Sept. 8 (UPI) -- The United Kingdom's new home secretary said the country may suspend visas to countries that do not take back asylum-seekers after their failed asylum applications.
Shabana Mahmood said she would go "further and faster" than her predecessor Yvette Cooper and do "whatever it takes" to stop small boat crossings, The Guardian reported.
She called the number of migrants arriving in the U.K. on small boats "utterly unacceptable." This year's number of crossings of the English Channel have passed 30,000.
Mahmood's comments came as she hosted ministers from the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group, which includes Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States Monday.
"We think there is interesting space for collaborating, particularly on how we deal with countries who do not take their citizens back -- so making sure we are able to return out of our countries people who have no right to be in our countries and send them back to their home countries," the BBC reported she told the gathering.
