British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak vowed on Tuesday to clear the backlog of asylum applications as he announced new measures aimed at curbing the number of migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats. Sunak said he is adding hundreds of workers to process asylum applications and clear a backlog of more than 143,000 applications by the end of 2023. Additional staff will also focus on the rapid removal of Albanian migrants who have come across the English Channel. numbers, Sunak said.
More than 10,000 Albanians have come to seek asylum via this route this year, nearly a quarter of the record 44,000 people who have crossed the waterway in small boats to reach the UK. Britain saw the arrival of only a few dozen Albanian asylum seekers in 2020. British officials said the large increase may be due to an increased organization of Albanian criminals working in northern France. Sunak and others insisted that Albania is a “fundamentally safe country” and that most of its citizens’ asylum claims are unfounded. The country in the Western Balkans is seeking membership in the European Union.
“Over the coming months, thousands of Albanians will return home and we will continue weekly flights until all Albanians in our backlog are removed,” Sunak told parliament. He said Britain had received formal assurances from the Albanian government that it would “protect genuine victims and people at risk of re-trafficking, enabling us to detain and return people to Albania with confidence”.
The British government’s targeting of Albanian migrants recently angered Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, who said the UK should “stop discriminating” against people from his country to excuse the failure of its own migration policy. Sunak said he plans to introduce new legislation early next year to ensure that people who arrive illegally cannot stay in the country. “The only way to get to the UK for asylum will be through safe and legal routes and once we get into the hands of illegal migration we will create more of those routes,” he said.
