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"Taking back control" of Britains borders was a key rallying cry for Vote Leave during the Brexit referendum - but the UKs departure from the EU may have made the country a more attractive destination for illegal migration.

In August, the home secretary promised to make the route across the Channel unviable, but the number of people crossing in small boats has reached record highs.

On Wednesday, 27 people died in the waters near Calais in the worst incident of its kind in the Channel since the current migrant crisis began.

France begins grim task of identifying the victims - live updates

So far in 2021 more than 25,700 people have completed the perilous journey across the Dover Strait, the busiest shipping lane in the world - three times the total for 2020.

Of these people who have made it to UK shores, the governments immigration minister revealed last week just five people had been returned to Europe.

Thomas Pursglove, a minister for the Home Office and Ministry of Justice said there had been difficulties securing returns.

But these difficulties evicting people from the UK could be attributed, in part, to Brexit.

When party to the EUs Dublin arrangements, the UK could ask other countries to take back people they could prove had passed through safe European countries on their journey to Britain.

But since Brexit, the UK has no return arrangements with any EU country and so will have to negotiate with each one individually.

Although Priti Patel said she is actively pursuing an agreement with France, this has not yet materialised.

The government proposed a post-Brexit replacement for the Dublin arrangement, but the EU turned it down.

However, it is worth noting that even before the UK left the EU, the total number of Dublin transfers that took place was a small fraction of the total asylum seekers.

According to the Migration Observatory, in the five-year period, 2016 to 2020, around 194,000 people applied for asylum in the UK - while there were only around 1,250 Dublin transfers out of the country.

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Following Brexit, the UK also lost a seat on the management board for Europol - the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation - and British officers can no longer interrogate the Europol database. This will impact the UKs efforts to dismantle immigrant smuggling networks.

Emmanuel Comte, Senior Research Fellow at The Barcelona Centre for International affairs wrote: It is dubious that Brexit has offered back control of immigration to the UK.

"The British government has achieved, at an excessive cost, more control of declining inflows from EU countries, but it has lost access to useful EU instruments to control rising inflows from third countries.

He added: It is not just a missed opportunity, but a dangerous situation. In the next months and years, the EU and the UK will face the challenge of managing their migratory interdependence without a framework."

In July, Priti Patel brought forward a new Nationality and Borders Bill which, if passed, will increase prison sentences for people entering the UK illegally and - for the first time - consider whether someone arrived legally or illegally when looking to grant asylum.

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Specifically, on small boats, Ms Patel has reportedly asked the Border Force to use pushback tactics to turn away vessels trying to enter UK waters.

The Home Office is understood to have taken legal advice that such tactics are in accordance with international maritime law.

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Has Brexit made the UK more attractive for illegal migration? - Yahoo News UK

HAVANA, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Cuban authorities said on Wednesday that neighboring countries had deported more than 1,200 migrants thus far in 2021, returning them to Havana in bilateral operations coordinated with the United States, Mexico, the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas.

The Caribbean island nation has suffered this year from both the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and tough U.S. sanctions, reducing its hard currency earnings over the past two years by around 40% and shrinking the economy 13%.

Illegal migration from Cuba, particularly through Mexico, has increased in 2021 over previous years, according to a report broadcast on Cuba's state-run TV.

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The report said that "to date 1,255 undocumented Cubans have been returned in 60 bilateral operations." Of those, 856 were deported from the United States, 214 from Mexico, 184 from the Bahamas and one from the Cayman Islands.

On Tuesday, 61 Cuban migrants headed to the United States but intercepted at sea off the Bahamas were returned to Havana by plane.

That group included four women and 57 men, all of whom received medical attention and were tested for COVID-19 upon arrival in Havana, state-run media said.

"I am a single mother, I have two children and I do not work," said Adriana Lpez Vera, a Holgun resident who was deported from the Bahamas on the flight. She told the news broadcast she had left "to seek a better future."

Cuba says it advocates for legal, orderly and safe migration, and has blamed the United States for the uptick in illegal migration, saying the country's policies, including the Cold War-era embargo, encourage Cubans to risk their lives to leave the island.

U.S. Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in July following unprecedented protests in Cuba that Cubans leaving the island "will not come to the United States."

The number of Cubans arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border nonetheless hit its highest level in a decade between October 2020 and May 2021, according to U.S. immigration statistics. read more

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Reporting by Nelson Acosta and Reuters TV, editing by Dave Sherwood and Marguerita Choy

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Cuba says 1255 migrants returned to Havana in 2021 - Reuters

The troubling scene along Poland's border with Belarus turned the problem of illegal migrants into political ammunition. It changed attitudes with likely long-term implications for immigration to Europe.

Immigration has become an ever-growing, impassioned issue that divides Europeans. Broadly speaking, the Establishment (what I call the 6Ps: the police, politicians, press, priests, professors and prosecutors) welcome immigration, legal or not, as a source of vitality for an increasingly aging continent, an engine of multicultural diversity and a way for former imperialists to assuage their consciences. In contrast, a growing body of dissidents sees immigration as a source of crime and disease, a challenge to traditions and a civilizational threat.

This debate peaked in 2015-16, when Angela Merkel, the powerful chancellor of Germany, unilaterally opened her country's borders to migrants, dragging much of Europe with her. As illegals became legals, the split in attitudes among Europeans became more intense, with a Willkommenskulturor welcoming cultureemerging in Germany even as fences went up around Hungary.

And in mid-2021, the dictator of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, perhaps with Turkish assistance, came up with a clever idea. To reverse European Union (EU) economic sanctions imposed on him in retaliation for a cooked election, he jacked up visa charges, invited one and all from around the world to fly legally to his country and be bussed to the border with his EU member neighbors: Poland, Lithuania, or Latvia. Once there, the estimated 7,000 migrantsprimarily but not exclusively Muslims from the Middle Eastrushed the razor-wire fence, sometimes wielding Belarus-supplied wire cutters, sometimes pushed into it by Belarus forces, and hurled debris, stones and stun grenades at Polish police.

But the many security personnel on the other side stopped them with tear gas and water cannons, backed by fervent resolve. "This border is sacred," Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said. "The border of the Polish state is not just a line on the map. Generations of Poles shed their blood for this border." Warsaw also passed a law enabling it not only to ignore the asylum claims of illegal migrants, but even to push them forcibly out of the country.

Lukashenko exploited the illegals as pawns in a tactical game versus the EU. He also used them to make money, as Belarus' state-owned tourism agency charged between $1,800 and $12,000 per migrant and local merchants over-charged ($1,000 for a hotel room, anyone?); perhaps Lukashenko also hoped for a bribe, such as EU members have paid to Turkey and Libya. Meanwhile, the migrants languished, cold and hungry, adults and children, in the fetid forest, about a dozen of them dying.

The lasting importance of his bellicose move will be further to sour Europeans on immigration by Muslims. Now weaponized by Belarus, more Europeans see Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans as hostile elements intent on doing harm. However inaccurate this generalization, it fits an existing set of biases. Shouts on the streets of Poland have called for border guards to shoot the would-be intruders.

Unequivocal EU support for Poland shows how much this shift has already taken place. Despite severe ongoing strains with Warsaw, Brussels came quickly and wholeheartedly to Poland's side in its dispute with Belarus. The border problem shunted EU-Polish tensionsand $41 billion in suspended aidto the margins.

Fortunately, Polish and EU resolve led to Lukashenko backing down. The illegals have abandoned the immediate border area and are either being crowded into a giant Belarus warehouse (a fitting symbolism) or flown to Iraq. Ironically, Lukashenko's gambit to create a migrant crisis in the EU backfired; Belarus, which until this drama had almost no Muslim migrants, now hosts a substantial body of those refusing to return home. "I would rather die here in the cold than go back to Iraq," declared a 32-year-old Iraqi Kurd.

I predict that the Belarus provocation will significantly affect European attitudes toward migrants, especially illegal ones, for the worse. Willkommenskultur is now defunct, with little possibility of resurrection. Guilt over racism, imperialism and fascism have somewhat faded in the face of a resolve not to be shown up as idiots by a tin-hat dictator.

Thus might a tragic incident lead to a new resolve and to positive long-term results. Europeans are more aware of the need to protect their borders and democratically to decide their population makeup. That it takes a European dictator to drive this point home yet again confirms history's caprice.

Daniel Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

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Poland's Border and the Future of Migration | Opinion - Newsweek

Today, Tom Pursglove MP, the Minister for Justice and Tackling Illegal Migration, announced the opening of Derwentside immigration removal centre for women in County Durham.

Derwentside, in County Durham, will provide safe, secure and fit for purpose accommodation for women. The population will include both time-served foreign national offenders and immigration offenders, while we prepare to remove them from the UK.

The new centre is anticipated to create approximately 200 permanent jobs in the local area when the centre is fully operational by the end of the year.

Ahead of visiting the centre, Tom Pursglove MP, the Minister for Justice and Tackling Illegal Migration, said:

Those with no right to remain in the UK should be in no doubt of our determination to remove them. Immigration detention plays a vital role in tackling illegal migration and protecting the public from harm.

This is a fundamental part of our Nationality and Borders Bill and the New Plan for Immigration which will make it easier to remove people who have no right to be in the UK.

Mitie Care & Custody Ltd has been appointed to manage Derwentside immigration removal centre, with a 2-year contract that was signed on 4 June 2021.

The new contract takes into account Stephen Shaws 2 reviews of vulnerability in detention, with increased staffing levels, a higher ratio of female custody officers and a range of dedicated welfare services.

The Nationality and Borders Bill is going through Parliament and has 3 fair but firm objectives: to increase the fairness of our system so we can protect and support those in genuine need of asylum; to deter illegal entry into the UK breaking the business model of people smugglers and protecting the lives of those they endanger; and to remove more easily those with no right to be in the UK.

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Government to open new immigration removal centre - GOV.UK

Whether theyre camped outside in freezing temperatures or stranded at sea, Matteo Salvini exhibits little sympathy for the asylum seekers blocked at European borders. The Italian far-right leader, who as interior minister attempted to stop NGO rescue boats landing in Italian ports, in one case leading to criminal charges, will travel to Warsaw next month in a show of solidarity with his Polish allies who have deployed hardcore tactics to ward off thousands of refugees trying to enter from Belarus.

I think that Europe is realising that illegal immigration is dangerous, Salvini told the Guardian in an interview conducted before 27 people drowned attempting to cross the Channel in an inflatable boat. So maybe this shock will be useful.

The Poland border crisis is the perfect opportunity for Salvini to reignite his faded rightwing populist star as he plots his strategy for Italys next general election, which is slated for 2023 but could come sooner. An earlier attempt to capitalise on soaring opinion poll ratings by collapsing his League partys coalition with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) and forcing fresh elections spectacularly backfired, instead sending the party into opposition, but in a peculiar twist of events it returned to government in February as part of an emergency administration led by the former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi.

Salvini once accused Draghi of being complicit in the massacre of our economy for his role in saving the euro. Nowadays he says Draghi is very good, especially when it comes to protecting Italys interests abroad.

But Salvini, described by some as a political chameleon, is also very much in campaign mode, resorting to his tried and tested formula of immigration, nativism and Euroscepticism before the election.

Salvini does not have a ministerial role but items on the desk of his spacious office in the Italian senate cluttered much like a family home with pictures of him with his children and girlfriend, images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, an AC Milan shirt and a yellow toy bulldozer on a bookshelf give an insight into his current positioning. One document contains a list of items Salvini wants inserted into Italys budget for 2022, including a fund to help disabled people. Another lays out plans by a revived alliance of European far-right political forces, including the League and Marine Le Pens National Rally, to create an alternative Europe.

I can be in a pro-Europe government while dreaming of a different Europe, Salvini said in an interview.

He said he joined Draghis broad coalition because it was the right thing to do as Italy recovers from the pandemic. In government the League can take care of things such as tourism, the flat tax, people with disabilities Did you see those people leaving as you came in? Theyre business owners. They came to me because Im in government and can help.

But in a future campaign Italys dwindling birthrate will be a top theme for the League. My objective is to give economic serenity to Italians to encourage them to have children, Salvini said. I refuse to think of substituting 10 million Italians with 10 million migrants.

In August 2019 Salvini appeared to be on the verge of becoming prime minister when, from a beach near Rome, he announced it was impossible to patch up the Leagues differences with M5S and that snap elections were the only way forward. As interior minister Salvini had been on a roll, brandishing rosary beads and posing for selfies as he packed squares up and down Italy with supporters who loudly applauded him for shutting off the countrys seaports to migrants.

The League was Italys biggest party, riding high in the polls, and he called on Italians to give him full powers the same words used by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini after he came to power in 1922. But Salvini was outplayed by M5S, which went on to form a government with the centre-left Democratic party, pushing the League into opposition, with an immediate hit to its poll ratings.

Ask former supporters of the party which today polls in third place at about 18%, behind its far-right ally Brothers of Italy and the Democratic party why Salvini lost favour and they inevitably point to his miscalculation. Many have switched allegiance to Brothers of Italy, whose leader, Giorgia Meloni, they say is more consistent. Brothers of Italy has continued its steady rise since choosing to stay out of Draghis government.

Salvini is taking his partys knock in the polls in his stride even as Meloni, with whom he allies along with Silvio Berlusconis Forza Italia in elections, eclipses him in popularity. Bruised by the coalitions defeats to the left in mayoral elections in major cities in October, he was left red-faced after a secret recording revealed him implying that Meloni was a pain in the ass. He insists he is not in competition with Meloni and would happily cast aside his own aspirations and let her be prime minister. I will let the voters decide but Im not for pink quotas, green quotas or female quotas, what interests me is that [the candidate] is good, man or woman.

He says he has no regrets about crashing out of power in 2019. Life is a risk we were part of a government which for the first year did good things, and then everything totally stopped, he said. M5S were against everything then they started to say Salvini is wrong on immigration. I was part of a government in which I couldnt manage to do what I promised to do.

In his stint as interior minister he introduced draconian anti-immigration measures that included closing refugee centres, scrapping humanitarian protection permits and blocking migrant arrivals. He is unfazed at being on trial in Palermo on kidnapping charges for preventing the arrival of 147 migrants onboard the NGO ship Open Arms in August 2019. I have no regrets. I did it [blocked the ships] 50 times and I would do it again. My main satisfaction from that period is that Europe remembered that Italy existed, he said.

Asked if he could ever conceive of creating a more humanitarian immigration policy, he said: Id like to have an ad hoc ministry for immigration and international cooperation, one that includes a humanitarian corridor to help bring in children from places like Libya and Afghanistan. He said a trained, foreign workforce could be useful for Italys economy. What I dont want is them arriving on boats, thats a mess.

Salvini gets tetchy when the topic of fascism arises. The League started out as a northern separatist party, with its founder, Umberto Bossi, lamenting damned fascists, before Salvini took the helm in 2013 and began its pivot towards the hard right.

Despite evoking fascist-era figures in some of his speeches and social media posts, he said the League has never had anything to do with fascists or nostalgia. As for the partnership with Brothers of Italy, a party that emerged from neofascists, he said: Even Brothers of Italy have changed. I hope that in 2021, fascism can be archived for everyone.

If general elections were held anytime soon, the League, Brothers of Italy and Forza Italia could easily surpass the 40% of the vote likely to be required to govern. Salvini said they performed better in the towns and provinces beyond the cities, which are more globalised, with things such as Amazon, and where there is less social connection. Between them, they already hold 14 out of 20 Italian regions. My objective now is the [national] vote. We are all in the hands of God but I am in good health. We will win.

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Matteo Salvini: I refuse to think of substituting 10m Italians with 10m migrants - The Guardian