The UK has imposed asset freezes and travel bans on 25 individuals and entities involved in people-smuggling, including gang leaders and small boat suppliers, as part of efforts to curb Channel crossings. Despite these measures, experts suggest the impact may be limited due to the scale of smuggling networks, and crossings continue to rise, with over 21,000 migrants arriving by small boats in 2023 so far.
The UK has introduced its first-ever sanctions targeting individuals involved in smuggling illegal migrants, aiming to disrupt organized crime networks and their financial operations, though experts question the effectiveness of these measures in significantly reducing Channel crossings.
Germany plans to tighten its laws to criminalize facilitating illegal migration to the UK by the end of the year, aiming to disrupt smuggling networks, amid new UK-Germany agreements on migration, defense, and business, including joint export initiatives and investment projects.
Shocking footage captures the moment people smugglers forcefully pushed migrants off a powerboat into fast-moving currents near a Spanish beach, leaving four North African youngsters to drown. Survivors reported being threatened with knives and guns by the smugglers. Good Samaritans rushed to rescue the migrants, who were thought to be Moroccan. Three survivors were hospitalized for hypothermia. Spain remains a major entry point for migrants into Europe, with over 13,000 arrivals from Morocco and Algeria in 2023. Police are searching for the smugglers and they may face criminal charges, including manslaughter.
A four-year-old migrant boy was dropped over the US-Mexico border fence in San Diego by a suspected people smuggler before being rescued by US Border Patrol agents. While tending to the abandoned child, the agents and paramedics were shot at from Mexico. The incident highlights the ongoing crisis at the southern border, which the Biden administration is seeking to address through engagement and negotiation with global partners. However, immigrant advocates worry that managing migration could have terrible human rights consequences.
Austria has increased security along its border with Hungary after Budapest released hundreds of foreign prisoners convicted of people smuggling, giving them just 72 hours to leave the country. Austria's government has asked Hungary for explanations, calling the decision to release several hundred convicts a direct impact on its security. Hungary's officials said the release of the convicted people smugglers, all of whom are foreign nationals, was intended to free up space in Hungarian prisons and unburden taxpayers. Austria criticised the decision as a contradiction to Hungary's own stance on migrants.
