Hundreds of people have now been moved out of Manston processing centre to hotels or immigration detention facilities with hundreds more due to leave this week.
By around 7pm last night (November 1) some 500 people had been moved out of the centre with more later that evening and further relocations today and this week, said North Thanet MP Sir Roger Gale.
The centre had reached some 4000 people being held despite only having capacity for up to 1,600, partly due to 1,458 people detected making small boat Channel crossings over the weekend and a petrol bomb attack at the Dover migration site meaning some 700 people had to be moved immediately to Manston.
Overcrowding at the site had been exacerbated by a rise in small boat crossings. The system has also been hampered by huge backlogs in the Home Office processing asylum claims.
Sir Roger says he was called by Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick last night with the latest update and predicts the centre will be back to proper levels and running smoothly by this weekend.
He said: “Robert came down on Sunday and I spent three hours there (Manston) with him. He was clearly determined to do something about it in a manner that the Home Secretary was not.
“He commissioned a lot of hotel accommodation in a short time.
“We have got to get Manston back on an even keel and Robert Jenrick is determined to do that.”
Sir Roger said the situation will likely be helped by “rough weather” which will reduce crossings. Yesterday there were no detected small boats crossings.
The MP praised staff at the centre for managing under challenging conditions and said facilities are a good standard with heated marquees and roll mats for sleeping on. He added: “Staff are busting a gut and trying very hard to look after people well.”
He did raise concern over a “small number” of children at the site, adding: “One kid was about three years old, that is what traffickers are doing.”
Sir Roger said Home Secretary Suella Braverman had suggested creating semi-permanent facilities at the site which he says he rejected “point blank.”
The MP added that claims the centre is “a hotbed of ill health” are untrue and that there have been four diphtheria cases with three people isolated at the centre and a fourth taken to hospital. There are, he said, people with bandaged legs due to burns from kneeling in small boats where salt water and diesel have mixed in the bottom to create a toxic mixture that burns the skin.
Diphtheria cases at the centre were confirmed earlier this month. There have also been reports of scabies and other sicknesses.
Sir Roger, who disputes the Home Secretary’s claim that she did not block hotel accommodation being booked for those being processed for asylum claims, says it is the case that some two-thirds of those held at Manston are young, Albanian men.
Last week the Home Affairs Committee heard some 12,000 people from Albania had arrived in the UK via small boat crossings with 10,000 of those being single men.
Sir Roger said: “Albania is a member of the Council of Europe, it is a democracy and there is no war there and no reason for Albanians to come into the country without visas. These are economic migrants and they should be sent back to their country.
“The others (at the centre) are from Iran, Afghanistan and north African countries and are asylum seekers who have to be processed.”
Sir Roger, who says Grant Shapps had commissioned hotel space during his six days as Home Secretary, says he is confident Robert Jenrick will “get a handle” on the situation but there is action that needs to happen to alleviate the asylum seeker issue in the UK.
He said: “The speed which the Home Office is processing asylum claims is lamentable. There needs to be a lot more staff with the right training to process claims.”
The MP also says spending almost £7million per day on hotel accommodation could be better diverted into building facilities or converting former MoD bases to ‘properly provided’ semi-permanent use for people waiting for their asylum claims to be dealt with.
He said moves by PM Rishi Sunak to build bridges with French president Emmanuel Macron were good to start dealing with the issue on an Anglo/French footing but a pan-global approach is needed across wider Europe to find solutions.
He dismissed the Home Office’s plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda for claim processing as “moonshine” saying it was not right and probably “not legal.”
A protest by campaigners, including SOAS Detainee Support members, has been organised to take place in Manston at 7pm. Protesters will meet at the Spitfire Museum car park.
SOAS says it believes “Manston is a concentration camp…interning people there illegally.”
The Home Office says: “Manston remains resourced and equipped to process migrants securely and we will provide alternative accommodation as soon as possible.
“We urge anyone who is thinking about leaving a safe country and risk their lives at the hands of vile people smugglers to seriously reconsider.
“Despite what they have been told, they will not be allowed to start a new life here.”
