Legal News

Home Secretary Theresa May has told the Daily Mail that taking a quota of the thousands of migrants flooding into the EU across the Mediterranean Sea should be on a “voluntary basis – and not because the EU demands it.

The UK has contributed Royal Navy warship HMS Bulwark and three helicopters to the search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean – but has ruled out taking in a share of the migrants arriving in Italy and Greece from war zones in the Middle East and African countries.

Last year, the Home Secretary said that scaling back the Mare Nostrum search and rescue operation and limiting it to a 30-mile radius of the Italian coastline would help prevent desperate migrants from making the perilous journey to Europe.

However the Frontex-run Triton operation which replaced it has had to be expanded because of increasing numbers of migrants arriving in Italy and Greece.

In the last few weeks, up to 12,000 migrants have made the journey successfully – while an estimated 1,500 have drowned.

Mrs May has also disputed the idea that all the migrants are refugees fleeing war zones, saying that many have paid criminal gangs to help them reach Europe.

It is thought that many more thousands of migrants will be making the journey to Europe in the coming months as the weather improves and the Mediterranean Sea becomes less perilous.

Some of the migrants who arrived in the last three weeks are now camping out in central Paris because of the numbers gathering at Calais hoping to cross to the UK in the backs of lorries.

Duncan Lewis Immigration Lawyers

Duncan Lewis is a leading firm of UK immigration lawyers able to advise migrants in the UK on a wide range of immigration matters, including:

• Asylum in the UK and asylum appeals
• Fast-track detention process
• Human Rights Act
• Illegal entry to the UK
• Marriage in the UK
• Right to work in the UK
• Spouse visas
• Student visas
• Tier 1 Entrepreneur visas
• Visa overstays.

For expert legal advice on UK immigration law, contact Duncan Lewis immigration lawyers on 020 792 4020.