Illegal Migration Fuelling Prostitution, Drug Trade in Britain, Home Secretary Claims

Home Secretary Suella Braverman during a visit to Northamptonshire Police's Giffard House
Joe Giddens/PA Images via Getty Images
Peter Caddle

Illegal migrants arriving in the UK are boosting prostitution and the drug trade in the country, the UK interior minister has claimed.

Suella Braverman, the Conservative Party’s Home Secretary, has described illegal migrants coming to Britain as fuelling criminality within the country.

The senior official made the claim during a House of Commons debate on the government’s Illegal Migration Bill, which is the latest effort by the Sunak administration to finally end the ongoing migrant crisis taking place on the English Channel.

Backing the bill, Braverman warned the public before Wednesday’s debate that the mass arrivals of migrants on small boats were linked to “heightened levels of criminality” in the UK, with the Home Secretary, in particular, linking arrivals to prostitution and the drugs trade.

“I think that the people coming here illegally do possess values which are at odds with our country,” The Telegraph reports Braverman as saying.

“We are seeing heightened levels of criminality when related to the people who’ve come on boats, related to drug dealing, exploitation, prostitution,” she continued. “There are real challenges which go beyond the migration issue of people coming here illegally. We need to ensure that we bring an end to the boat crossings.”

When asked to provide evidence for such claims in the house, Braverman said that police chiefs in the country had told her about the level of migrant involvement in criminality.

“It is becoming a notable feature of everyday crime-fighting in England and Wales,” she said. “Many people are coming here illegally and they’re getting very quickly involved in the drugs trade, in other forms of exploitation.”

Braverman’s statement appears to have convinced at least some people within the House of Commons, with the body passing the government’s Illegal Migration Bill by 289 votes to 230.

The legislation will now have to get through the House of Lords, something many predict will be far more difficult considering the body’s recent record for gutting Conservative Party bills handed to them with amendments.

Such a teardown of the legislation would likely see some backing within the more left-leaning elements of the Conservative Party, with various MPs within the ruling group denouncing the bill — which aims to speed up deportations — as going against the human rights of migrants.

Speaking against the bill on Wednesday, former Prime Minister Theresa May once again lashed out at the bill, targeting one proposed amendment to the document as being a “slap in the face” to people who care about helping victims of modern-day slavery.

“It’s a slap in the face of those of us who actually care about the victims of modern slavery and human trafficking,” the former Conservative Party leader — who has since become one of the anti-mass migration bill’s most prominent opponents — remarked.

“Modern slavery is the greatest human rights issue of our time. The approach in this Bill, I believe, will have several ramifications. I believe it will consign victims to remain in slavery,” she went on to say.

Other former Tory ministers meanwhile celebrated changes to the bill that will increase the number of routes for legal immigration into the UK, a change that comes at a time when the UK is issuing near-record numbers of visas for foreign citizens looking to come to the country.

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