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The route to Europe via Belarus may be one of the safest, but its all relative. Since the beginning of this year, as many as ten bodies of dead migrants have been found in the forests near the border on the Polish side, bringing the total known to have died since the crisis began in 2021 to 40.

There are many more bodies being found in this period than before, confirmed Palecka, adding that the Border Guard reported finding only four dead bodies throughout the whole of 2022.

But we, the activists, were always suspicious of the fact that only four bodies were found throughout the whole of last year. On the contrary, this is a rather unsettling fact; it only shows that the state of emergency imposed at the border for most of last year, which limited freedom of movement close to the border, meant less searches could be conducted, she said. It is very possible there are more dead bodies in the forest.

This concern is heightened by fact that the greatest burden of searching for missing migrants is being borne by activist groups such as the Volunteer Humanitarian Ambulance in Podlaskie (Podlaskie Ochotnicze Pogotowie Humanitarne) and Grupa Granica, which receive information about missing people from their families or friends, and go in search of them in the forests.

As Palecka explained, Grupa Granica has been able to track down about a third of the 300 people reported missing to them an impressive feat for a group made up largely of volunteers and NGO workers.

The Polish authorities themselves do not search for people missing in the forests, Palecka said, except when activists directly report an emergency to them, i.e. when they know of a migrant potentially stuck in a dangerous location, like a swamp. In such cases, drones are sent to spot the exact location and more specialised gear is used to pull them out.

Sometimes, the activists only find human remains. And even when a body is found, it is mostly the activists who try to identify the person and assist in the funeral arrangements.

Prosecutors are responsible for starting an investigation once a dead body is found in the forest, Palecka said. People should not be dying in the forest. So, if a body is found there, it means something bad has happened.

But in many cases these investigations are not pursued, the sociologist complained, pointing to a significant discrepancy between the number of deaths on the border officially acknowledged by the Border Guard and the number of dead bodies counted by activists and independent Polish media.

Efforts to identify the victims and give them proper burials are made more difficult by the fact that members of their families, who should normally come to identify the bodies, often cannot themselves get visas.

In some cases, the activists and families back home manage to raise the funds to send the bodies back home, but other times they dont and the victims are buried in Polish cemeteries, with the funeral broadcast via social media, which is tragic, she said.

As the advent of spring brings signs that the attempts by migrants to cross are intensifying, can the activists continue shouldering the burden of dealing with the human cost of keeping this border closed?

While the Polish authorities have gotten professionalised in conducting illegal mass pushbacks, we have also gotten more professionalised in providing humanitarian aid, Palecka claimed. We are more efficient, we are able to spot faster the most vulnerable people, and we have procedures in place to help them.

But there are also feelings of helplessness associated with doing this. When public opinion no longer seems interested in this border, even when four dead bodies are found in a single week, then there is a sense of loneliness, she said.

This interview is part of a series of articles on migration co-authored by BIRN and Gazeta Wyborcza. This article was published as part of the project re:framing Migrants in European Media supported by the European Commission and coordinated by the European Culture Foundation.

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Polish-Belarus Border: From Migration Crisis to 'Routinization' of ... - Balkan Insight

Woke welcome signs welcoming illegal Channel migrants in Dover will be taken down and replaced.

New signage will inform new arrivals that they have broken the law and will be deported from the United Kingdom.

Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick was said to have been left shocked by the welcome signs.

A source told the Telegraph: He has ordered that they remove all of the woke signage and make it unambiguously clear to arrivals that they have broken the law and that they can expect to be removed, and that if they facilitated arrivals they can expect to be told they will be prosecuted.

Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick wants to make it clear to arrivals that they have broken the law and can expect to be removed

PA

It needs to be a law enforcement environment for those who have broken the law and entered the UK illegally, not a welcome centre.

Border Force staff will also receive new powers to seize and examine migrants mobile phones.

The devices have been described as a potential gold mine of intelligence which can help establish who migrants are, where they have been and where they have come from.

Modified powers from an amendment made to the Illegal Migrant Bill will come alongside the creation of a specialist team of experts to examine phones in real time.

People-smugglers encourage those making the perilous 21-mile journey to ditch any documents.

A Freedom of Information request made last year showed only two per cent of 16,510 migrants were picked up by Border Force with passports.

Border Force has also been told by Jenrick to conduct more probing interviews of migrants.

A source added: We want to strengthen our understanding of migrants patterns with a view to tackling the migrant crisis more upstream.

Migrants can be held for up to five days in the Garden of Englands Manston processing centre

PA

Migrants can be held for up to five days in the Garden of Englands Manston processing centre, up from the 24-hour rule previously in place.

Extending the period in which migrants can stay at Manston should allow more time to question and investigate those arriving on British shores.

Rishi Sunak pledged to stop the boats as he set out the pillars for which voters should judge his stint in Downing Street.

Recent legislation announced that anyone found to have entered the country illegally would not only be removed from the UK within 28 days but also blocked from returning or claiming British citizenship.

Rishi Sunak pledged to stop the boats as he set out the pillars for which voters should judge his stint in Downing Street

PA

The Prime Ministers plan will see those arriving in small boats either returning to their home nation or another safe third country, such as Rwanda.

However, official figures have shown that more than 5,000 migrants have already crossed the English Channel in 2023.

The same milestone was reached just four days earlier in 2022.

A record-breaking 45,000 people made the journey by the end of last year.

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Migrant crisis: 'Woke' Dover signs welcoming asylum seekers to be ... - GB News

GRODNO, 18 April (BelTA) - The exhibition "The Border Between Life and Death" opened in Grodno on 18 April, BelTA has learned.

"Grodno is really a special place. This is the region where everything happened. People living in Grodno Oblast do not require additional explanations because they were witnesses of those events. Doctors in Grodno hospitals performed operations, treated migrants, delivered babies. The police, the Emergencies Ministry, social workers, and the Red Cross were involved in the humanitarian effort. Grodno Oblast together with the whole country helped refugees. But it was Grodno Oblast that was on the forefront, BelTA Director General Irina Akulovich told the media.

These photos are evidence of everything that really happened, Irina Akulovich said. "You can say a lot of words or you can capture things through the lens of a camera. The photos feature the eyes of children and mothers, pain, human tragedy. The horror of a real war against humanity, against a human being... We cannot allow people to forget about it and move on. This must not be forgotten. We want people to remember. Each of us can contribute and make the world a better place. Remembering such stories, everyone should think about how to change it. This is what the head of state talks about," Irina Akulovich said.

Sections of the exhibition tell about one day in the life of a refugee camp, show the face of European democracy, deceived and disadvantaged people, European values in the eyes of children and the graciousness of the Belarusian military. One of BelTA's photojournalists, who worked on the Belarusian-Polish border back then was Leonid Shcheglov. He called the experience of working on the border then as colossal. Passing by the rows of photos, Leonid Shcheglov recalled which of them he made. Stopping at a photo of a pregnant woman by the bonfire, he said: "I remember this pregnant woman. She immediately caught my eye. She gave birth in a maternity hospital in Grodno. Pictures of children, of course, also evoke great emotions.

"Thousands of people were in dire need. It is difficult to see such massive suffering of people. We had to help them quickly. It is good that we have the photos that captured that story so that we can once again look at and impartially evaluate those events. The head of state visited the refugee camp. He followed the development of events from the first days, gave instructions, and we immediately fulfilled them. No one stood aside saying it's none of my business'," Assistant to the President - Inspector for Grodno Oblast Yuri Karayev added.

"The exhibition evokes a lot of emotions. Those events happened recently. This is the true face of Western democracy," said Aleksandr Rodionov, a visitor to the exhibition.

Zinaida, a resident of Grodno, cannot hold back her emotions either. "You look at the photos and your heart sinks. It is very painful to see these photos now and revisit those events that we followed with bated breath," the woman said.

The photo exhibition has already been on display at the Mikhail Savitsky Art Gallery, Minsk National Airport, railway stations in Minsk and Brest.

Photos by Leonid Shcheglov

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BelTA's photo exhibition about migrant crisis on Belarus-Poland ... - Belarus News (BelTA)

Metro

By Bernadette Hogan and Emily Crane

April 19, 2023 | 5:57pm

With state lawmakers repeatedly blowing their budget deadline, and city taxpayers likely on the hook for more of the ongoing migrant crisis, Big Apple fiscal experts are considering drastic scenarios for cuts to city government, Mayor Eric Adams insisted Wednesday.

Hizzoner argued the states drawn-out financial talks, whose end is now nearly three weeks overdue, will seriously impact his own budget estimates including how the city will meet the needs of newly arrived border-crossers, as well as Hochuls proposed MTA payroll tax and lifting of the charter school cap.

Were looking at the different dollars in the state budget that may be attached to what were doing here, Adams told reporters at City Hall.

Remember, we have to balance our budget for two years. And right now, we dont know exactly whats going to come out of Albany.

The mayor added that his budget director, Jacques Jiha, was currently grappling with how to balance the citys books without the uncertainty.

Normally, the budget is balanced. You know what youre going to produce. So we are still in negotiation to get it clear to our delegation in Albany that we need the help, said Adams, adding that he had already pressed Hochuls office to understand the urgency.

City Hall must adhere to an April 26 deadline to reveal Adams executive budget proposal.

Legislators in Albany, meanwhile, passed yet another extender on Tuesday as negotiations over its spending plan dragged well past an April 1 deadline.

The mayor has already lamented that Hochuls proposals will set the city back a small fortune, specifically citing the governors call for the city to fork out $500 million a year to bail out the floundering Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Adams has also taken issue with how the city could be on the hook for $1 billion in lease payments under Hochuls plan tolift the capon new city charter schools and roughly $3 billion to cover the cost of the migrant crisis.

The Adams administrationlast week ordered city agencies to slash a total of $1 billion annually from their budgets for the next four years blaming the move, in part, on the migrant surge.

Left-leaning City Council members quickly claimed the cuts werent necessary because of an alleged $1.3 billion extra in cash floating around this year to offset costs.

But Adams insisted Wednesday the city needed to plan for the worst, both because there is no guarantee of final state funding and due to the lack of adequate financial assistance from the Biden administration on the migrant front.

Hochuls budget proposal has called for the state, city and feds to split NYCs migrant crisis costs equally but Adams said it was likely the Big Apple will be on the hook for a larger share.

Were not getting the third out of Washington! Lets be clear on that. That third becomes two-thirds for New York City, Adams said.

Jiha, the budget director, said the city needs to come up with a minimum of $3 billion to cover its share of the cost of the ballooning migrant crisis, which is now pegged at $4.3 billion.

This is a huge burden. And were not raising taxes. So the only way we could manage is to find efficiencies in other places in city government, he said.

Adams insisted Wednesday he didnt want any potential budget cuts to greatly impact New Yorkers.

We dont want to be in a position to have to lay off New Yorkers because that only aggravates the problem, the mayor said.

And we also know that New Yorkers are going through very difficult times, so we dont want to raise taxes.

The Hochul administration didnt immediately respond to The Posts request for comment.

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Albany's budget delay is messing with NYC's finances, Eric Adams warns - New York Post

Documenteds reporters have been unrelenting in their coverage of New York Citys migration crisis following the rapid increase in the arrival of migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border to New York in the summer of 2022.

Now, their efforts have been crowned in an annual awards contest by the Deadline Club the NYC chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Our coverage is among the finalists selected from 550 entries to the Deadline Clubs 2023 Awards Contest. There are 36 categories in the contest. Coverage about the Citys migration crisis from Documenteds Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio and Rommel H. Ojeda was named finalist for The Les Payne Award for Coverage on Communities of Color. The news outlets Bloomberg News and NBC News were the two other finalists in the same category as Documented.

Giulia and Rommel have covered the migration crisis impact on mental health, reporting on the story of a mother who died by suicide at a Queens shelter while living with her children.

Last year, Rommel, who oversees Documenteds WhatsApp community platform and covers Spanish-speaking New Yorkers, wrote a community-powered investigation, with the freelance journalist Luca Cholakian Herrera, about how asylum seekers use TikTok to document their journey from South America to the U.S. border. He has also written actionable information on working rights for undocumented workers and asylum seekers, and how to find a detained family member.

Just last Friday, Rommel was telling us in the newsroom that one thing that made him happy was that we had a guide to everything someone on our WhatsApp platform was asking for that morning.

Shortly after that, he connected another migrant to City sources that eventually helped her get her travel documents to return to Peru. Bittersweet, Rommel said. But she was super thankful.

Giulia, our immigration enforcement reporter, who is also a Report for America Corps member, has reported on the scarcity of resources at shelters, the lack of legal representation and the long lines outside of immigration court hearings. She has also shown how migrant children are adjusting to their new lives in the City.

It was evident from the beginning that many migrants did not have any local family members to help them navigate the City. Despite our staffs efforts to provide directions and explanations, some information was still incomprehensible to them. Hence, we developed two additional websites to aid migrants in navigating their new home: http://www.newimmigrants.nyc and http://www.nuevosinmigrantes.nyc.

Winners of the Deadline Clubs 2023 Awards will be announced during the Clubs annual awards dinner on Thursday, May 18 at the Harvard Club.

We provide indispensable news and information for and about New Yorks immigrant community. Your support will enable that work to continue. Donate here.

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Documented's coverage of New York City's migration crisis named ... - Documented NY