"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths." Northwoods is a ministry dedicated to refreshing Christians and challenging them to search for the truth in Christianity, politics, sociology, and science
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life"
Father God, thank you for the love of the truth you have given me. Please bless me with the wisdom, knowledge and discernment needed to always present the truth in an attitude of grace and love. Use this blog and Northwoods Ministries for your glory. Help us all to read and to study Your Word without preconceived notions, but rather, let scripture interpret scripture in the presence of the Holy Spirit. All praise to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Please note: All my writings and comments appear in bold italics in this colour
Thousands of Brits live rough on the streets of London and the West Midlands. Meanwhile, more than 100 thousand illegal immigrants live in 4-star hotels, or other government-funded accommodation, in comparative luxury.
Energy costs are exceptional thanks to USA LNG, and Starmer is determined to give 5% of GDP to unnecessary military buildups that will mostly benefit the USA. Have you ever heard so much stupidity in your life?
Extreme poverty rate shoots up in UK – study
Nearly seven million people are living in severe hardship, the highest level on record, according the Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Poverty in the UK has worsened, with record numbers living in severe hardship and unable to afford basic necessities, according to an analysis by a leading charity.
More than one in five people in the UK – about 14.2 million – were living in poverty in 2023/24, the final year of the last Conservative government and the latest year for which official figures are available, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) said in a report on Tuesday. Of these, about half, or 6.8 million people, were experiencing “very deep” hardship, the highest number in 30 years.
Children, renters, disabled people, and those in insecure work were among the groups most affected. Nearly 4.5 million children lived in poverty in 2023/24, 600,000 more than during the pandemic and marking the third consecutive year of increases. Rates were highest in larger families, where 44% of children were affected. People renting privately faced greater risks than homeowners, while disabled people and informal carers were also disproportionately affected, the report noted.
The most severe cases are even more acute. About 3.8 million people, including around one million children, experienced destitution, being unable to afford basics such as heating, clothing, and food.
“Poverty in the UK is still not just widespread, it is deeper and more damaging than at any point in the last 30 years,” said JRF’s chief analyst Peter Matejic. “When nearly half of the people in poverty are living far below the poverty line, that is a warning sign that the welfare system is failing to protect people from harm.”
Poverty rates varied across the UK, with London and the West Midlands among the hardest-hit areas, according to the report.
Rising living costs and stagnant wages have contributed to the increase in severe poverty, the charity stated. Inflation for essentials such as food, energy, and rent has surged in recent years, while earnings for low-income households have barely increased, leaving many struggling to cover basic needs.
The poorest UK households have only become poorer under Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government, despite promises to boost living standards, according to the latest data from independent research consultancy Retail Economics.
UK to move illegals into military barracks after fury
over migrant hotels
Home Office figures show that accommodating asylum seekers is costing taxpayers nearly
£6 million a day
The UK Defense Ministry plans to house illegal migrants in military barracks after widespread protests over the government’s use of taxpayer-funded hotels.
Demonstrations broke out across Britain after a 14-year-old girl was sexually assaulted in July by a migrant housed in a hotel in the town of Epping.
As of July, 45,000 asylum seekers were being housed in hotels at a cost of nearly £6 million ($8.1 million) per day – an expense that has fueled public anger amid Britain’s worsening financial crisis. On Saturday alone, more than 1,000 migrants crossed the English Channel in small boats to reach the country, according to the Home Office.
“We are looking at the potential use of military and non-military sites for temporary accommodation for the people who come across on these small boats that may not have a right to be here,” Defense Secretary John Healey told Sky News on Sunday.
He added that migrants would need to be “processed rapidly” to determine whether they could be deported.
I’m looking at it with the Home Office, and I recognize that the loss of confidence of the public over recent years in Britain’s ability to control its borders needs to be satisfied.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer reshuffled his cabinet on Saturday, appointing Shabana Mahmood as the new home secretary after pledging to tackle the migrant hotel crisis and the flood of illegals. She has reportedly been given license to crack down on the influx.
Starmer has faced a storm of criticism over the crisis, which many have seen as a show that Downing Street prioritizes the rights and safety of migrants over those of the British people.
The prime minister’s approval rating has collapsed over his immigration stance, as well as his handling of the Pakistani rape gang scandal. Nearly 70% of Britons have an unfavorable opinion of Starmer, according to a YouGov poll from last month.
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UK may suspend visas for countries that won’t take back people refused asylum, says Mahmood
New home secretary vows to move ‘further and faster’ to cut number of people entering by irregular routes
Countries that refuse to take back rejected asylum seekers from the UK could face visa suspensions, Shabana Mahmood said on Monday, as she promised to move “further and faster” as home secretary.
Confirming that she hopes to take a harder line than her predecessor, Yvette Cooper, she said she would do “whatever it takes” to cut the number of people entering the UK by irregular routes such as small boats.
In a first announcement as home secretary, she proposed to cut the number of visas granted to countries that delay or refuse returns of their citizens who have no right to remain in the UK.
It was one of several proposals discussed with Britain’s closest allies at a meeting of the Five Eyes security partnership, which is made up of the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Mahmood said: “For us, that means including possibly the cutting of visas in the future.
“We do expect countries to play ball, play by the rules and if one of your citizens has no right to be in our country, you do need to take them back.”
Countries where returns of refused asylum seekers are low and demand for UK visas is high include India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal. In June, Keir Starmer said he wanted to take a more “transactional” approach to the UK’s use of visas.
Experts said the lack of detail released by the government meant that it was difficult to assess whether any visa restrictions might persuade countries to take back more rejected asylum seekers.
Madeleine Sumption, the director of the Migration Observatory at Oxford University, said: “We don’t currently know what sort of restrictions the government has in mind. In theory, it would involve entirely preventing citizens of certain countries from getting visit, work or study visas – the nuclear option - or smaller restrictions such as higher costs. This would affect the impacts both in the UK and on the negotiation.
“Governments around the world are likely to respond differently to the prospect of visa restrictions. Some countries to which the UK struggles to return refused asylum seekers do not receive many visas for their citizens anyway, and do not have well-functioning governments with the desire or capacity to negotiate – such as Somalia. They might not be particularly exercised by visa restrictions.
“However, there are quite a few countries where returns of refused asylum seekers are low and demand for UK visas is also high. How these countries would respond to threats to reduce visa access might depend how much they care about visa options for their citizens. This will vary, although some countries – such as India – have a long history of lobbying for visa access,” she said.
Mahmood also said she had always been in favour of ID cards but refused to be drawn on whether the government would look to make them compulsory.
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She said the government would look to bring forward proposals to change domestic legislation and guidance on how the European convention on human rights (ECHR) was implemented in the UK, saying the “balance” between human rights and secure borders “isn’t in the right place at the moment”.
Reform UK has already pledged to leave the ECHR entirely, along with other international conventions it regards as preventing “mass deportations”, while Kemi Badenoch has asked her shadow attorney general to examine the practicalities of leaving before the Conservative party conference next month.
Among the areas where Mahmood is expected to take a more hardline approach than Cooper is the issue of asylum accommodation.
Military commanders have been deployed to work with the Home Office’s border security command to find temporary accommodation such as prefabricated, modular buildings.
The Five Eyes meeting took place after it was confirmed more than 30,000 people had crossed the Channel in small boats so far in 2025, a record for this point in the year. At least 1,097 people arrived in the UK in 17 boats on Saturday, bringing the total in 2025 so far to 30,100.
The number of migrants caught crossing a stretch of the US-Canada border that includes northern New York has skyrocketed — increasing more than 50-fold under the Biden-Harris administration.
This year, illegal crossings surpassed the number for the last 17 years combined.
The Border Patrol agents in the Swanton sector — which includes more than 200 miles of land border between Maine and the St. Lawrence River in New York — apprehended more than 19,000 illegal migrants from 97 different countries in fiscal year 2024, the Border Patrol chief for the sector, Robert Garcia, said this week.
And among them have been at least 321 terror suspects as of the end of August – with the numbers for September still not logged into Customs and Border Protection’s data.
In the year prior, there were 484 suspected terrorists apprehended.
The threat of terror suspects coming from Canada is very real.
Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, a 20-year-old Pakistani legally living in Canada on a student visa who was allegedly on his way to the US border to carry out a massacre of NYC jews, that he hoped would be “the largest US attack since 9/11.”
Authorities said Khan was planning to smuggle himself into the US, but was caught in September at the last moment by undercover FBI agents masquerading as co-conspirators.
Though the number of crossings from Canada is smaller compared to the southern border — where 54,000 illegal border crossings were recorded in September alone— they have been increasing at incredible pace.
In fiscal year 2021, just 365 illegal crossers were caught in the sector. The numbers climbed to more than 1,000 in 2022, and then nearly 7,000 last fiscal year.
Across the whole northern border, crossings have increased massively in recent years — with nearly 190,000 illegal migrants caught crossing from Canada in fiscal year 2023.
That’s more than six times as many illegal crossers as in 2021.
Figures for fiscal year 2024 crossings look likely to be close to 2023 levels.
The Border Patrol agents in the Swanton sector apprehended more than 19,000 illegal migrants from 97 different countries in fiscal year 2024, officials said.
The rules — similar to a Trump administration policy — restrict illegal border crossers from accessing the years-long asylum process.
The policy remains in effect at the southern border, where it bars asylum access until illegal crossings fall below an average of 1,500 per day for a month.
“The executive order doesn’t affect us,” a Border Patrol source at the northern border previously told The Post.
“Family units are getting released and singles are sent to detention for adjudication.”
Earlier this year, residents in rural Swanton, Vermont, showed The Post the migrant smuggling taking place on their properties.
A group of 19 adult males were apprehended near Champlain, NY, following an illegal entry into the country.
X/USBPChiefSWB
“Now I’ve got the Border Patrol guys on speed dial,” local Chris Feeley, 52, said in February.
Feeley has seen the illegal crossings firsthand take place over the last three years from the vantage point of his hunting tree stand.
He recalled one morning when he was up in the tree watching startled deer run by before seeing two men “of Mexican descent” wearing backpacks and carrying walking sticks.
Seven Mexican citizens are apprehended by border agents near Mooers, New York.
X/USBPChiefSWB
“He stopped right underneath me and was looking at his iPhone and was following a trail, so obviously somebody gave him a route of which way to go,” Feeley said.
“I was just stunned, I didn’t know what to do. I just let them walk off, I gave them 10 minutes before I went back to the barn to call Border Patrol.”
Feeley said border agents in the area advised him to start carrying a gun to protect himself.
The northern border offers fewer barriers for migrants trying to sneak across, with no border wall and limited law enforcement manpower patrolling huge swaths of land, according to Border Patrol sources who have spoken to The Post.
While experiencing record border crossings from Mexico, agents were pulled from north to south to help their counterparts process the thousands of migrants crossing each day.
It would be unbelievably foolish for any British citizen actually to believe that a far-left government such as that of Prime Minister Keir Starmer would abide by his election promise to curb Britain’s ongoing illegal migrant problem.
Nothing has significantly changed since we reported this last year on Jihad Watch:
It keeps getting worse by the day as more illegals flow into Britain via the English Channel. While many UK military families have no heat or hot water, the government continues to host illegal migrants in plush hotels, at the cost to taxpayers of $8.5 million USD a day and rising. And now, homelessness is up over 25% in Britain. So while illegal, mostly Muslim migrants from the Middle East and Africa, are royally served in plush hotels, poverty stricken Britons are shivering on the streets.
Note that the reported cost last year was $8,500,000 USD, while it is now being reported in the Times of London at $5,800,000 USD. According to the UK government’s website:
There were more than 46,000 asylum seekers in hotels as of the end of December 2023, costing £8 million a day.
£8 is $10,600,000 USD.
When British citizens were protesting in the streets over illegal migration, the Starmer government and the media made them out to be “far right,” “violent” thugs.
The Labour government has no intention of stopping illegals, as it strings along British citizens with promises to the contrary. The general policy of the British government is the same as that of leftist governments everywhere: putting British citizens last in a slow, agonizing process of a great global reset that rejects Judeo-Christian values, traditions and rule of law.
Migrants will be stuck in hotels for three years because of asylum backlog
by Matt Dathan and Steven Swinford, The Times of London, September 30, 2024:
Migrants will continue to be housed in hotels for up to three years because the asylum backlog will take significantly longer to clear than Labour expected, The Times has been told.
There are nearly 30,000 migrants living in more than 250 hotels at a cost of £4.2 million per day.
Sir Keir Starmer pledged in Labour’s election manifesto to “end asylum hotels, saving the taxpayer billions of pounds”. The party did not set a timeframe on closing hotels but Home Office officials had been expected to close the last hotel within a year.
However, since entering power, Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, and other ministers have privately conceded that it will take significantly longer to clear the overall asylum backlog than they had hoped….
Another case of flat-out lying on the campaign trail. Such is the way of godless politicians.
