The UK government says 500 asylum seekers will be accommodated on a barge docked off the south coast of England.
LONDON (AP) — Some 500 UK asylum seekers will be accommodated on a barge docked off England’s south coast, the British government said Wednesday of its latest move aimed at deterring migrants from crossing the British Channel. Stain on small boats not suitable for sailing.
The housing scheme is part of a broader effort by the Conservative government to curb migration and reduce hotel bills that cost taxpayers 2.3 billion pounds ($2.9 billion) a year amid a buildup of hundreds of thousands. of asylum cases.
It could be months before the barge, currently in Italy, is anchored in Portland, off the Dorset coast. The government’s plan could face legal challenges along with other forms of opposition.
Human rights groups said the barge would be a cruel place to house vulnerable people fleeing war and the idea should be scrapped along with a plan to move thousands of migrants to barracks on unused military bases.
“Confining hundreds of people in isolation on a barge is just one more part of the political theater the government has created to hide its flagrant mismanagement of the asylum system,” said Steve Valdez-Symonds, director of refugees and migrants at Amnesty International. United Kingdom.
The Conservative-led Dorset Council and the area’s Conservative representative in Parliament, Richard Drax, were considering legal action to prevent the barge from docking near the Weymouth seaside resort.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that using the barge as a home was a fair way of dealing with Channel crossings and would save money.
“We are spending, as a country, £6 million ($7.5 million) a day to house illegal asylum seekers in hotels. That can’t be right,” Sunak said.
More than 50,000 asylum seekers are staying in temporary accommodation while they await a decision on their claims, a process that can take months.
Sunak’s government is determined to crack down on arrivals and is pushing through a controversial immigration bill that would ban asylum claims from anyone arriving in the UK by unauthorized means and deport migrants home or to a third country.
More than 45,000 people came to Britain by boat from the north France in 2022, up from 28,000 in 2021 and 8,500 in 2020.
___ Follow AP’s global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration
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