Minister faces criticism for ‘invasion’ comments

LONDON >> Britain’s interior minister faced criticism Tuesday for describing migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats as an “invasion,” days after an immigration center was attacked with firebombs.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman used the term while defending conditions at a processing center for new arrivals where some 4,000 people have been held in a facility intended for 1,600.

Braverman referred to smallboat crossings on Monday as “the invasion of our southern coast” and said “illegal immigration is out of control.”

“Let’s stop pretending that they are all refugees in distress,” she said of migrants crossing the Channel.