An alleged secret, leaked report by UK officials claims 37.5 per cent of migrants crossing the English Channel illegally are Albanian, making the single largest national group of arrivals.
Just under four in ten of the migrants illegally crossing the English Channel illegally on small boats are Albanian, a secret document drawn up by UK officials reportedly claims.
The revelation is many ways completely unsurprising, with neighbouring Ireland having seen its own asylum system dominated by arrivals from the Muslim majority European state, despite around 99 per cent of would-be claimants having their applications rejected as of 2018.
According to the leaked document labelled “Official Sensitive” seen by The Mail, out of 2,863 migrants who traversed the channel between June 1 and July 12 this year, 1,075 of them were Albanian, making 37.5 per cent of all arrivals.
To put this in perspective, the next most prevalent nationality, Iranian, constituted 373 of the migrants, or a mere 13 per cent of arrivals.
The report meanwhile claims that the migrants are being shipped over by nine different gangs, two of which are paying Chinese factories to provide custom dingies that have been extended in order to fit more migrants.
Meanwhile, the Albanian migrants themselves — who come from a safe, albeit poor, European nation — have reportedly been crossing into England as it reportedly allows them to claim that they are a victim of human trafficking, by extension increasing the likelihood they will be allowed to stay.
“Illegal migrants who have travelled to the UK from safe countries have sought modern slavery referrals, which have prevented and delayed their removal or deportation,” The Telegraph reports one Whitehall source as saying.
“It is imperative that this system is fixed quickly, and for good,” they also said. “Unless we make drastic reforms, the true victims of modern slavery will continue suffer, with excessive decision-making periods and a system that rewards those who seek only to exploit it.”
Albanian Criminals Now Largest Group of Foreigners in British Prisons https://t.co/itJqkux4iq
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 3, 2020
The prevalence of Albanians among channel migrants is ultimately unsurprising considering the nationality already represents the second largest group within the UK’s asylum system.
It was a similar story at one stage within neighbouring Ireland, where Albanians constituted the single greatest population within the country’s Direct Provision asylum system as of 2018, despite the fact that around 99 per cent of claims made by such would-be refugees were being rejected at the time.
Albanians have also found themselves drastically overrepresented in the UK’s prison system — something that is often attributed to the nationality’s prevalence within UK organised crime — with Albanians becoming the single largest group of foreign nationals in UK prisons, despite the fact that Albania itself only has a population of three million.
Roughly one in ten foreign nationals in UK prisons were Albanian as of 2020, with British politicians expressing outrage that — despite there being on paper an agreement to return Albanian prisoners to facilities in their country of origin — very few actually end up being shipped home.
“The importation of Albanian criminals into the UK over the last ten years has been one of the scandals of the decade,” Tory MP Philip Hollobone previously said.
“In spite of having a compulsory prisoner transfer agreement only a pitifully small number of Albanian criminals have been returned home,” he continued. “The government needs to address this problem urgently.”
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