must urgently put new protection arrangements in place.”

The Mitie whistleblower also described witnessing children being in effect trafficked from a similar hotel run by the Home Office in Hythe, Kent, estimating that 10% of its youngsters disappeared each week.
The child protection source said some of the children missing from the Brighton hotel may have been trafficked as far away as Manchester and Scotland. One case is under investigation by the Metropolitan police in London.
Data revealed in October showed 222 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children were missing from hotels run by the Home Office. Ministers admitted that they had no idea of their whereabouts.
Meanwhile, it has also emerged that no new guidance for police has been issued for tracking down missing asylum-seeking children, with sources saying it remains in “development”.
New data released under the Freedom of Information Act shows that newly arrived unaccompanied children spend an average of 16.5 days in Home Office hotels before being transferred into council care around the country.
When asked to comment, Brighton and Hove city council, which traditionally cares for child asylum seekers when they arrive in the UK without parents or guardians, referred queries on criminals targeting children to the police. Sussex police said queries on criminals targeting the children should be addressed to the Home Office.
The Home Office said: “Local authorities have a statutory duty to protect all children, regardless of where they go missing from. In the concerning occasion when a child goes missing, they work closely with other local agencies, including the police, to urgently establish their whereabouts and ensure they are safe.
“We have robust safeguarding procedures in place to ensure all children in our care are as safe and supported as possible as we seek urgent placements with a local authority.”
Brighton and Hove city council added: “We have been actively involved when any child is reported missing and have worked with the police and other agencies to try to trace them.”
Catherine Hankinson, National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for missing persons, said regular multi-agency meetings by police reviewed the response to every missing migrant child who had not been located.
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#Revealed #scores #child #asylum #seekers #kidnapped #Home #Office #hotel
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

January 21, 2023