If it wasn't a serious matter who is Home Secretary and what kind of job they are doing, I'd be amused by how 'Cruella' Braverman has made Priti Patel seem a paragon of moderation and competence. However, I have some advice which might just help her.
Like many I was bemused to see just how many Albanians have crossed the channel in small boats this year. According to gov.uk statistics over 11,000 between May and September, 42% of the total, contributing significantly to the difficulty of housing them in a proper and dignified manner while their asylum claims are processed. 95% of the Albanian arrivals are male and therefore unaccompanied.
This has been a significant shift in the racial mix of the migrant flow across the channel: only 50 Albanians arrived in 2020. Remarkably just this year's total represents around 1% of all Albanian working age men. I've read reports saying Tirana feels deserted and the Beeb claims to have found a place where 70% of the local population has already left for the UK.
In the Beeb article referenced below the reporters pretended to be candiate migrants in Albania and in France. It all sounded easy though the Albanians have had to establish links with the Iraqi Kurdish gangs who currently have the franchise for the small boat ride business based in the notorious French camps. The gendarmerie is concerned that the Albanians will set up their own people carrying business and gang rivalry could erupt.
BBC say that migrants are told they will be arrrested in Britain, must apply for asylum and advise them to say they have debts or other problems. What? Since when was escaping debt, imaginary or not, grounds for asylum?
According to gov.uk the success rate for Albanian applications is much lower than the overall rate, 53% v 76%, and lower still for single males. I imagine few of those the tide has washed in over the summer have been processed; once they are those stats may change.
Albania is regarded as a safe country and gov.uk notes it is designated as presenting 'no serious risk of persecution of persons entitled to reside in that state or part of it'.
All of which prompted me to tell my buddy Democracy Man "they're taking the piss".
Then I read the BBC reports which say they were told by one recent Albanian small boat arrival that the majority of the young men he met in the camps planned to work in the Albanian cocaine and cannabis networks in the UK. A former migrant, who worked illegally in the UK for a decade, told them half the migrant staff on his construction site were lured away by drugs gangs offering higher wages. Which made me amend my judgement to "we're being taken for mugs".
What seems crystal clear is that we need a quicker method to process no brainer asylum cases, whether they are weak or strong. This would also prevent the jackal lawyers spinning out time until it apparently becomes practically impossible to reject applications. Against this background I can understand why the Home Secretary reportedly wants to be able to deport people without an appeal being heard. After all, it's standard in our justice system to need leave to appeal and some cases must not merit being given that leave.
Anyway, myself and Mrs H have a solution which seems to us to have the beautiful logical coherence of Joseph Heller's Catch 22 and might be helpful.
Asylum seekers identified as Albanian should be asked 'were you trafficked here against your will?' If the answer is 'yes' then, as Albania is a safe country, we'll help you get straight back home. If the answer is 'no' then, as you came here from a safe country and were trying to bypass the legitimate system for asylum claims, we're sending you straight home unless you can show you meet our immigration criteria (genuine doctors welcome, for example).
In the meantime single Albanian men should be allocated the poorest available accommodation facilities and families from places like Afghanistan prioritised whoever got here first. (Maybe this already happens).
In the medium term we need to inject some emergency resources to clearing the backlog of 100,000 asylum cases else, as noted above, they end up staying anyway.
For the longer term robust rules must be drafted that legal loopholes can't be found in. The more complex they are the easier it is to find loopholes so the criteria need to be simplified. And you don't get legal aid if you are from a safe country, it's not justifiable.
After all what would the French authorities say to a Brit claiming asylum on the grounds that they were being victimised in the UK because of their sexuality or religion? (Or for being in debt!) Short shrift, I'm sure. That's not to say individuals could not have experienced those things, just that these situations are not regarded as being prevalent and inescapable in the UK. Just like Albania.
Whatever you think UK immigration policies should be it sounds as if urgent action must be taken, if only to avoid drug problems becoming even more acute.
We hope you find this advice helpful, Cruella. Now don't do that barrister thing and say it's more complicated than that. For once it really isn't.
PS the Sunday Times (6 Nov) has stats showing that Albanians are the largest single foreign national group in UK prisons. They managed to find a mother and daughter who had flown to Brussels, travelled to France by train and paid traffickers to cross the Channel. The mother claimed to be escaping domestic abuse. A cause for sympathy but not asylum from a safe country
Factsheet: small boat crossings since July 2022, gov.uk
Channel crossings: Albanian migrants recruited to the UK by gangs, bbc.com 4 November 2022
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