LONDON : Britain’s interior minister faced criticism Tuesday for describing migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats as an “invasion,” days after an immigration center was attacked with firebombs.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman used the term while defending conditions at a processing center for new arrivals where some 4,000 people have been held in a facility intended for 1,600.
Braverman referred to small-boat crossings on Monday as “the invasion of our southern coast” and said “illegal immigration is out of control.”
“Let’s stop pretending that they are all refugees in distress,” she said of migrants crossing the Channel.
Her deputy, Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, distanced himself from her words.
“In a job like mine you have to choose your words very carefully,” he told Sky News. “And I would never demonize people coming to this country in pursuit of a better life.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who appointed Braverman after he took office last week, told his Cabinet on Tuesday that Britain “would always be a compassionate, welcoming country,” his spokesman said.
APN
