"You will face..."/ The British government starts the campaign to prevent Albanian immigrants from going to England

The Home Office has launched an advertising campaign aimed at preventing Albanians from immigrating to the United Kingdom.

The ads, which will appear in Albanian on Facebook and Instagram, will warn that people will "face detention and deportation" if they make the illegal journey, writes the BBC .

"If you go to the UK illegally, you will face detention and deportation," is one of the slogans.

The government said the campaign, starting next week, would "make clear the dangers" faced by migrants making their way to Britain in small boats.

According to the Home Office, Albania is a "safe and prosperous country" and many nationals "are traveling through multiple countries to make the journey to the UK" before making "false asylum claims".

The campaign follows a similar social media drive launched by the government in August last year.

Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick said the campaign would "proactively work at the source before people embark on dangerous and unnecessary journeys".

Albania was the most common nationality applying for asylum in the UK. Until March 2023, 13,714 applications were made by Albanians.

"We are determined to stop the boats and the campaign, launched in Albania this week, is just one component of the Home Office's upstream work to help dispel the myths about illegal travel to the UK, explain the realities and to combat the lies," Jenrick said.

Tim Naor Hilton, chief executive of Refugee Action, called the campaign "nonsense" and said it "repeated the myth that refugee migration is illegal".

He said: “This is another pointless campaign which shows that ministers refuse to recognize that a small minority of refugees in the world have very strong reasons for coming here. If the government wanted to crack down on smuggling gangs and stop people crossing the Channel by boat, it would create safer routes for refugees to travel here to seek asylum."