Sunak Government Announces Technology Partnership to Reduce Immigration to the U.K

A new alliance between law enforcement and social media giants was launched by the British government on Saturday in an effort to combat online information that encourages migrants to enter the UK illegally via small boats.

The Conservative administration, which was behind in the polls a year before the general election, had pledged to put a stop to perilous small boat crossings of the English Channel from northern France, but it ran into a number of obstacles in carrying out its plans.

Plans to controversially transfer undocumented immigrants to Rwanda have stalled in the courts, while efforts to house asylum seekers on a barge in southern England to cut down on expenses have been repeatedly put on hold.

According to Downing Street, the recently announced partnership between the British National Crime Agency and businesses like Meta, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter) will target content related to people smuggling, including offers of phony documents, group discounts, free spaces for kids, and false assurances of safe passage.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said, “To halt the boats, we have to confront the economic model of despicable people smugglers at source.

“That include cracking down on their efforts to entice individuals to make these unauthorized crossings so they may profit from endangering lives.

With the help of the IT industry, we will step up our efforts to combat these criminals and put an end to their filthy trade, he said.

However, Yvette Cooper, the home affairs spokesperson for the major opposition Labour party, said the measure was “too little, too late,” accusing the administration of having “no idea how to fix the mess they created.”

Legal and unauthorized immigration have always been major political issues in Britain, and the 2016 Brexit vote, which resulted in the nation leaving the European Union, was largely fought over these issues.

On a risky path that has seen an increase in traffic every year since 2018, more people have traveled there every year. In 2022, more than 45,000 migrants landed on the coasts of southeast England on small boats, a 60 percent yearly increase.

The United Nations criticized Sunak’s administration last month for passing a contentious rule that forbids anybody traveling over the English Channel or any other “illegal” route from requesting refuge.