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British Home Secretary Suella Braverman on Tuesday vowed to do whatever it takes to stop illegal immigration across the English Channel.

In her first major speech as home secretary, Braverman toldthe Conservative Party conference in Birmingham that she wants to cut [the] overall numbers of immigration, adding the UK shouldnt be relying wholly on low skilled foreign workers.

Invoking her own heritage as a second-generation immigrant, Braverman said her parents embraced British values and integrated into the community, which didnt meanabandoning their heritage.

The home secretary said British people are losing sight ofthe core values and the culture that made it so and have been led astray by a combination of unexamined drive towards multiculturalism as an end in itself and the corrosive aspects of identity politics.

Weve got to stop the boats crossing the Channel, Braver told the conference, referring to small boats carrying illegal immigrants who enter Britain by clandestinelycrossing the English Channel from France.

According to Home Office figures, the number of people smuggled into the UK in small boats has soared in recent years, with 28,526 people detected in 2021, compared to 8,466 in 2020, 1,843 in 2019, and 299 in 2018.

By the end of September, some 32,807 people had made the perilous journey this year.

Braverman said there are no quick fixes to the chronic problem, pledging her total and undeniable and unfettered and unconditional commitment to doing whatever it takes to tackle the issue.

The home secretary said she would work with the French to ramp up actions on the French coastline and against people-smuggling gangs; find a way to make the Rwanda scheme work; get asylum seekers out of hotels, which she said costs 5 million a day; and take back control of the UKs immigration policy from theEuropean Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

People who deliberately enter the United Kingdom illegally from a safe country should be swiftly returned to their home country or relocated to Rwanda, she said.

Bravermans predecessor Priti Patel signed a deal with Rwanda in April, allowing the UK to send illegal immigrants, including those who seek asylum, on a one-way flight to the African country.

But her first attempt to relocate people to Rwanda was frustrated by the ECHR in Strasbourg, which issued a last-minute injunction to ground the flighta decision Patel said was made in an opaque way and was politically motivated.

Braverman praised Patel and former Prime Minister Boris Johnson for making the groundbreaking deal, saying the UK needs to take back control fromthe Strasbourg court.

She also said the UKs modern slavery laws are being abused by people gaming the system, citing a 450 percent increase in modern slavery claims since 2014many of which she said are liesandanecdotes of foreign sex offenders blocking their removal by making modern slavery claims.

Braverman vowed to seek to introduce new legislation, saying, UK policy on illegal migration should not be derailed by abuse of our modern slavery laws, Labours Human Rights Act, or orders of the Strasbourg Court, and pledged todouble down on enforcement.

Braverman also said she wants Britain to cut overall numbers in immigration, in an apparent departure from the previous governments policy.

It comes after speculation that the government may loosen immigration rules for skilled immigrant workers to plug shortages in the labour market.

Braverman said theres absolutely no reason why we cant train up enough of our own HGV drivers, or butchers, or fruit pickers, adding, The way we build a high-skilled, high-wage economy is by encouraging business to invest in capital and domestic labour, not relying wholly on low skilled foreign workers.

Earlier on Tuesday, Braverman said at a fringe event of theConservative Party conference that it was her ultimate aspiration to fulfill the pledges of the Conservative governments under former Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron and reduce the number of net immigration to tens of thousands.

Im not going to commit to a number. I think we have got to definitely substantially reduce the number of students, the number of work visas, and in particular the number of dependents on those sorts of visas, she said.

Ditching the previous Conservative governments pledge to reduce immigration from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands, Johnson campaigned on an Australian-style points-based immigration system in 2019.

Under the policy his government introduced, EU citizens could no longer move to the UK without visas from Jan. 1, 2021, but there was a liberalisation of immigration policies for skilled non-EU workers.

A record-high number of visas were granted in the year ending June 2022, but thesize of post-Brexit net immigration is unknown, owing to an interruption of survey data collection during the COVID-19 pandemic and the Office for National Statisticss (ONSs) ongoing process of changing its estimation methods.

Thelatest ONS estimatesaid net immigration in the year ending June 2021 was around239,000, slightly down from the year ending June 2020 (260,000), but these estimates were based on experimental methods and are subject to uncertainty.

In her main speech, which ended in a standing ovation, Braverman said its the highest duties of [the] state to keepBritish people safe and secure borders.

She pledged to tackle violent crime, voicing her support for the police while telling the forces to get back to common-sense policing instead of pandering to identity politics.

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Lily Zhou is an Irish-based reporter focusing on UK news. Lily first joined the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times before turning her focus on the UK in 2020. Contact Lily at lily.zhou@epochtimes.com

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UK's Braverman Pledges 'Whatever It Takes' to Stop Illegal Immigration - The Epoch Times

Oct. 7Kevin McCarthy says if voters give Republicans control of the U.S. House of Representatives, his party will solve the immigration issue once and for all.

Don't count on it. The House minority leader is offering the same political pandering many in his party have been offering for years.

"We've watched what's happened to our border," McCarthy said in rolling out his plan, "the millions of people who are just walking across, people on the terrorist watch list. But now we're watching it create every community to be a border community."

Though McCarthy's "Commitment to America" calls for securing the southern border, it offers only vague policy solutions and nothing in the way of actual reform.

The plan resurrects a promise from former President Donald J. Trump, insisting that building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border will dramatically reduce illegal immigration. The plan does not mention that illegal immigration actually rose by 14% during the Trump administration or that Republicans have been blocking comprehensive immigration reform legislation for decades.

In other words, we'll be in for more of the same. Lots of fiery rhetoric. No real action.

Voters should demand more.

Angela Kelley, a former senior counselor at the Department of Homeland Security, summed up the challenge facing Democrats in a recent interview with NBC News.

"I think the administration is sometimes unsure how to articulate an answer to a complex problem when it is juxtaposed against a bumper sticker or a callous trick," she said.

There is hope for compromise.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn has been promoting a bill he introduced with Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona to help improve the efficiency of border screening and processing, and NBC News reports that lawmakers in both the House and Senate have had discussions about expanding visas for immigrants working in agriculture, construction and certain other crucial industries.

Story continues

Sinema discussed the issue in a recent speech.

"We've been stymied by political edges on both ends of the spectrum," she said. "One party that demands only border walls and security and another party that wants amnesty for millions of people. The reality is that we have to address both our security needs and our workforce needs."

President Joe Biden should take the lead on this issue.

He sent Congress a comprehensive bill to overhaul the immigration system on his first day in office, but he hasn't done a whole lot since to coax Congress into taking action.

Biden and his party should hand Republicans an ultimatum: Either join in finding a bipartisan solution to this crisis or be cast as nativists determined to block migration to the United States.

The time for partisan rhetoric is behind us. Our representatives in Washington need to stop posturing and actually roll up their sleeves to get something done.

Continued here:
EDITORIAL: Time to tackle immigration reform - Yahoo News

KRGV the ABC affiliate in Texas Rio Grande Valley (RGV) reported recently that the morgues in Maverick County, Texas, are running out of space due to the number of migrants found dead on the Rio Grande at a rate of one body per day. Two weeks later, Fox News reported that the Biden administration has awarded $41 million in taxpayer-backed government contracts to a new liberal nonprofit working to help illegal immigrants fight deportation amid the escalating border crisis. Theres a lot tying those grants and the administrations border policies generally to the morgues of Maverick County.

Refrigerated Trailers to Handle the Dead. Eagle Pass is the county seat of Maverick County, and KRGV quoted the towns fire chief, Manuel Melo III, who explained his jurisdiction is recovering one migrant found dead daily, approximately 30 a month, although he admitted: There were some days where we did recover six bodies.

There is a lot in that one statement. First, if you have never been there, Maverick County at 1,287 square miles is big (about 20 percent larger than Rhode Island), but with a population of just over 58,000, is also sparsely populated. Nearly half of the countys residents live in Eagle Pass, itself largely just a dusty outpost on the ride from Laredo to Del Rio.

Its no wonder that, at a rate of one body per day, the local morgues (capacity: fewer than eight) are overwhelmed. As KRGV reports:

In a scene eerily similar to the height of the pandemic, the dead are being stored in refrigerated trucks. The county is also currently borrowing a refrigerated trailer from Eagle Pass with the capacity to store up to 30 bodies.

Jeannie Smith, a Maverick County justice of the peace for Precinct 3-2, explains that the recovery and disposition of the corpses is causing a strain on the county (likely an understatement), while according to KRGV, the local medical examiner is not surprisingly facing a backlog in cases.

Open Borders and the Untold Dangers of Illegal Migration. Second, and most importantly, each of the dead was a human being with a family, hopes, plans, a life. They showed up at the Southwest border to enter illegally because their hopes and plans were to continue that life in this country.

And why wouldnt they? Ever since Joe Biden was sworn in as president, and administration assertions to the contrary notwithstanding, the U.S. border hasnt just been open, its been nonexistent for all intents and purposes.

In fact, Bidens DHS Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, has admitted that the administrations objective is not to sharply reduce the total number of illegal immigrants coming across the southern border, but rather to make sure that we have safe, orderly, and legal pathways for individuals to be able to access our legal system once they have entered. I will get back to that point below.

While the administration can spend tens of millions in taxpayer dollars to provide transportation, food, and shelter for illegal entrants once they are on this side of the border, there is little to nothing it can do to make the trip to our Southwest border any safer.

That is the nature of the illicit trek north, particularly given the fact that the journey is largely stage-managed by rapacious (in the truest sense of the word) smugglers and criminal cartels on the other side.

Many would argue that migrants understand and accept the risks before setting out from their home countries, but I seriously doubt that is true. What kind of parents would knowingly expose themselves and their children to rape, robbery, kidnap, and extortion, let alone dangerous and terrifying crossings in remote desert areas, across rivers, over fences, and through razor wire, if they understood those dangers ahead of time?

As I explained back in 2018, there was a time (under the Obama administration) that outlets as diverse as NPR and National Geographic reported on those dangers, likely because they were taking their lead from the White House. When was the last time that you heard President Biden, Vice President Harris, or any other administration official talk about the hellish journey to illegally enter the United States?

Why the silence since? I can offer a couple of opinions, one of which is that migrant deaths to say nothing of rapes, robberies, and assaults paint the administrations border policies in a bad light. That said, it is undeniably true as my colleague Mark Krikorian explained a year ago that such policies create an attractive nuisance to the illegal migrants coming to take advantage of them.

Attractive Nuisance Doctrine. Attractive nuisance is a tort doctrine, generally defined as a dangerous condition on a landowner's property that may particularly attract children onto the land and pose a risk to their safety. Think unfenced pools and ladders left propped against houses.

Most of those illegal entrants are not children (though more than a hundred thousand under Biden have been), but as Krikorian explained, consistent with that doctrine, if you dont put a fence around your country, and migrants suffer harm trying to get in, your government is liable.

Not only has the Biden administration drawn illegal migrants to enter at their peril by increasingly facilitating their indefinite presence in this country once they make it to this side of the line, but also by providing them with food, shelter, and transportation here. Which brings me to the $41 million in grants to provide them with lawyers in the United States.

Immigration violations can be both criminal and civil offenses. Illegal entry is a misdemeanor as a first offense carrying a maximum sentence of six months, and consequently a charge for that crime does not trigger a constitutional right to counsel. Not that the administration is prosecuting many illegal entrants anyway.

Illegal entry is also a civil violation, which renders the offender removable from the United States. Although section 292 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) provides that aliens in removal proceedings shall have the privilege of being represented, that provision is clear that any such representation shall be at no expense to the Government.

How, then, is the Biden administration providing grants to provide lawyers to aliens facing removal? Good question.

As I explained in July, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA) directs the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to ensure, to the greatest extent practicable that all unaccompanied alien children [UACs] apprehended by DHS have counsel to represent them in legal proceedings or matters and protect them from mistreatment, exploitation, and trafficking.

Similar language appeared in the Homeland Security Act (HSA), as well. That said, both the HSA and TVPRA make clear that the provision of such counsel for UACs must be consistent with section 292 of the INA which, as noted, provides for representation, but not at government expense.

Despite this fact, the HHS FY 2022 funding bill provided $300 million for legal services, post-release services, and child advocates for UACs. Whether the $41 million in grants for lawyers to which Fox News refers is part of that funding is unclear from its reporting.

That said, it should not be the policy of the United States government to encourage aliens to enter the United States illegally at their peril, and that is particularly true when it comes to children. But that is exactly what funding schemes of the sort to which Fox News refers do they provide incentives, in the form of paid counsel, drawing aliens to risk life, safety, and dignity to enter illegally.

Not only does such funding provide incentives to would-be migrants, but it also sends out a message to the world that the United States is not serious about enforcing its laws or its borders. Thats even though, as former President Obama explained last September, [W]e're a nation state. We have borders. The idea that we can just have open borders is something that ... as a practical matter, is unsustainable.

Through the end of August, Border Patrol agents have engaged in nearly 20,500 searches and rescues at the Southwest border in FY 2022, more than four times the total during the border emergency in FY 2019. Why are so many aliens risking their lives and the lives of those agents? The Biden administration isnt trying to stop them from coming and, worse, is providing them incentives once they get here. Thats what ties the presidents border policies to the overwhelmed morgues of Maverick County, Texas.

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Paid Counsel for Illegal Aliens Fills the Morgues of Maverick County - Immigration Blog

The remaining migrants who landed on Marthas Vineyard last month and were temporarily housed at Joint Base Cape Cod have left, the Baker administration said Friday.

A group of 35 primarily Venezuelan migrants was housed at the base in Buzzards Bay as of Tuesday, while another 14 had already left. State officials said then that they planned to transition the remaining individuals to long-term housing with the help of case managers.

A spokesperson for the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security said Friday that the sheltering operation at the base is over, with all individuals transitioning into alternative housing or leaving the Commonwealth for opportunities in other states.

The administration is grateful for the collaborative efforts between several state agencies and non-profit providers to ensure each individual received necessary humanitarian resources and access to new housing options, the spokesperson said in a statement.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis organized flights for the migrants to Marthas Vineyard from San Antonio, Texas, a move that has triggered a federal lawsuit, renewed a contentious debate around federal immigration policies, and drawn sharp pushback from both Florida and Massachusetts Democrats.

They landed to the surprise of residents on the island, though locals quickly provided immediate shelter, food, medical services, and eventually, legal assistance. State officials transitioned the group to Joint Base Cape Cod several days after their arrival.

The migrants arrival came as other Republican governors shipped immigrants who crossed the United States border into a southern community to Democratic-led cities or states in the north. The decision to transport the migrants, some of those governors have said, is intended to highlight immigration issues in the south.

But it has drawn the ire of many elected officials, including a swath of politicians in Massachusetts, who say Republicans like DeSantis are using vulnerable humans to score political points.

The lawsuit, filed by Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights, alleges a group of five unnamed defendants allegedly rounded up the migrants outside a resource center in San Antonio with the promise of employment and assistance in Massachusetts.

But it was not until they were on the plane, according to the lawsuit, that the migrants were informed that Marthas Vineyard was their destination, not Boston or New York as some said they had been told.

Some of the migrants identified two of the unnamed defendants as Perla and Emanuel. And media reports have named Perla as Perla Huerta, a former counterintelligence official and combat medic.

Bexar County Sheriffs Office in San Antonio is also reportedly investigating Huerta, and attorneys with Lawyers for Civil Rights say they are working to confirm Huerta is the same person as Perla before updating the identity in their lawsuit.

LCR Executive Director Ivn Espinoza-Madrigal said Perla played an integral on-the-ground recruiting role in DeSantis scheme, inducing migrants in San Antonio to fly with false promises of employment, education, and housing.

Once we have verified this information, we plan to amend our complaint to substitute Perlas true name for Doe Defendant #1. She will then be formally served with the complaint and required to respond in federal district court, he said in a statement.

A DeSantis spokesperson previously said the lawsuit is activists using illegal immigrants for political theater.

If these activists spent even a fraction of this time and effort at the border, perhaps some accountability would be brought to the Biden administrations reckless border policies that entice illegal immigrants to make dangerous and often lethal journeys through Central America and put their lives in the hands of cartels and coyotes, the spokesperson said.

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Migrants leave Joint Base Cape Cod after landing in Mass. last month - MassLive.com

Company bosses who employ illegal migrants face tougher penalties under plans by Suella Braverman to deter Channel crossings.

The Home Secretary has been stung by French claims that migrants are crossing the Channel because they see Britain as a soft touch where it is easy for illegal migrants to get work in the black economy. Studies have suggested there are as many as 1.2 million unauthorised immigrants in the UK.

She is considering whether tougher fines and longer jail sentences are needed to penalise employers and illegal workers. Company bosses who take on illegal migrants can be jailed for up to five years and pay an unlimited fine under current laws.

She also wants stronger enforcement of the current regulation, after she discovered the number fines being issued for breaches have slumped - just as the number of illegal migrants crossing the Channel has hit a record high of 33,000 so far this year.

Internal data show the number of fines fell from 837 - worth 13.8 million in the first three months of 2016 - to just 152, worth 2.5 million, in the first quarter of this year.

Ms Braverman signalled her intent at this weeks Tory conference, when she pledged to redouble our efforts to go after rule-breaking employers and stamp out illegal working practices.

It is widely believed in France that the reason people come to the UK is that it is easy to work illegally, said a source.

It is not clear whether we are any better or worse than France, but that is their belief.

It is possibly the belief of a lot of illegal migrants. It is very difficult to judge what makes up the pull factors.

The tougher rules come alongside plans for new legislation, due after Christmas, that will bar anyone who arrives in the UK illegally from the right to claim citizenship or to settle in the UK.

The new law will also aim to sweep away obstacles to sending illegal migrants to Rwanda. This will include measures, previously set out in the abandoned Bill of Rights, to stop the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg from blocking UK immigration measures.

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Stiff penalties for firms that employ illegal migrants as UK seeks to lose 'soft touch' reputation - The Telegraph