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LONDON: The British government on Wednesday said it was toughening immigration rules to make it almost impossible for undocumented migrants who arrive on small boats to later receive citizenship.
Under new guidance migrants arriving by sea, or hidden in the back of vehicles will normally be refused citizenship.
“This guidance further strengthens measures to make it clear that anyone who enters the UK illegally, including small boat arrivals, faces having a British citizenship application refused,” a Home Office spokesperson said.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government is under pressure to reduce migration after Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party won roughly four million votes during the last general election — an unprecedented haul for a far-right party.
But the change to the rules has been criticized by some Labour MPs.
“If we give someone refugee status, it can’t be right to then refuse them a route to become a British citizen,” wrote lawmaker Stella Creasy on X, adding that the policy would leave them “forever second class.”
Free Movement, an immigration law blog, said the changes had the potential to “block a large number of refugees from naturalizing as British citizens, effective immediately.”
It called the updated guidance “incredibly spiteful and damaging to integration.”
The announcement comes after MPs this week debated the government’s new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, designed to give law enforcement officials “counter-terror style powers” to break up gangs bringing irregular migrants across the Channel.
Legal and undocumented immigration — both currently running at historically high levels — was a major political issue at the July 2024 poll that brought Starmer to power.
On taking office, he immediately scrapped his Conservative predecessor Rishi Sunak’s plan to deter undocumented migration to the UK by deporting new arrivals to Rwanda.
Instead he pledged to “smash the gangs” to bring the numbers down.
Some 36,816 people were detected in the Channel between England and France in 2024, a 25 percent increase from the 29,437 who arrived in 2023, provisional figures from the interior ministry showed.

BOGOR, Indonesia: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met his Indonesian counterpart Prabowo Subianto on Wednesday for talks aimed at strengthening economic and defense ties between the two Muslim-majority nations.
The two countries are holding their first High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council summit after agreeing to create the forum at a meeting in Bali in 2022.
Erdogan’s state visit to Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country and Southeast Asia’s largest economy, was his second stop in a four-day visit that also includes Malaysia and Pakistan.
“This meeting is the highest regular bilateral forum between the two countries where all matters of common interest will be discussed, including strategic issues and priorities,” said Indonesian foreign ministry spokesperson Rolliansyah Soemirat ahead of the visit.
A Turkish statement said the discussions will be focused on current regional and global issues, particularly the war in Gaza.
On Monday, the Turkish leader met Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, and reiterated his opposition to a US proposal to relocate Palestinians from Gaza and said Israel should pay for the territory’s reconstruction.
“We do not consider the proposal to exile the Palestinians from the lands they have lived in for thousands of years as something to be taken seriously,” Erdogan said.
Erdogan and his wife, First Lady Emine Erdogan, arrived in Jakarta late Tuesday and was welcomed by Subianto at Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport in a light rain. Erdogan rode with Subianto in a motorcade to his hotel.
Indonesia and Turkiye have built an increasingly close relationship in recent years, and the two leaders previously met in Ankara last July when Subianto was still president-elect and defense minister. Subianto pledged to “elevate defense cooperation and other strategic fields for mutual benefit.”
The two countries signed a defense cooperation agreement in 2010, under which Indonesia’s state-run arms producer Pindad and Turkiye’s FNSS jointly developed a new model of medium tank. In 2023, the two countries inked a plan of action for joint military exercises and defense industry cooperation.
In addition to Indonesia, Turkiye has HLSCC cooperation forums with 21 other countries, including Pakistan.
Turkiye and Indonesia plan to sign agreements on trade, investment, education and technology during Erdogan’s visit.
Erdogan will head on to Pakistan on Wednesday, where he and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will address the Pakistan-Turkiye Business and Investment Forum and attend another HSLCC meeting.