Ireland’s open borders are being used by refugees to sneak into the UK, the country’s Local Government Association believes.
Refugees are being left stranded in the UK after sneaking into the country through Ireland to bypass British border checks, an association of local government bodies has claimed.
While Britain has maintained an extremely careful approach to accepting refugees claiming to be coming from Ukraine, Ireland has openly boasted of its open borders approach to the crisis, with the republic now expecting to take in up to 200,000 refugees, equivalent to four per cent of its population.
However, according to a report by The Times, Ireland lax approach to the Ukraine crisis has allowed a number of people to sneak into the UK, with which the country shares a common travel area.
This, according to Britain’s Local Government Association, has resulted in a number of Ukrainians finding themselves without a place to stay, with 144 Ukrainians reporting themselves as homeless since the beginning of Russia’s renewed invasion in late February.
“We believe there is an element of people presenting as homeless because they are coming to Ireland and then, with the free movement, able to come to the UK,” said James Jamieson, who serves as chairman of the Local Government Association.
Britain has received significant criticism over its approach to taking in Ukrainian refugees, the nation having approved around 2,700 visas as part of its Homes for Ukraine scheme.
Meanwhile, the country’s western neighbour Ireland is now floating around 13,500, despite the island’s minute population when compared with Britain.
Despite mounting criticism, this careful approach has been backed by the UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has insisted that Britain must be “careful” regarding who the country lets in.
Some Conservative Party members have hit back at this notion, however, noting that, while many seemingly genuine Ukrainian refugees struggle to gain access to the country, other migrants illegally entering Britain are being processed within the system.
“Why can’t we get the right people through our immigration system instead of the wrong ones?” Bill Wiggin MP asked the Prime Minister, noting that record numbers of migrants have been “turning up in rubber boats” on England’s coast.
Meanwhile, Ireland’s so-called “humanitarian response” to the crisis is also coming under fire from those residing on the island, with some raising doubts in regards to the real origins of many claiming asylum after a video of some of Ireland’s would-be asylum seekers was uploaded online.
In the footage taken by “citizen journalist” Philip Dwyer, a number of men claiming to be originally from Kashmir discussed how and why they were claiming asylum in Ireland.
One of the men who was speaking for the group said that they were all Ukrainian citizens, and that they were all over the age of 60, and so were not forced to stay and fight Russia in the war-torn country.
However, Dwyer noted in the video that the men were “very young looking” for their age, while others online expressed doubt over some of the claims made by the asylum seekers in the video.
Meanwhile, reports from France suggest that as many as one in three of those arriving in the country through corridors meant for Ukrainian refugees might not actually be Ukrainian.
“[T]oday a third of the refugees who pass through Ukraine who do not come from Ukraine, but… come from sub-Saharan Africa in particular… [they] use this new migratory route to come to Europe,” Nicolas Bay MEP, a close ally of French Presidential hopeful Eric Zemmour, reportedly said.
Officials in France have disputed the exact nature of this figure.