Stunt photos won't reduce migration

Yvette Cooper is evidently rattled by alarming headlines suggesting that she is losing her grip on migration.
As a veteran of the Blair era, the Home Secretary thinks the answer is to sound tough on foreign criminals and even tougher on the causes of foreign criminals. To that end, the Home Office has issued pictures and videos showing undesirables being removed.
The idea is to show, not tell, the public that the Government really is on top of this problem. Admittedly, the pictures are underwhelming: an unnamed individual, his face pixelated, being escorted on to a plane to an undisclosed destination. Compared to the hundreds of images of thousands arriving on small boats or living in hotels that appear on social media daily, this Home Office stunt is hardly a game-changer.
But the real challenge for Ms Cooper is that there are just too many counter examples of villains running rings around the criminal justice system in order to avoid deportation.
This week we read about Albanian-born Klevis Disha, who gained British citizenship by deception and was then jailed in 2017 for two years after being caught with £250,000 in criminal proceeds. Disha was then due to be deported, but has been appealing ever since. Outrageously, a judge ruled that Disha's human rights would be violated by deportation because his 10-year-old son 'will not eat the type of chicken nuggets that are available abroad'. A more senior judge threw out this judgment, but the case is ongoing.
Then there is the Pakistani paedophile who escaped deportation because a judge initially ruled that his absence would be 'unduly harsh' on his two small children – despite the fact that he is banned from living with them. Although this judgment has for now been set aside, our courts still risk becoming theatres of the absurd with such cases.
The backlog of outstanding asylum appeals has grown fivefold in two years and now stands at 34,169 cases. Legal costs are a major factor in the cost of the asylum system, now in excess of £5 billion annually. The Home Office retorts that enforced returns, removals of foreign offenders and illegal working raids are all substantially up compared to a year ago.
Yet as long as the courts continue to prevent deportations for spurious reasons, the Home Secretary will struggle to persuade us that enough is being done to protect the public from the scourge of foreign criminals.
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4 hours ago

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A woman tried to call her mom in Iran. A robotic voice answered the phone

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Life is full of unexpected surprises, and these surprises can sometimes bring joy while at other times they challenge us.' Not all Iranians abroad encounter the robotic voice. Some said when they try to call family, the phone just rings and rings. Colin Crowell, a former vice president for Twitter's global policy, said it appeared that Iranian phone companies were diverting the calls to a default message system that does not allow calls to be completed. Amir Rashidi, an Iranian cybersecurity expert based in the U.S., agreed and said the recordings appeared to be a government measure to thwart hackers, though there was no hard evidence. He said that in the first two days of Israel's campaign, mass voice and text messages were sent to Iranian phones urging the public to gear up for 'emergency conditions.' They aimed to spread panic — similar to mass calls that government opponents made into Iran during the war with Iraq in the 1980s. The voice messages trying to calm people 'fit the pattern of the Iranian government and how in the past it handled emergency situations,' said Rashidi, the director of Texas-based Miaan, a group that reports on digital rights in the Middle East. Mobile phones and landlines ultimately are overseen by Iran's Ministry of Information and Communications Technology. But the country's intelligence services have long been believed to be monitoring conversations. 'It would be hard for anybody else to hack. Of course, it is possible it is Israeli. But I don't think they have an incentive to do this,' said Mehdi Yahyanejad, a tech entrepreneur and internet freedom activist. Marwa Fatafta, Berlin-based policy and advocacy director for digital rights group Access Now, suggested it could be 'a form of psychological warfare by the Israelis.' She said it fits a past pattern by Israel of using extensive direct messaging to Lebanese and Palestinians during campaigns in Gaza and against Hezbollah. The messages, she said, appear aimed at 'tormenting' already anxious Iranians abroad. When contacted with requests for comment, the Israeli military declined and the prime minister's office did not respond. Ellie is one of a lucky few who found a way to reach relatives since the blackout. She knows someone who lives on the Iran-Turkey border and has two phones — one with a Turkish SIM card and one with an Iranian SIM. He calls Ellie's mother with the Iranian phone — since people inside the country are still able to call one another — and presses it to the Turkish phone, where Ellie's on the line. The two are able to speak. 'The last time we spoke to her, we told her about the AI voice that is answering all her calls,' said Ellie. 'She was shocked. She said her phone hasn't rung at all.' Elon Musk said he has activated his satellite internet provider Starlink in Iran, where a small number of people are believed to have the system, even though it is illegal. Authorities are urging the public to turn in neighbors with the devices as part of an ongoing spy hunt. Others have illegal satellite dishes, granting them access to international news. M., a woman in the U.K., has been trying to reach her mother-in-law, who is immobile and lives in Tehran's northeast, which has been pummeled by Israeli bombardment throughout the week. When she last spoke to her family in Iran, they were mulling whether she should evacuate from the city. Then the blackout was imposed, and they lost contact. Since then she has heard through a relative that the woman was in the ICU with respiratory problems. When she calls, she gets the same bizarre message as the woman in the U.K., a lengthy mantra. 'Close your eyes and picture yourself in a place that brings you peace and happiness,' it says. 'Maybe you are walking through a serene forest, listening to the rustle of leaves and birds chirping. Or you're by the seashore, hearing the calming sound of waves crashing on the sand.' The only feeling the message does instill in her, she said, is 'helplessness.' ___ El Deeb reported from Beirut