 while undergoing security, identity and health checks. They're then moved to a detention centre or other long-term accommodation. The Home Office said last week: 'The aim was to run a site that had between 1,000 and 1,600 people passing through it every day, and that all of those checks would be completed in under 24 hours. For a large part of this year, that is exactly how it was operating.' Why are asylum seekers being held at Manston? Before Manston opened, migrants who braved the choppy seas of the English Channel would find themselves at a similar centre in Tug Haven, Dover. But His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, the head of a prison watchdog, in 2020 said the facility is 'badly equipped to meet [its] purpose' of processing Channel crossers. Inside, inspectors said detainees faced 'unacceptably poor conditions' and despite assurances from officials, they encountered similar problems again in 2021. In a report, chief inspector Charlie Tayor said some arriving migrants, including families with young children, spent 24 hours in tents){kind=link}
NEWS… BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT
The Manston migrant centre has become a lightning rod in a political storm around home secretary Suella Braverman.
The situation at the centre is so dire it amounts to a ‘breach of humane conditions’, Conservative MP Roger Gale said Monday.
But what exactly is Manston and how does Braverman fit into it all?
The centre is in the middle of Manston, a drowsy village on the Isle of Thanet, a peninsula in eastern Kent.