UK under fire over immigration policy

The UN’s special rapporteur for migrants’ rights has censured the British government immigration policies, saying they have endangered the lives of migrants.

François Crépeau slammed the UK Home Office for sending only one official to take part in a European search and rescue mission aimed at deterring migrant deaths in the Mediterranean Sea.

Home Office sent one official to join the new task force, arguing that stopping search and rescue missions would stave migrants off Europe.

However, the Canadian professor of law, has rejected the argument and blamed European governments for waging a kind of migrant slave labour.

“We have found a system to subsidise a series of sectors of our economies by people who have no power and can be exploited at will. This was the slavery system in the old days,” Crépeau noted.

UK government has already been under fire from rights groups for doing too little to protect the rights of migrants.

Back in March, Human Rights Watch reported that migrant workers face serious abuses including force labor in the UK. It also accused the British government of doing almost nothing to protect the workers.

“It’s scandalous that in modern Britain migrant domestic workers are subject to such appalling abuses,” said Izza Leghtas, Western Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch. “But instead of protecting these workers, the system makes it harder for them escape.”