As Britain sees an increasing large influx of asylum seekers from Albania, the Home Affairs Select Committee has ruled that Albania is a “safe” country and people who flee from there to seek sanctuary in the UK should not routinely be granted asylum, according to a report published on Monday by the cross-party group of MPs.
The report found little evidence to indicate significant numbers of Albanian nationals were at risk in their own country but accepted that some Albanians making asylum claims, mainly women, had been trafficked. It recommends that this group should be returned to Albania only if appropriate safeguards are in place.
The committee decided to look at Albanian arrivals to the UK due to the large spike in numbers last year. In 2022, more than a quarter of the 45,755 people who crossed the English Channel in small boats came from the country and most claimed asylum. In the space of a year the number of Albanians arriving in the UK by this route had jumped from 800 to 12,301. The reasons for the steep rise are unclear and numbers have dropped significantly in recent months.
Until June 2022, 51% of asylum claims from Albania were initially accepted. Nine countries, including Germany, accepted no asylum claims from Albania. The report urges the Home Office to explain why the asylum grant rates, particularly for women, have been so high.
The committee chair, the Labour MP Dame Diana Johnson, said: “Such a substantial sudden increase in asylum claims from a seemingly peaceful country understandably raised concerns. Changes in migration will inevitably place strain on any system, but the government must do much more to ensure it can better handle these stresses. Most importantly it must improve the speed of decision-making and clear the backlog.”
The Homeland Party strongly supports the findings of the committee. Albania is a country with no ongoing conflicts within its borders or with neighbouring nations and applied for membership of the European Union in 2009, receiving official candidate status in 2014 and official negotiations on its entry into the EU proceeding in July 2022. It is a stable nation that has progressed far down the route to EU membership and the only reason for Albanians seeking asylum in the UK is down to financial factors and not genuine humanitarian grounds.
We can only hope that after this report we will see a change in the way that Albanian asylum claims are dealt with and the UK joining the other European nations in rejecting bogus Albanian asylum applications,
The UK asylum system is seen as a soft touch by Albanian people smugglers, who have mocked recent UK Government attempts to deter people coming to the UK by routes outside the official immigration system. The Albanian smugglers have placed social media posts telling would-be migrants that no matter what the UK authorities say they will not be detained on arrival for more than a day and should have no fear of being removed from the UK.
This sadly appears to have more than an element of truth to it and that needs to change. People deemed to be from safe countries such as Albania need to be detained at their point of entry to the UK and returned to their country of origin within days of arrival.
