Home Secretary to visit Dover today amid crisis at Manston processing center | Politics News

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Home Secretary Suella Braverman will visit Dover today amid the crisis at the Manston migration processing centre.

Ms Braverman is under mounting political pressure over the “wretched” conditions at the site in Kent, where around 3,500 people are being detained for weeks in a site intended to hold 1,600 for a matter of days.

Government minister Graham Stuart conceded on Thursday the facility was not operating legally and “none of us are comfortable with it”.

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Asked whether he was happy that asylum seekers were being illegally detained, he told Sky News: “Obviously not. None of us are comfortable with it. We want it tackled, we want to get a grip, that’s exactly what the home secretary is focused on.”

It comes after iimmigration minister Robert Jenrick revealed the Home Office is facing legal action following days of overcrowding at Manston.

He implied the facility was not operating legally, telling Sky News that he expects it will “be returned to a well-functioning and legally compliant site very rapidly”.

While hundreds of people have been removed from Manston in recent days, the Home Office found itself under further criticism last night following reports a group of asylum seekers were left at London’s Victoria station without accommodation after being taken off the premises.

And a letter thrown by a young girl over the perimeter fence to a PA news agency photographer, claiming there were pregnant women and sick detainees there, also laid bare the grim conditions asylum seekers are facing.

Kent ‘at breaking point’

The Home Secretary is expected to shy away from press questions during her visit to Dover – the scene of a petrol bomb attack on another immigration facility on Sunday.

Council chiefs across Kent have warned the whole county is at “breaking point”, with concerns of far-right violence fueled by the failure to control the number of migrants crossing the English Channel.

Mr Stuart, the climate minister, sought to blame an “unacceptable surge” in small boat crossings for the problems, saying that the asylum “system is struggling to cope”.

“It is not where we want it to be right now and we are simply looking to balance that out, thousands more hotel rooms have been sorted out but it’s unacceptable to the British people and we need to do more to tackle the explorers in what is an surge in illegal immigration,” he said.

He went on to concede “unfortunate language” had been used over the migrant crisis, after the government was told to stop blaming Albanians by the country’s prime minister.

Mr Stuart said he was “grateful” to Albania, revealing they have sent senior police officers to the UK “to speed up processing”, following a rise in the number of people arriving in the UK from the southern European country.

“So we are trying to work in co-operation, but clearly there’s pressure,” he said.

“You can see it from councillors, you can see it from members of parliaments, you can hear it from people and around the country.

“It can lead to language which is sometimes unfortunate and it is worth putting on record our gratitude to the Albanian government for their co-operation in working to sort this out.”

Ms Braverman has singled Albanians out several times over the past week when discussing the rise in people crossing the Channel on small boats, which she has referred to as an “invasion on our southern coast”.

On Wednesday, the Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama accused Britain of becoming like a “madhouse” with a culture of “finding scapegoats” during a migration crisis where “failed policies” are to blame.

Kent ‘at breaking point’

Ms Braverman has come under mounting pressure to get a grip on the Channel crisis as a record number of people continue to arrive in the UK.

Council chiefs in Kent have written to the home secretary – urging her to stop using the county as an “easy fix” – and have warned they are under “disproportionate pressure” because of Kent’s location.

There are no more school spaces for local children in Year 7 and Year 9 due to the unplanned arrival of young refugees, they said.

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