Border Force, council and charity sources claim hundreds had been allowed to leave without follow-up checks in order to tackle overcrowding
Migrants are being “actively encouraged” to leave the crisis-hit Manston asylum centre as long as they can provide an address, Border Force, council and charity sources have told The Telegraph.
In apparent relaxation, they claimed hundreds of migrants – many of them Albanian – had been allowed to freely leave without follow-up checks as part of a drive to tackle chronic overcrowding at the processing centre.
They have been released if they can provide an address where they can live and agree to report to an immigration office, but there is no obligation for officials to check the locations given to them by migrants prior to their departure.
The numbers at Manston – which is sited on a disused airfield in Kent – rose to 4,100 on Sunday, at least 2,500 over its capacity, but has now been slashed down to 2,700 in five days after warnings that the delays in processing the migrants and finding them alternative accommodation was potentially unlawful.