Home Office ministers have promised a “large surge” in returns flights for failed asylum seekers and others with no right to be in the UK. Plans include 100 more new intelligence officers to target people smuggling gangs and reopening immigration removal centres in Hampshire and Oxfordshire, adding 290 beds.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said she wanted to introduce a “better-controlled” system to replace “the chaos that has blighted the system for far too long”. The Conservatives said Labour were “not serious about tackling the people smugglers or stopping the boats.
Shadow home secretary James Cleverly welcomed more resources for the National Crime Agency and increased detention capacity but said the government’s plan was “not ambitious enough”. Paired with their moves to cancel our [Rwanda scheme] deterrent, give an effective amnesty to thousands of illegal migrants, and failure to hire a head of their phantom border command, it doesn’t scratch the surface,” he said.
Home Office Minister Seema Malhotra said nine “return” flights had taken off over the last six weeks since Labour won the election, including one carrying more than 200 people. Recruitment for a new UK Border Security Command chief was announced in early July with an appointment expected within weeks, but the new command leader has not yet been named.
Source: BBC
In other news – More than 400 homes evacuated after suspected WW2 bomb found
Police say more than 400 homes have been evacuated in Newtownards, County Down, following the discovery of a suspected World War Two bomb. It was found at a building site at the Rivenwood housing development in Movilla Road on Friday.
A police cordon is in place at the top of Rivenwood Road, where new houses are under construction. A bomb disposal unit is currently on site, with Army personnel using diggers to pile sand on top of the device ahead of a planned controlled explosion. Read more
