West must 'help people thrive in their own countries' to tackle migrant crisis, James Cleverly says
26 February 2024, 22:43 | Updated: 27 February 2024, 06:30
Western powers must help would-be migrants to ‘stay and thrive at home’ to tackle the international migration crisis, the Home Secretary is expected to say on Tuesday.
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The Home Secretary is set to lay out his ambitions about how to tackle global migration during a speech at the end of his two-day trip to New York.
Mr Cleverly will call on international leaders to help “smash the people-smuggling gangs” and help people to "thrive in their own countries".
He is expected to say: “While remaining welcoming and generous, we must also urgently consider the impact that this level of migration has not just on those countries where migrants seek to settle, or through which they transit, but also on the countries they leave behind, and indeed on the migrants themselves.
"We need to do more, together.
"A talent drain can have a devastating effect, causing a flight of capital, huge gaps in the workforce and security issues.
"It can be extremely expensive for countries to train professionals who then take their skills elsewhere.
"Furthermore, citizens will suffer if their country fails to invest in skills and training and then plugs those gaps with immigration… doing the right thing by someone in need doesn't necessarily mean relocating them to our own country.
"Central to solving the international migration challenge is doing more, collectively, to help people to stay and thrive at home."
It comes after the government’s flagship Rwanda Bill was sent through to the House of Lords earlier this month.
Mr Cleverly is set to say that the bill, which will see migrants arriving illegally in the UK deported to the east African country, is an "innovative way of dealing with illegal migration".
This week, Home Office figures showed that more than 2,000 migrants have arrived in the UK so far this year after crossing the strait between England and France.
The number of Channel arrivals is 32% lower than the total recorded this time last year (2,953) but 49% higher than the total at this stage in 2022 (1,482).
Some 29,437 migrants arrived in the UK after making the crossing in 2023, down 36% on a record 45,774 arrivals in 2022.
It comes as part of the Home Secretary’s two-day trip to the States, where he also met with representatives from leading tech companies in San Francisco.
He met with tech companies including Apple, Google, Meta - the owner of Facebook - and YouTube to discuss how to handle threats from emerging technologies.
