So says the MP for North West Durham Richard Holden, who published the text below on his website http://richardholden.org.uk . Richard is the MP who championed the use of Hassockfield (the site’s previous name) for a new Immigration Removal Centre for women.
Why not email him your views on the PM’s proposals? Is what is proposed ‘right’?
If you live in the vicinity, come and support our demonstration outside the gates of Derwentside/Hassockfield on Saturday 21st January, 12 noon- 2pm.
We also urge you to read the latest news about how The Home Office is tightening up the detention system here:
Detention annual report scrapped
From Richard Holden’s website
“The Prime Minister made it clear that doing what is right is what is needed now: “The balancing of our duty to support people in dire need… with the responsibility to have genuine control of our borders… understandably provokes strong feelings. And so… it is my view… that the basis for any solution shouldn’t just be ‘what works’… but what is right.”
And what ‘is right’ is not cheating our system of asylum for economic gain. I know a lot of my constituents think the same, which is why I welcome the news today that after his speech to the House of Commons, the Prime Minister in collaboration with others will now:
1) Establish a new Small Boats Operational Command, which will work hand-in-hand with our National Crime Agency. They will utilise cutting edge technology such as drones and new-age surveillance to prosecute more gangs working at the crossings and taking advantage of and killing those in desperate times.
2) Focus on enforcement – the new command will allow immigration officers to focus solely on enforcement – increasing the capacity working on raiding illegal business premises by more than 50%
3) In addition we will cut the cost of the current situation by moving people to less expensive accommodation and out of hotels
4) More caseworkers will be employed in order to speed up the rate at which immigration and asylum cases are processed, in order to deal with the backlogs.
5) Albania will be, quite rightly, deemed a ‘safe country’. A new agreement has been signed with Albania which will include border force officers being embedded at Tirana airport to stop people trying to illegally come to the UK.
Britain is quite rightly a welcoming country to those in genuine need and recently we have supported over 20,000 people who helped British Forces from Afghanistan to come to the UK as well as around 144,000 from Hong Kong and 144,000 from Ukraine as well. However, in order to be able to support those in real need, we also need to stop those who seek to abuse our immigration system and enter our country illegally bypassing normal immigration routes.”
The implication in the final proposal is that you can’t immigrate unless you are one of the groups Britain is legally or morally obligated to accept. But as the stories of women imprisoned in Derwentside have shown, there are many reasons why people find themselves huddled on unseaworthy dinghies in the channel, and one common denominator: their lives have become intolerable. There is no tidy answer to their plight, as our Prime minister implies. Turning them back is shutting our eyes to global reality.
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