The town in Kent was the scene of a petrol bomb attack on an immigration facility this week and council chiefs have warned the whole county is at “tipping point” due to the influx of people crossing the Channel. Ms Braverman is also under increasing political pressure over the illegal conditions at the Manston immigration processing center in Kent, where around 3,500 people are held for weeks in a space meant to hold 1,600 for a few days. Government minister Graham Stewart admitted on Thursday that the site was not operating legally and “none of us are comfortable with it”. Asked if he was happy that asylum seekers were being held illegally, he told Sky News: “Obviously not. None of us are comfortable with that. We want to deal with it, we want to keep it, that’s what the Home Secretary is focused on.” Politics Live: Government prepares for rate hike, legal challenge over immigration crisis Last night, Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick revealed the Home Office was facing legal action after days of overcrowding at the facility. Mr Jenrick hinted that the facility was not operating legally, telling Sky News he expected it “to be returned to a functioning and legally compliant site very quickly”. Although hundreds of people have been turned away from Manston in recent days, the Home Office came under further criticism last night after reports that a group of asylum seekers were left homeless at London’s Victoria station after being removed from the premises. The grim conditions at Manston were also revealed in a letter a young woman threw over the perimeter fence to a PA news agency photographer, claiming there were pregnant women and sick prisoners there. “Unfortunate Language” Mr Stuart tried to blame an “unacceptable increase” in small boat crossings for the problems, saying the asylum system was “struggling to cope”. “It’s not where we want it to be at the moment and we’re just trying to balance it, thousands more hotel rooms have been cleared but it’s unacceptable to the British people and we need to do more to tackle traffickers in what is an unprecedented increase in of illegal immigration,” he said. He then admitted that “unfortunate language” had been used about the migration crisis after the country’s prime minister told the government to stop blaming Albanians. Mr Stuart said he was “grateful” to Albania for sending its senior police officers to the UK “to speed up procedures”, following a rise in the number of people arriving in the UK from the southern European country. “So we’re trying to work collaboratively, but clearly there’s pressure,” he said. “You can see it from councillors, you can see it from members of parliament, you can hear it from people and journalists across the country. “It can lead to language that is sometimes unfortunate and it is worth recording our gratitude to the Albanian government for its cooperation in trying to resolve this.” Ms Braverman has singled out Albanians several times in the past week when discussing the rise in people crossing the Channel in small boats, while Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick also said Albanians were “misusing” the modern slavery law to delay deportation attempts. But Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama is fed up and tweeted on Wednesday that the British government should stop using Albanian migrants to “justify policy failures”. Kent ‘at breaking point’ Ms Braverman is under increasing pressure to understand the Channel crisis as record numbers of people continue to arrive in the UK. Council chiefs in Kent have warned the county is at “tipping point” as a result of the situation, with the possibility of disorder in Manston and the risk of far-right violence. They have written to the home secretary – urging her to stop using the county as an “easy fix” – and have warned they are under “disproportionate pressure” because of Kent’s location. There are no longer school places for local children in Years 7 and 9 because of the unplanned arrival of young refugees, they said.
