There are no longer people at Manston’s migrant processing center after it was overcrowded earlier this month.
The Home Office site in Kent, where thousands of migrants arriving in small boats have been taken since it opened in February, is currently unoccupied.
Manston, a former military base, has been at the center of controversy in recent weeks as it is designed to accommodate up to 1,600 people for no more than 24 hours.
But earlier this month, there were about 4,000 people at the center, some of whom were there much longer than they should have been.
Migrants said they slept on cardboard as migrant unrest spread over the conditions.
Concerns have been raised about infectious diseases, with reports of diphtheria, and earlier this month health authorities said they were vaccinating migrants in Manston against the disease.
The Home Office said there are currently no migrants in Manston as civil servants “work tirelessly” to find alternative accommodation for them.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister’s spokesman Rishi Sunak said Manston was intended to be a temporary detention facility where people were moved “often fairly quickly”.
He said the numbers increased when another center was set on fire, so migrants from there had to be moved to Manston.
“You would expect the numbers to be relatively low on a daily basis,” he added.
Migrants sent to Manston are being moved into the Home Office’s asylum accommodation system, which in recent times has often meant a hotel due to a shortage of available accommodation.
Due to the recent bad weather, there have been fewer migrant crossings than earlier in the year.
Please use the Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
3:04 Traffickers are adapting to new methods
Three days ago, a man staying in Manston fell ill and died after arriving in the UK on a small boat the previous weekend.
“There is no evidence at this stage” to suggest the death was “caused by an infectious disease”, the Home Office said.
The Home Office said it would not comment in detail until a post-mortem was carried out.
Click to subscribe to Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts
Since the start of November, there have only been three days when migrants have arrived in Kent across the Channel.
From November 12 to 14, 2,225 migrants arrived, but on all other days up to November 20 there were zero arrivals, the latest Home Office figures show.
In total, there have been more than 40,000 migrant crossings so far this year, compared to 28,561 for all of 2021.
A Home Office spokesman told Sky News: “Officers at the Home Office have worked tirelessly in difficult circumstances to find alternative accommodation as quickly as possible for those who have been processed at Manston.
“Thanks to their efforts there are currently no people housed on site and improvements are being made to the site to ensure it remains well resourced to process migrants safely and securely.
“The global migration crisis continues to place unprecedented and unsustainable pressure on our asylum system, which is why we remain focused on deterring illegal migration and dismantling the criminal gangs responsible for these dangerous crossings.”
Add Comment