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By David Wilcock, Deputy Political Editor For Mailonline 09:44 01 May 2023, updated 13:01 01 May 2023

Albania's prime minister has launched another scathing attack on the UK for accusing his country of fuelling the Channel migrant crisis.

Edi Rama said the UK was in 'a bad place' and having a 'nervous breakdown' over the flow of thousands of people from the Continent in small boats.

He has already attacked the language used by Home SecretarySuella Braverman in the Commons last year when she blasted 'Albanian criminals' sneaking into the UK.

Speaking at an economic event in Greece, Mr Rama said the UK was targeting his nation 'to feel like they still have muscle'.

'We have fought against [this language] and now we see they have calmed down a bit. But they are going through something of a nervous breakdown as a country so we have to understand them,' he told the Delphi Economic Forum, according to the Independent.

'It is not something we can't understand, we have to understand them. They have lost a lot of points of reference and they are really in a bad, bad place.'

It came as a Border Force boat carrying 80 migrants picked up in the Channel arrived in Dover this morning.

Figures showed that at least 13,000 Albanians entered Britain on small boats last year - just under a third of all arrivals.

Mr Rama signed a bilateral deal with Rishi Sunak in December designed in part to help tackle illegal immigration.

But he has made no secret of his distaste for remarks made by Ms Braverman and others.

Butfigures obtained by The Mail on Sunday show 75 per cent of Albanian nationals who have arrived illegally have since committed at least one criminal offence in the UK.

And 30 per cent of Britain's class-A drug trade is now controlled by Albanian gang lords.

Albanians many of whom arrived illegally in Britain on lorries and small boats are now the biggest contingent of foreign prisoners in UK jails, with 1,582 locked up here.

This year so far, 93 Albanians have been jailed at a cost to the taxpayer of 17million for serious offences such as murder, rape and kidnapping and burglary, including 14 in the past week.

They include six killers, one rapist, a kidnapper, five class-A drug dealers and 56 cannabis growers.

Of the 93 jailed, at least 53 came to the UK illegally, either on small boats or in the back of lorries.

Albanians made up the biggest proportion of the more than 45,000 people who crossed the Channel illegally last year.

At one stage last summer, they represented 60 per cent of arrivals in small boats.

Thousands sought asylum, even though Albania is considered 'safe and hospitable' by the Foreign Office.

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Albanian prime minister Edi Rama accuses UK of having a 'nervous breakdown' over Channel migrants - Daily Mail

FIRST ON FOX: A House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Wednesday will feature the testimony from a whistleblower who will warn lawmakers that the U.S. has become the "middleman" in a multibillion dollar migrant child trafficking operation at the border.

The hearing, "The Biden Border Crisis: Exploitation of Unaccompanied Alien Children," will be held by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement and will examine the surge in unaccompanied children (UACs) at the southern border.

According to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics, the number of UACs who arrive at the border has swelled from 33,239 in fiscal year2020 to more than 146,000 in fiscal year2021 and 152,000 in fiscal year2022. So far in fiscal year2023, there have been more than 70,000 encounters of unaccompanied children.

When child migrants are encountered at the border, they are transferred into the custody of Health and Human Services (HHS) and then united with a sponsor typically a parent or family member already in the U.S.

HHS CHIEF UNFAMILIAR WITH REPORTS THAT AGENCY CAN'T CONTACT 85,000 UNACCOMPANIED MIGRANT KIDS

According to Customs and Border Protection statistics, the number of unaccompanied children who arrive at the southern border has surged since fiscal year2020. (AP Photo / Dario Lopez-Mills / Pool / File)

But the Biden administration has been rocked by a number of reports that officials have been unable to make contact with more than 85,000 child migrants; and more recently, administration officials reportedly ignored signs of "explosive" growth in child labor. A number have been forced into indentured servitude to pay back smugglers and have worked in dire conditions.

The Wednesday hearing will hear from three witnesses: Tara Lee Rodas, a HHS whistleblower formerly with an inspector general's office; Sheena Rodriguez, founder and president of Alliance for a Safe Texas; and Jessica Vaughan, director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies.

Rodas will warn of a problem that predates the administration but has increased significantly during the recent migrant crisis, according to a copy of her written testimony obtained by Fox News Digital.

"Today, children will work overnight shifts at slaughterhouses, factories, restaurants to pay their debts to smugglers and traffickers. Today, children will be sold for sex," she will say. "Today, children will call a hotline to report they are being abused, neglected, and trafficked. For nearly a decade, unaccompanied children have been suffering in the shadows."

Rodaswill talk about her volunteering at an emergency intake site in California to help the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) identify sponsors for minors who have come across the border.

"I thought I was going to help place children in loving homes. Instead, I discovered that children are being trafficked through a sophisticated network that begins with being recruited in their home country, smuggled to the U.S. border, and ends when ORR delivers a child to a sponsor some sponsors are criminals and traffickers and members of Transnational Criminal Organizations. Some sponsors view children as commodities and assets to be used for earning income this is why we are witnessing an explosion of labor trafficking," Rodas' written remarks show.

DHS REMOVED JUST 409 OF 345,000 UNACCOMPANIED CHILD MIGRANTS SINCE FISCAL YEAR 2021

"Whether intentional or not, it can be argued that the U.S. Government has become the middleman in a large scale, multi-billion-dollar, child trafficking operation run by bad actors seeking to profit off the lives of children."

Rodriguez, of the Alliance for a Safe Texas, will share her experiences of encountering unaccompanied children at the border, including teenage boys whom she said told her that cartel cooperatives transported children through Mexico and held them at warehouses with armed guards. She will also call for the investigation of federal agencies responsible and for the ending of releasing migrants to sponsors.

"We can no longer turn a blind eye and pretend this isnt happening. Congress has the power to stop this, which is why I am calling on you to do what is right," her testimony says.

BIDEN ADMIN WARNS MIGRANTS THAT ENTERING ILLEGALLY WILL RESULT IN REMOVAL AMID FEARS OF POST-TITLE 42 SURGE

Vaughan will call, too, for congressional action, including the ending of legal loopholes that she says force the government "to operate a massive catch and release program for illegally-arriving alien children."

"They have been carelessly funneled through the custody of U.S. government agencies and contractors, and handed off to very lightly vetted sponsors (who are usually also here illegally) in our communities without regard to their safety and well-being," she will say. "There is no question that the system for processing minors who cross illegally is dysfunctional, and has been for some time, and needs to be fixed."

Last month, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra pushed back on the agency being unable to contact 85,000 minors, and he also said HHS authorities are limited by Congress.

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"I have never heard that number of 85,000, I dont know where it comes from and so I would say it doesnt sound at all to be realistic, and what we do is we try and follow up as best we can with these kids," he said.

"Congress has given us certain authorities. Our authorities end when we have found a suitable sponsor to place that child with. We try and do some follow-up, but neither the child or the sponsor is actually obligated to follow up with us," he said.

Meanwhile, domestic policy adviser Susan Rice who left her role this week responded to the Times report that her team was shown evidence of a growing migrant child labor crisis.

"We were never informed of any kind of systematic problem with child labor or migrant child labor," she said.

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Whistleblower to tell House that US govt is 'middleman' in multibillion dollar migrant child trafficking op - Fox News

Metro

By Bernadette Hogan, Steven Nelson and Jesse ONeill

April 19, 2023 | 12:56pm

Mayor Eric Adams blasted President Biden on Wednesday, saying the White House had turned its back on the Big Apple and left the city to handle the arrival of thousands of migrants on its own a situation Hizzoner said had triggered one of the largest humanitarian crises that this city has ever experienced.

The national government has turned its back on New York City, said Adams, blaming a projected $4.2 billion budget shortfall on the feds inaction. Every service in this city is going to be impacted by the asylum seeker crisis.

This is in the lap of the president of the United States! The president of the United States can give us the ability to allow people to work.This is in the lap of the executive branch of the United States of America, the mayor added, claiming that most migrants had come to New York to work and support themselves but are prohibited from doing so legally for the first six months of their stay.

More than 55,000 foreigners claiming to be seeking refuge from persecution and violence have arrived in NYC over the past year.

Some 200 asylum seekers arrive in the city every day, and it costs $380 per day per household to provide them with food and shelter, according to City Hall.

Most of the migrants, about 34,600 of them, are being put up in taxpayer-funded emergency shelters mostly hotels with thousands more dropped off at eight Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers (HERRCs).

Over 50,000 people come to the city of New York seeking assistance and we are told, You will not allow them to work, you have to give them food, clothing if they need, give them the basic services that they need, youre supposed to make sure they have three meals a day, make sure that all the children are educated and while youre doing that, New York City, were not going to give you anything in return,' Adams complained.

The situation will only become more costly and dire next month, when the Title 42 health policy is set to expire, the mayor said. The pandemic-era emergency measure that was continued by the Biden administration let officials quickly expel millions of asylum seekers on public health grounds.

Thousands of people are waiting to come across the border and potentially come to New York City, Adams warned. So 52,000 can jump to 100,000, if we dont get this under control. It does this great city a disservice and were calling on the Biden-Harris administration, the United States Department of Homeland Security, they must use all tools that are available to resolve this issue.

The mayor later claimed that in some ways, the city was a victim of its own success because it had paid for sheltering migrants without raising taxes or laying off municipal workers. However, Adams recently ordered city agencies to slash $4 billion from their budgets over the next four years to pay for the massive humanitarian effort.

The money god just doesnt appear and drop it in front of us, he said. As it currently stands, our national government has abandoned the city and their action or inaction could undermine this city. Everything weve fought for is in jeopardy if we dont get this right.

Gotham is set to receive about $1 billion from Albany to mitigate migrant costs in addition to a still-to-be-determined share of an $800 million relief package approved by federal lawmakers.

When asked what DC has said in response to his repeated requests for cash, Adams answered: We constantly hear, We understand your pain.

I dont need to understand, I need help, he implored. We need help from the federal government.

The White House responded by attempting to deflect criticism for insufficient funding onto fiscally conservative House Republicans, even though Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress until January.

Were proud of our partnership with Mayor Adams and the significant investments weve made in New York City through the Presidents historic legislative accomplishments, including the American Rescue Plan and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, a White House official said.

Weve invested historic funds to improve the citys infrastructure, including its iconic bridges, tunnels, and airports. We quickly worked to get vaccines out to New Yorkers and provided the city resources to safely re-open its schools. FEMA is also providing assistance to support the city as it receives migrants and will announce additional funding for receiving cities like New York City in the coming weeks, but we need Congress to provide the funds and resources weve requested to fix our long-broken immigration system.

Adams was set to go to Washington on Friday for the African American Mayors Association conference and to meet with White House officials about the migrant crisis.

Meanwhile, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams joined members of New Yorks congressional delegation and immigration activists at the Capitol on Wednesday to demand federal action on immigration reform and migrant funding.

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Adams blames $4.2B budget shortfall on Biden admin's migrant crisis inaction - New York Post

With Mayor Eric Adams calls for the White House to assist the city with the migrant crisis falling on deaf ears, he declared on Wednesday that the national government has turned its back on New York City.

Adams made the pronouncement perhaps his sharpest rebuke of President Biden to date as he called on the White House to pursue pathways for granting work authorizations to the citys over 55,000 recently arrived migrants who are seeking to work during a Wednesday morning news conference at City Hall. He also decried the mounting cost of the crisis, which his budget director now estimates will reach $4.3 billion over the current and next fiscal years, while emphasizing its been the driving force behind his most recent round of budget cuts.

Adams preliminary budget proposal for the coming fiscal year totaled $102.7 billion.

While getting financial assistance from the feds for the crisis seems nearly impossible with House Republicans controlling Congress purse strings, Adams said giving work authorizations to migrants falls squarely on Biden, as its something he can do without Congressional approval.

This is in the lap of the President of the United States. The President of the United States can give us the ability to allow people to work, the mayor said. Were calling [on] the Biden and [Vice President Kamala] Harris administration, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), they must use all tools that are available to resolve this issue. We want them to ensure asylum seekers can start to work immediately. Fortunately, they can act with a stroke of a pen.

Adams said the feds can allow more migrants to work by following three main paths: re-designating and extending Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for migrants from several countries including Venezuela, Honduras and El Salvador; expanding access to humanitarian parole for newly arrived asylum seekers and those who are already in the country; and increasing the number of immigration workers who process TPS applications, so they can be reviewed more quickly.

Although many of the asylum seekers whove arrived here over the past 12 months are ready and willing to work, Adams said, Washington isnt allowing them to.

We have always said that the asylum seeker crisis is a national crisis that requires a coordinated response from the federal government, Adams said. It is why we need the federal government to take these necessary steps that would allow asylum seekers to support themselves and integrate into our communities. And we hear those who are saying Why arent they working? Well, this is why theyre not working, theyre not given the authorization to do so. And this is wrong.

According to Mayors Office of Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Manuel Castro, not permitting migrants to seek legal employment forces them to work off the books. That could ultimately lead to them getting deported back to the countries they fled from in many cases to escape political violence.

Not giving the ability to someone to work legally, and be able to provide for themselves and for their families is cruel and inhumane, Castro said. You put asylum seekers in a desperate situation. If they work informally, they risk being deported, and [are] forced to return back to the dangerous places they are fleeing from. And for some, this means being separated from their families.

The mayor said Biden needs to move quickly on enacting these policies before Title 42, a pandemic-era rule the administration has used to limit the number of migrants flowing into the country, expires on May 11. When the rule lifts, he said, the number of asylum seekers flowing to the city could double.

If the feds continue to ignore the citys pleas for help, Adams said the influxs estimated $4.3 billion price tag could undermine progress it has made in recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic by forcing his administration to further cut critical city services. The city has already spent $817 million on the crisis as of the end of last month.

The mayors budget director, Jacques Jiha, said the projected tab is a huge burden on the Big Apple and trimming agency budgets a process he referred to as finding efficiencies is the only way to manage it.

You can imagine, a year ago we didnt have this in our budget, and all of a sudden we have to come up with $4.3 billion, Jiha said.

So far, the only help the city is getting, Jiha said, is $1 billion proposed in Governor Kathy Hochuls executive budget for the coming fiscal year. However, its not yet clear if Albany will deliver on that money, considering the state budget is over two weeks late and negotiations have focused entirely on other issues. The Big Apple is also due to get some portion of an $800 million federal allocation for cities on the front lines of the crisis.

But, taken together, thats hardly enough to cover the estimated expense.

The city has to, at a minimum, come up with $3 billion, Jiha said. Were not raising taxes. So the only way we can manage this is to find efficiencies in other places in city government This is not cheap and folks have to understand, the money has to come from somewhere.

The mayor took aim at leaders of the City Council in particular for putting forth a budget proposal earlier this month that reversed many of his proposed agency budget cuts by utilizing what they say is $2.7 billion more in city revenue than what his office projected. He argues the council didnt factor the cost of the migrant crisis into their plan and released a false projection.

Did you notice that everyone that puts forward a report on balancing the budget, none of them talk about the asylum seekers, Adams said. All the proposals that people are putting in place, whats coming out of the City Council and other places, of how to balance the budget, its void of asylum seekers.

Yet City Council Finance Chair Justin Brannan (D-Brooklyn), said that based on the councils projections the city has enough funds in its coffers to care for the asylum seekers without following through on the mayors cuts.

As Ive said, our citys compassion is limitless but our resources are finite, Brannan said in a statement to amNewYork Metro. We desperately need help from Albany and DC to cover asylee costs. Speaker [Adrienne Adams] and I have written to the president in support of the mayors call for emergency migrant funding.

The councils objective budget forecast and our desperate need for help from Albany and DC to cover asylee costs need not live in tension, he added.

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White House has turned its back on NYC in regard to migrant crisis: mayor - AMNY

Apr 19, 2023, 4:16pmUpdated 6h ago

By: News 12 Staff

Mayor Eric Adams and other city officials are asking for more federal assistance with the city's migrant crisis.

Over 55,000 asylum seekers have had some level of interaction with the city's shelter system, and New York City officials say they can't continue to deal with this crisis on their own.

Mayor Eric Adams, along with other city leaders, gathered at City Hall to call on President Joe Biden and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to reinstate temporary protected to status to migrants coming from Venezuela, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, South Sudan, Sudan and Cameroon.

Adams is also requesting an expansion of humanitarian parole and a surge of U.S. citizenship and immigration services. They say these steps taken by the executive branch will authorize these asylum seekers to become employed.

Adams thanked Public Advocate Jumaane Williams for having his boots on the ground in the nation's capital asking what they plan on doing to help with the asylum seekers.

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Mayor Adams calls on federal government for more assistance with NYC's migrant crisis - News 12 Brooklyn