Yvette Cooper announces tougher approach to illegal migration with plans to carry out more deportations

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced a tougher crackdown on illegal migration, including the recruitment of 100 new investigation and intelligence officers to tackle organised crime networks.

The measures also include plans for a major increase in enforcement and refugee returns, with the aim of bringing the number of expulsions to the highest level since 2018. We also want to increase detention capacity and impose sanctions on employers who hire workers illegally.

These plans have been drawn up after hundreds of refugees arrived in the UK in small boats in the past week alone.

Cooper said: “We are taking strong and clear steps to improve our border security and ensure the rules are followed and enforced.

“Our new Border Security Command is already in full swing, with urgent recruitment underway and additional staff already deployed across Europe. Working with European enforcement agencies, we are seeking every possible way to defeat the criminal smuggling gangs who operate dangerous boat journeys that undermine our border security and put lives at risk.

“By increasing enforcement capacity and revenues, we will create a system that is better monitored and managed, instead of the chaos that has plagued the system for far too long.”

READ MORE: Tony Blair calls on Keir Starmer to take tough action on immigration, crime and ‘wokeism’

Charity accuses government of ‘heating up’ Tory immigration rhetoric

The government’s proposals have been criticised by Amnesty International UK, which accused Labour of “heating up” Conservative rhetoric on border security.

Steve Valdez-Symonds, the charity’s refugee and migrant rights programme director, said: “People in urgent need of help, including those fleeing war and persecution in countries such as Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria and Iran, will continue to come to the UK and other countries. The government must create safe routes that reduce the dangers of dangerous border crossings and the risk of exploitation by ruthless smuggling gangs.

“This ‘assured’ approach to asylum and immigration will simply deter and punish many of the people who need to cross the border the most, and who are therefore often the most vulnerable to criminal exploitation.

“Increasing immigration powers – including detaining people – rather than ensuring that existing powers are used only where necessary and fair has rewarded the inefficiency and injustice of the Home Office for decades.

“A new set of ministers spreading an age-old message of fear and hostility towards some of the most victimised and traumatised people ever to arrive in the UK means that smuggling gangs and racist and Islamophobic hatemongers at home are likely to play on this, to everyone’s detriment.”

The Ministry of the Interior has been contacted for comment.

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