‘Five Eyes’ ministers will meet to discuss smashing people-smuggling gangs, UK says

LONDON - Homeland ministers from Britain, the United States and the other “Five Eyes” alliance will announce new measures this week to increase border security and target people smugglers, British Interior Minister Shabana Mahmood said on Sept 7.

The ministers from the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network – the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – will meet in London on Sept 8 and 9, Britain’s Home Office said, with measures to “smash criminal smuggling gangs” the focus of the talks.

“We will agree new measures to protect our borders with our Five Eyes partners, hitting people smugglers hard,” Ms Mahmood, who was only appointed to her job on Sept 5 after Prime Minister Keir Starmer

reshuffled his ministers.

Countries across the world are wrestling with how to deal with

the issue of migration,

with the US President Donald Trump making a crackdown on legal and illegal immigration a central plank of his second White House term.

In Britain, it has become the dominant political topic, with the government under great pressure from rivals over how to deal with

a record number of asylum claims and arrivals

by migrants in small boats across the Channel.

Joining Ms Mahmood for the talks will be US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Canada’s Mr Gary Anandasangaree, Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, and Ms Judith Collins from New Zealand.

As well as people smuggling, the group will discuss new measures to tackle those behind child sexual abuse online and how to stop the spread of deadly synthetic opioids, the Home Office said. REUTERS