UK migrants: Home secretary looking to fast-track asylum seekers from 'safe' countries - including Albania

Fareham MP Suella Braverman is looking at resurrecting a list of countries deemed by the Home Office to be safe, according to The Times. More than 42,600 migrants have arrived in the UK so far this year and Channel crossings continued on Tuesday.

The Ministry of Defence said 426 migrants made the journey on Monday in seven boats – an average of about 61 people per boat. The overall average for 2022 is around 40, according to officials. Asylum claims of citizens from those countries would largely be regarded as unfounded, unless they are able to provide contrasting evidence. There would be no right to appeal for rejected claimants, the newspaper said.

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The plans would emulate a Labour policy from the early 2000s, in which asylum claimants from so-called ‘white-list’ countries would have their applications dealt with in less than 10 days. Migrants arriving in small boats from one of the countries deemed safe would reportedly be detained at the Manston processing site in Kent, or at other reception centres, as their asylum claims are expedited.

A Home Office spokesman said: ‘We’ve been clear that we will continue to use every tool at our disposal to deter illegal migration, including returning those with no right to be in the UK to their home country.

‘We return people who come to the UK illegally through a mixture of formal and information returns agreements with a number of countries, and we are always looking at ways to speed up removals and improve our returns processes with other countries.’

The Times has reported the list would include Albania. Albanians accounted for just over a third of people detected crossing the English Channel in small boats in the first nine months of the year. They also made up nearly half of those detected in July to September.

The figures, which have been published by the Home Office, show there were 33,029 small boat arrivals in the UK from January to September this year.

Of this total, 11,241 (35 per cent) were Albanian nationals. Almost all of these have arrived since May.