Home Office launches ad campaign to put off illegal Albanian migrants – as critics brand move ‘pointless’

The Home Office is launching an ad campaign aimed at deterring Albanian nationals from crossing the English Channel illegally.

Posters bear the message that people “face being detained and removed” if they make the journey.

The department would not say how much the publicity drive is expected to cost but announced it will also “make clear the perils” migrants may encounter on small boats when the it starts in Albania next week.

Labour said the move “beggars belief” while campaigners branded it “pointless” as the number of Channel crossings remains high despite similar measures implemented last year.

Adverts in Albanian on Facebook and Instagram were launched last August to try to put people off making the journey.

Record numbers of migrants crossed the Channel in 2022 and more than 6,000 have been detected making the journey so far this year.

According to the Home Office, Albania is a “safe and prosperous country” and many nationals “are travelling through multiple countries to make the journey to the UK” before making “spurious asylum claims when they arrive”.

Albanian was the most common nationality applying for asylum in the UK in the year to March 2023, with 13,714 applications by Albanian citizens, 9,487 of which came from arrivals on boats crossing the Channel.

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick said: “We are determined to stop the boats and the campaign, launching in Albania this week, is just one component of the Home Office’s work upstream to help dispel myths about illegal travel to the UK, explain the realities and combat the lies peddled by evil people smugglers who profit from this vile trade.”

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the Tories’ “so-called solutions” to tackle the migrant crisis have failed “at every turn”.

“It beggars belief that as Channel crossings continue to rise and the asylum system is in chaos, all the Conservatives can come up with to stop the criminal gangs is an ad campaign,” she said.

“At every turn, the Tories’ so-called solutions fail to meet the scale of the crisis. All they are doing is tinkering at the edges.”

Tim Naor Hilton, chief executive of Refugee Action, said: “This is yet another pointless campaign that shows ministers refuse to understand that a small minority of the world’s refugees have very powerful reasons to come here.

“It also repeats the myth that refugee migration is illegal when in fact a person’s right to enter a country to claim asylum is protected by a Refugee Convention we helped create.

“If the government wanted to smash the smuggling gangs and stop people crossing the Channel in flimsy boats, it would create more safe routes for refugees to travel here to claim asylum.”

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Steve Smith, chief executive of refugee charity Care4Calais, said: “No amount of taxpayer-funded PR spin will deter refugees, who have experienced some of the worst things imaginable from war and conflict to torture and human rights abuses, from seeking a safe future.

“The only solution that will put people smugglers out of business, stop small boat crossings and save lives is to offer safe passage to refugees with a viable asylum claim in the UK.”

Meanwhile on immigration, Ms Cooper said Labour would impose time limits on the hiring of overseas workers in shortage occupations to restrict immigration.

She told the Sunday Telegraph the party believes the measure would give an incentive to companies to train more British staff.

The party would use a strengthened Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) – which provides independent advice to the government – to guide on appropriate “timescales” for importing labour, she suggested.

The Labour frontbencher told the paper: “It (the MAC) only does very periodic reviews, and we want it to be able to look at not simply which occupations are on the shortage occupation list, but also what would be a sensible timescale.

“How long should they be on the shortage occupation list for?”

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Home Secretary Suella Braverman has been publicly pushing for lower immigration, saying more Britons should be trained to be lorry drivers and seasonal workers to plug demand.

Writing in the Sun on Sunday, Ms Braverman said: “We’re increasing apprenticeship funding by £2.7bn by 2025 to support businesses and investing £1.6bn to expand programmes such as skills bootcamps and free courses for jobs.

“And it’s why we introduced a points-based system for immigration that focuses on the highly skilled, not an open door.

“This government knows that in the years to come, we cannot simply rely on foreign workers to plug gaps.

“And Brexit means we can finally build a high-skill, high-wage economy liberated from Brussels red tape.”