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Editor's note: Word around the campfire is that Border Patrol is gathering up more than 10,000 illegal aliens a day at the United States-Mexico border. Confusion is everywhere. Some illegals tried to get to this country before a policy deadline Thursday night, and some waited for after that same policy deadline. Here is a speech we offer free to the president of the United States. The White House is more than welcome to copy and paste this to a TelePrompTer:

Good evening. Usually presidents of the United States address the American people in these kinds of speeches, or, in times of emergency, perhaps the entire world. I address these remarks to a special few--a special few thousand, or maybe tens of thousands, massing in northern Mexico.

Where to begin? I understand that United States Border Control is already seeing a massive wave of illegal immigrants, and expects more in the days to come. The newspapers of this country say there is much confusion among immigrants in northern Mexico, who come from countries all over Latin America. Maybe even beyond. Some of these border crossers told the press that they rushed to get here before Title 42 expired; some told the press exactly the opposite--that they were waiting in Mexico until the expiration was official. This is what happens when smugglers and coyotes not only take control of some folks' life savings, but their information, or rather misinformation, sources.

I understand that "the beginning" is always a good place to start. So let's note this first: The United States has always been a nation of immigrants, even before there was a United States. And that's not going to change. Sure, there are cranks, but most thinking Americans know that our economy benefits from having immigrants work in many occupations.

From the Irish fleeing a potato famine, to Germans fleeing fascism, to Asians looking to escape poverty--and for all those from other parts of the world looking for their own American Dream--this country has not only accepted them over the centuries, but for the most part, welcomed them.

Having said that . . . .

This is a nation of laws, including immigration laws. Those who cross our borders illegally will be treated like illegal aliens, as any other nation would treat those who ignore its internationally recognized borders.

As for this Title 42 policy that has been twisted and turned around to supposedly say anything that a human trafficker wants it to say: It is true that the previous administration created Title 42 during the pandemic to expel immigrants on the fast track, and that policy ended with a sunset clause this past week. But that is not, repeat not, an open invitation. My administration plans to implement new limits on immigrants, and those who don't qualify will be quickly sent back to their own countries.

Yes, my administration will send you back. We have plans already drawn up to do just that. And that long, treacherous, expensive, often deadly trip you made to northern Mexico will be for nothing. Don't do it.

You might have heard that I've deployed more American soldiers to the border in anticipation of this so-called wave. They are there to block this wave. Governors of certain border states are using their own National Guards to free up Border Patrol for more surveillance and watch-keeping. Like most other nations of the world, the United States is serious about its border.

Citizens of the United States know how lucky they are to live here. And we understand that people flow toward jobs like water flows downhill. But we demand that our laws are followed and, just as we've developed ways to build levees to keep floods from our homes, we have developed ways to keep illegal immigration from flooding our borders. Including holding cells. And more Border Patrol funding. And bus tickets heading down south.

To those who've done things the legal way, the appropriate way, and have taken their turn in line, I say: Welcome to the United States.

For those who'd skip the line and break our laws to illegally sneak into this country, we as Americans say: Here's your bus ticket home.

Thank you, and God bless--not just the United States of America, but all those who'd become fellow citizens of this country in the future.

Provided they get here legally.

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EDITORIAL: Our dream speech (and probably only in our dreams) - Arkansas Online

In 1996, Congress created a process for expedited removalREF of aliens presenting themselves at a U.S. port of entry (POE) without a visa or who are apprehended by the Border Patrol while attempting to enter illegally between POEs.REF These inadmissible aliens can be removed without further hearing or review unless they express an intention to apply for asylum or a fear of persecution on specified grounds. If they do express that credible fear, according to the statute the aliens shall be detained pending a final determination of credible fear of persecution, and, if found not to have such a fear, until removed.REF If an alien is not eligible for expedited removal, then the alien shall be detained for a [non-expedited removal] proceeding.REF

In general, therefore, the DHS is required by law to detain all aliens arriving illegally in the U.S. throughout the completion of applicable proceedings.REF Immigration detention is a tool to ensure compliance with immigration law, particularly removal. During historical surges in illegal arrivals, however, detention of all illegal aliens encountered at the border has been difficult to achieve, as the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS),REF and today the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), have limited detention space.

The DHS refers to aliens who are in removal proceedings, but are not detained, as being on the non-detained docket (NDD). In 2003, the INS Inspector General reported that only 13 percent of aliens on the NDD who had final orders of removal were, in fact, removed.REF To increase compliance, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) started the ATD program in 2004.

ICEs Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) division is responsible for the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program. The intent of the ATD program was to monitor aliens on the NDD with technology and supervision by case officers while their removal proceedings were pending, and thus increase compliance with final orders of removal.REF At the conclusion of an aliens immigration court process, unless he was granted asylum or other immigration benefit, an alien taking part in ATDs would surrender to ICE for detention and eventual removal. ICEs criteria for placing individuals on ATD include current immigration status; criminal history; compliance history; community or family ties; being a caregiver or provider; medical conditions; and other humanitarian factors.REF

ICE officers, not the federal contractor implementing ATD, decide not only which aliens to enroll and remove from the program, but also which level of supervision is appropriate in each case. Supervision options include the technology discussed below, as well as the alien checking in personally or visits by contractors or ICE officers to an aliens home. ICE states that it may escalate or de-escalate [an aliens] supervision level by considering certain factors.REF However, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in 2022 that ICE does not ensure ATD supervision reviews are conducted according to policy, nor within the times specified in its own guidance.REF The factors for raising or lowering supervision levels within ATD appear to have more to do with resource constraints and political optics than law enforcement efficacy.

The largest ATD program in terms of numbers of enrolled aliens and budget is the ISAP, which began in 2004.REF

To manage its large caseloads, ICE has contracted with BI Incorporated to run ISAP since 2004. The most recent five-year contract was signed in March 2020 for $2.2 billion.REF The contractor uses three types of technology to keep track of aliens who are in removal proceedings and enrolled in the ISAP:

Of the three ISAP options involving tracking technology, ankle bracelets with GPS monitoring cost $2.75 a day per alien, SmartLINK costs a dollar a day, and VoiceID costs 18 cents a day per user.REF ICE estimates that, on average, ATD costs $8 per participant in total per day, whereas detention costs $150 per day.REF Still, something mismanaged is expensive at any price.

The DHS acknowledges that most inadmissible aliens are economic migrants, and that most migrants who are initially deemed eligible to pursue their credible fear claims ultimately are not granted asylum in the subsequent Department of Justice immigration court removal proceedings.REF This reality argues strongly in favor of detaining them as the law requires.

The DHS produces immigration enforcement lifecycle reports of cases from initial immigration encounter to ultimate disposition, a process that can take many years. Not surprisingly, these reports show that aliens who are detained during their entire removal proceedings are likely to be deported if a court gives a final order of removal, whereas those not detained are rarely deported.REF Despite this evidence, the Biden Administration claims that it lacks resources to detain inadmissible aliens at the border, though it has never fully used the detention beds that Congress has funded. Under President Biden, the DHS has detained at most 25,000 inadmissible aliens at any one time, and in its most recent budget request, the DHS reduced detention facility capacity by 25 percent, a decrease of 9,000 beds.REF

When illegal aliens are released instead of detained, it is not credible to expect a high percentage of them to voluntarily attend their final hearings, where they are likely to be given orders to depart. ATD programs with GPS monitoring or required reporting throughout an aliens entire immigration court process would prevent such court absences. Despite the evidence that ATDs can increase compliance with hearing attendance and removal procedures if used throughout the aliens proceedings, ICE is currently releasing the majority of aliens placed into ATD long before their cases conclude. With the exception of high-priority criminals, ICEs low volume of total annual arrests and deportationsREF indicates that the Biden Administration is making little effort to track down those who disappear or are released from ATDs on their own recognizance and then fail to attend hearings or comply with court orders.

DHS Enrolls Insufficient Numbers of Aliens in ATDs. Since March 2021, monthly illegal-alien encounters at the Southern border have averaged more than 150,000, and several months more than 200,000.REF One credible expert estimates that more than two million illegal aliens encountered at the border have been released into the U.S. interior since President Biden took office.REF According to ICE, nearly 5 million cases were already on the NDD at the end of fiscal year (FY) 2022.REF However, as of March 11, 2023, ICE was supervising only 287,299 aliens under ATDs.REF The DHS budget for ATD in FY 2023 includes a total of $527.1 million (an increase of $79 million over 2022), to cover an intended 170,000 total participants.REF That is nowhere near the number of inadmissible aliens likely to be released in FY 2023. A possible explanation for why the DHS is asking for more money to supervise fewer people under ATDs this year is that it intends to prioritize funding of social services over enforcement programs, as discussed below.

Aliens Released from ATDs Prematurely. On average, an alien participating in ATDs is enrolled for only 14 months to 18 months, a sharp contrast from the four-year-to-five-year average time it takes to conclude an asylum case.REF From November 2014 through December 2020, according to a Government Accountability Office report, 79 percent of ATD participants were unenrolled before their immigration cases were concluded.REF In a recent stakeholder engagement session with ICE, a participant asked what percentage of [aliens] are terminated from ISAP prior to their immigration cases completion? The answer from ICE, two months later, was that approximately 90% of participants were terminated from ISAP and migrated to Non-Detained statusthe majority were still in removal proceedings.REF ICEs decision to remove a particular alien from ATD does not seem clearly linked to that aliens likelihood of compliance with their immigration proceeding to its conclusion.REF

In addition to ICE releasing ATD participants from the program early, aliens violate their ATD conditions. From November 2014 to December 2020, the overall rate of absconsion (aliens removing tracking devices, not checking in, or otherwise failing to adhere to the program) was 17 percent.REF Conversely, for those ATD cases in which ICE elects to assign an additional court tracking service (the contractor tracks ATD participants court hearing schedules and attendance), 99 percent of such aliens attended all their scheduled immigration hearings in FYs 2015 to 2020.REF However, from November 2014 through December 2020, ICE assigned court tracking to only 39 percent (125,259) of all participants (320,152).REF

No Consequences for Failure to Adhere to ATD. In a December 2022 ATD seminar, ICE claimed that those who do not report [to the contractor, ICE, or court according to the release conditions under ATD] are subject to arrest and potential removal.REF The results show otherwise. Under the Biden Administration, deportation has dropped precipitously, from 186,000 in 2020, an already low number due to COVID-19, to only 59,011 in 2021 and 72,000 in 2022.REF Although 400,000 of the aliens currently on the NDD have been convicted of more serious crimes (in addition to the millions who are in removal proceedings for entering or remaining in the U.S. illegally), ICEs budget for FYs 2023 and 2024 has set targets of deporting only 29,389 such aliens.REF From these figures, it follows that aliens who simply fail to report under the ATD program stand a low chance of being arrested, much less removed.

Around 3.5 percent of issued ankle monitors and mobile devices are reported as lost by the participating alien.REF According to ICE guidelines, GPS trackers should be assigned to the highest-risk cases, but making this risk-management tool effective requires swift follow-up when problems arise. For example, in April 2022, a Colombian who was on a U.S. terrorism watchlist was arrested when attempting to enter the U.S. illegally at the border in Arizona, then released with a GPS tracker under the ISAP.REF Once ICE realized that he was on the watchlist, it took ICE two weeks to arrest himin Florida.

ATDs are not as good as immigration detention, but when properly and thoroughly used, tracking and supervision with technology is better than nothing to improve the likelihood that aliens comply with their immigration proceedings. However, the Biden Administrations immigration policy is directed by ideologues who strongly oppose enforcement. President Bidens head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Ur Jaddou, was formerly head of DHS Watch at Americas Voice, a group that advocated amnesty (a path to legalization) for illegal aliens and against the Migrant Protection Protocols and Asylum Cooperative Agreements that successfully reduced pull factors for illegal immigrants during the Trump Administration.REF

White House Policy Advisor on immigration and border issues Katherine PantangcoREF previously worked at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where she oversaw a team of immigrant rights field organizers who built deportation defense networks in the wake of the Trump administration.REF The ACLU advocates and regularly sues the federal government on behalf of illegal aliens, and the organizations agenda opposes detention of illegal immigrants and interior enforcement.REF

Leidy Perez-Davis, special assistant to the president for immigration in the Biden White House, previously worked at the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP), which believes that all asylum seekers deserve to find safe haven in the United States.REF This appears to mean that the ASAP believes that all foreigners merely seeking asylum, not just those whose claims are legitimate, should be allowed to remain in the U.S. In fact, roughly nine of 10 putative asylum claimants are not granted asylumREF because the aliens do not apply after passing a credible fear interview, or fail to complete the full process, or because an immigration judge rules that they do not qualify for asylum.REF

The Open Borders project believes that [f]reedom of movement is a fundamental human liberty and it would be anti-liberty to restrict migration in any way.REF The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) says that no one should ever be detained and has called for Congress to cut funding for ICE and the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) under both the TrumpREF and BidenREF Administrations. Activists who support limitless immigration are not only against detention, but they also oppose any ATDs that track migrants. For example, Just Futures Law opposes any digital surveillance of illegal immigrants (such as GPS bracelets), calling it e-carceration.REF

The Biden Administrations immigration policies align with those of the ASAP, ACLU, and other activist groups that believe in a universal right of migration and seek to defund immigration enforcement. ICE invited more than 100 stakeholders from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), academia, and private industry to its December 2022 symposium on ATDs, many of which advocate reduced immigration detention and enforcement, and some of which will benefit from increased funding for the non-ISAP social services ATD programs.REF

Under the Biden Administration, two new programs have been added under ATD: the Case Management Pilot Program (CMPP) in 2021, and the Young Adult Case Management Program (YACMP) in 2022.REF The CMPP and the YACMP are examples of the Biden Administrations preference for weak alternative [ATD] programs with no accountabilityREF that focus on providing social services to aliens and not on ensuring their compliance with court process and eventual removal.

The CMPP receives $5 million in funding to provide voluntary case management and other services to [aliens] in immigration removal proceedings.REF Law enforcement does not feature in CMPPs motto, which is Trauma Informed Case Management.REF The CMPP claims to conform to the DHS Strategic Plan for FYs 2020 to 2024, specifically with the goal of enforcing immigration laws throughout the United States in a manner that upholds the rule of law, American values, and national security.REF Yet, the CMPP assists aliens who have broken U.S. immigration law, provides them with social services not offered to many needy American citizens, and does nothing to further national security.

The CMPPs governing National Board is chaired by the DHS Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, not someone from ICEs ERO, and it is made up of NGOs with experience providing and evaluating case management programs for asylees and refugees.REF The CMPP supplement[s] existing Alternatives to Detention programs and inform[s] best practices moving forward.REF The CMPPs national board includes the Church World Service (CWS), which has opposed ICE and the enforcement of immigration law.REF The CWS acts as the administrator of the CMPP and oversees grants to NGOs and local governments to provide a list of social services to illegal aliens, some of whom are enrolled in ATDs. These include mental health services; human and sex trafficking screening; legal orientation programs; cultural orientation programs; connections to social services; and for individuals who will be removed, reintegration services.REF The Grants Notice for NGOs and local government recipients stated that connection to a range of services that CMPP participants identify as a priority could include access to counsel, affordable housing, childcare, transportation, healthcare, schooling, language classes, and orientation.REF Providing such comprehensive services and cultural orientation programs to people who have a slim chance of being granted asylum indicates that the Biden Administration has little intention of enforcing judgments other than those allowing illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S.

The YACMP is intended for 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds catch-and-release cases at the border.REF In September 2022, the DHS awarded an $80 million contract to Acuity International for the YACMP. The contract explicitly bans the use of GPS tracking, leaving only VoiceID and other methods that depend on aliens complying with the supervision. When participants eventually fail to do so, or are removed from the ATD program, they are highly unlikely to be detained or deported, given the Administrations non-enforcement priorities.REF Under the contract with Acuity, the YACMP will develop a network of age-appropriate and culturally sensitive community resources including trauma-informed care. Acuity must also provide deported YACMP aliens with a support system in their home countries upon deportation.REF

As of March 2023, Acuity was actively recruiting case managers in 16 U.S. cities (seven of which are known sanctuary cities) from San Diego to Boston to handle this youth ATD program.REF Under the YACMP, the Administration will be providing significant government support and financing to a population of indigent foreign youth, while sending thousands of putative 18-to-19-year-olds, mostly male, into U.S. cities already experiencing high crime, homelessness, and budget shortfalls.REF

In addition to defying mandatory detention and other enforcement provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), the Biden Administration has significantly shifted ATDs away from their intended or useful purpose. The DHS and Congress must ensure that the laws are enforced and direct funding and resources accordingly.

Congress should:

The DHS should:

Immigration detention is a necessary means to protect public safety, prevent flight, and to ensure removal. ATDs can be a backup for detention when there is no other option, but they are only effective when properly implemented. This Administration is not applying ATDs with the objective to enforce immigration law. Congress needs to take back control from the administrative state, increase detention resources for ICE, and require the Biden Administration to fully use those resources. Congress should also rescind funds that have been siphoned off from ATD towards social services that do not result in increased compliance and end those benefit programs.

Simon Hankinson is Senior Research Fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation.

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Alternatives to Detention for Illegal Aliens: Effective with Mandatory ... - Heritage.org

Immigration reform has failed in Congress for decades by becoming a political football between advocates for legalizing undocumented workers on the one hand and advocates for maintaining the current indentured servant system on the other.

There is such a crying need for agricultural workers that nearly half are undocumented, according to Polaris . Government should focus on improving worker conditions to increase the labor force.

Many fly-by-night labor contractors in the H-2A agricultural guest worker system illegally charge large fees to guest workers who then often find themselves in the U.S. toiling in poor working conditions, poor housing, and low wages, as the Coalition of Immokalee Workers reported in October 2021.

The U.S. Labor Department should act unilaterally to eliminate third-party labor contractors and make domestic employers take responsibility for H-2A visas to reduce abuse. The H-2A program has become the drug of choice for agriculture in ballooning sevenfold since 2005 and more than threefold since 2013 to the current 371,619 guest workers in 2022, as Rural Migration News reported in December 2021.

These changes should improve the remaining workers wages and living conditions while promoting unionization. State attorneys general should be encouraged to tackle human trafficking of agricultural workers and not just sex workers. States which respond well to labor reforms could be rewarded with more H-2A visas. One of these reforms can be the farm worker-led Fair Food program , which is an agreement between participating growers, buyers, and workers for safer working conditions and improved wages.

While there might be a shortfall of agricultural workers in the short term, there are tens of thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands of people working in illegal economies who could be redirected to replace imported agricultural workers.

It is estimated that 80% of marijuana sales come from illegal growing operations. From 80% to 85% of these illegal grows infest the 20 national forests of California. Much of the rest is in the national forests of Oregon, Washington, and Colorado. It is thought that 95% of illegal marijuana grows are run by Mexican and Chinese cartels, as National Public Radio reported in November 2019. States that legalize recreational cannabis should require sales from only in-state growers, as the Minnesota Legislature is proposing .

Law enforcement is so overmatched that only activating the National Guard would provide enough support to close down and clean up illegal grow sites that are often polluted with toxic pesticides. Drones can locate them. Cartel leaders can be deported or jailed. And victims of human trafficking (defined as involving fraud, force, or coercion) working there can be given the choice to receive visas as victims to work in legitimate enterprises or accept deportation if undocumented.

I argued in a commentary in the News Tribune in March that $600 billion could be saved by transferring 400,000 active-duty service members to Reserve status and still leave 900,000 active duty.

These initiatives would make legal marijuana more profitable and safer from pesticide residues, provide more taxable income, provide a larger workforce for agriculture, reduce the influence of foreign cartels, and provide better pay and working conditions for agricultural workers. This should also engender more incentive for businesses to call for comprehensive H-2A and immigration reform.

By closing down illegal national forest marijuana grows and incentivising work in our normal agricultural economy, balanced with whatever guest-worker imports are needed, we should be able to reach a worker-job opening equilibrium, reducing incentives for migrants illegally crossing the border just looking for job openings.

John Munter of Warba, Minnesota, ran as a Democrat in 2022 to represent Minnesota's 8th Congressional District. He wrote this for the News Tribune.

John Munter

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Local View: Here's a solution for illegal immigration - Duluth News Tribune

FAIR Take | May2023

Once upon a time Democrats believed in, or at least paid lip service to, secure borders and ending illegalimmigration.

In his 1995 State of the Union Address, President Bill Clinton asserted, All Americans, not only in states most heavily affected, but every place else in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. And yes, he said illegal aliens, not undocumented or irregular, or some other euphemism. That portion of his speech drew a round of applause from both sides of the aisle. As recently as last September, the former president told CNN that there is a limit to how many migrants the country can absorb and that lots of economic migrants are gaming our political asylumsystem.

In 2005, then-Senator Barack Obama (and presidential hopeful) was similarly blunt. We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked, and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently, and lawfully to become immigrants in this country, he said.

Their records may not have matched their rhetoric particularly with respect to Obama when it came to stopping illegal immigration, but they acknowledged the harm it causes and the legitimate concerns of the American people. In recent years, however, even the assertion that illegal immigration is harmful and should be halted has become taboo for Democratic politicians. The Biden administration has presided over the systematic dismantling of immigration and border enforcement, while Democratic-run states and localities continue to dream up new ways to protect and bestow benefits on illegalaliens.

It may seem as though the concept of immigration enforcement is dead in the Democratic Party. But is it? Enter Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-shot candidate who is challenging a reeling Joe Biden for the 2024 presidential nomination. In one of his opening salvos, Kennedy seemed to invoke the more sober reasoning of Democrats-past. America should be a haven of freedom and prosperity, open to law-abiding migrants who will contribute to our society. However, immigration must proceed in an orderly, lawful manner. Right now we have chaos at the border. Human trafficking, criminality, intolerable stress on border states like Texas. It is a humanitarian nightmare, he tweeted.

Kennedys statements were precipitated by the mass murder of a family in Cleveland, Texas, whose alleged killer is an illegal alien who had been deported multiple times in the past. It is not anti-immigrant bigotry to demand an immigration system that keeps out criminals. In fact, letting them in stokes bigotry. As President, I will enforce a secure border, and I will expand the kind of LEGAL immigration that made our country great, hecontinued.

Barely three weeks into his campaign, more than one in five Democrats favor Kennedy as their partys 2024 nominee. Sure, it helps that your name is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and that 51 percent of registered Democrats (and 70 percent of voters overall) dont even think Joe Biden should be running again. Immigration is one of the issues that is dragging down the presidents approval ratings. A scant 37 percent of voters approve of his handling of immigration policy, compared with 56 percent who disapprove. Those numbers could turn considerably worse if the situation at the border further deteriorates when Biden ends Title 42 nextweek.

While there will likely remain significant differences between the two parties on immigration (and many other issues), it is reasonable to believe that there is a broad bipartisan constituency for ending chaos at our border and the trafficking, exploitation and crippling burdens that come with it. It will be interesting to observe whether a challenger from within his own party can finally force the president to at least moderate the radical and unpopular immigration policies he pursued since takingoffice.

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RFK, Jr. Ignites the Question: Is There Still a Democratic ... - Federation for American Immigration Reform

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Rishi Sunak will urge world leaders to tackle illegal migration as he embarks on a round of international diplomacy this week.

Days after the Archbishop of Canterbury condemned his plan to deport anyone who arrives on a small boat across the Channel to Rwanda, the prime minister will use meetings at the Council of Europe summit in Reykjavik to discuss the importance of strengthening the blocs borders, Downing Street has announced.

He will stress collective efforts are necessary to tackle illegal migration as well as the threat posed by Russia in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.

Many of the challenges we are dealing with, from inflation to migration, must be solved by working closely with our international partners, he said.

The visit will come days before Mr Sunak heads to Japan for a bilateral meeting in Tokyo and a G7 gathering in Hiroshima.

Mr Sunaks appeal for international cooperation on illegal migration comes as he faces increasing pressure domestically over his attempts to stop people coming to the UK on small boats.

Senior figures, including Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and the former head of the British army Lord Dannatt, have backed The Independents campaign against the threatened deportation to Rwanda of an Afghan war veteran who arrived in the UK on a small boat.

The pilot, who worked alongside British Forces in Afghanistan, has said he was forced to flee in this way because there were no other safe and legal routes to come here.

Earlier this week, Archbishop Welby denounced Mr Sunaks plan to tackle illegal immigration, which would see even children and victims of modern slavery deported to Rwanda if they arrive here illegally, as morally unacceptable and politically impractical.

His comments came as the House of Lords began debating the governments small boats bill, as ministers expect to face a battle to prevent peers from trying to water down key measures of the plan.

Economic growth is also set to feature in the prime ministers discussions at the summit, as he promised to drive global action on our most pressing priorities.

His next stop will be Tokyo, where he is expected to announce a new UK-Japan collaboration on defence and technology.

Mr Sunak said: Many of the challenges we are dealing with, from inflation to migration, must be solved by working closely with our international partners.

I look forward to visiting Japan, a vital economic and defence partner for the UK in the Indo-Pacific.

This years G7 Summit in Hiroshima comes at a pivotal moment, as Ukraine doubles down in its fight for survival and we deal with complex threats to global peace and prosperity.

Mr Sunak will become the first British prime minister to visit Hiroshima when he attends the G7 summit, where is he also expected to hold a number of bilateral meetings with other world leaders.

The trip to Japan comes months after Mr Sunak hosted Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in London in January, when the two countries signed a significant defence agreement.

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Sunak to press EU leaders on migration after small boats bill backlash - The Independent