UK leader tells Interpol meeting world must 'wake up' to threat from people-smugglers

LONDON (AP) — People-smuggling gangs sending migrants across the English Channel in small boats are a serious threat to global security and should be treated like terror networks, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told an international law-enforcement conference on Monday.

Starmer told a meeting of the international police organization Interpol that “the world needs to wake up to the severity of this challenge.”

“People-smuggling should be viewed as a global security threat similar to terrorism,” he said.

Starmer, a former chief prosecutor for England and Wales, said his government would be “taking our approach to counterterrorism, which we know works, and applying it to the gangs.” That means more cooperation between law enforcement agencies, closer coordination with other countries and unspecified “enhanced” powers for law enforcement, he said.

Starmer said that in counterterrorism operations, “we can shut down their bank account, cut off their internet access and arrest them for making preparations to act before an attack has taken place.”

“And we need to stop people-smuggling gangs before they act too,” he said.

Starmer also announced plans to increase the U.K. Border Security Command’s two-year budget from 75 million pounds ($97 million) to 150 million pounds ($194 million). The money will be used to fund high-tech surveillance equipment and 100 specialist investigators.

Senior police and government officials from Interpol’s 196 member nations are attending the global police body’s four-day congress in Glasgow, Scotland. Starmer and British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper both addressed the meeting, calling for stronger international policing cooperation to fight drug trafficking and child sexual abuse, as well as people-smuggling.

Britain’s 2020 departure from the European Union complicated international cooperation on law-enforcement by taking the U.K. out of the bloc’s police agency, Europol. Starmer’s Labour Party opposed Brexit, but says it will not try to reverse the decision to leave the bloc.

Starmer said he is seeking a new security pact with the EU that would restore real-time intelligence sharing.

Like previous Conservative British governments, Starmer’s administration is struggling to stop thousands of people fleeing war and poverty from trying reach the U.K. from France in flimsy, overcrowded boats.

Europe’s increasingly strict asylum rules, growing xenophobia and hostile treatment of migrants are pushing many migrants north. While the U.K. government has been hostile, too, many migrants have family or friends in the U.K. and believe they will have more opportunities there.

More than 31,000 migrants have made the perilous crossing of one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes so far this year, more than in all of 2023, though fewer than in 2022. At least 56 people have perished in the attempts this year, according to French officials, making 2024 the deadliest since the number of channel crossings began surging in 2018.

Starmer, who leads a center-left government, has raised some eyebrows in September when he visited Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni and praised her nationalist conservative government’s “remarkable” progress in reducing the number of migrants reaching Italy’s shores by boat.

Starmer argued Monday that “there’s nothing progressive about turning a blind eye as men, women and children die in the channel.”

The opposition Conservative Party argues that Starmer should not have scrapped the previous government’s plan to send some asylum-seekers who reach Britain by boat on one-way trips to Rwanda. Supporters of the proposal say it would act as a deterrent. Human rights groups and many lawyers say it is unethical and unlawful to send migrants thousands of miles to a country they don’t want to live in.

Starmer called the plan a “gimmick” and canceled it soon after he was elected in July. Britain paid Rwanda hundreds of millions of pounds for the plan under a deal signed by the two countries in 2022, without any deportations taking place.

Former Conservative Immigration Minister Tom Pursglove urged Starmer to revive the Rwanda plan, telling the BBC “it’s a very serious failure not to have a credible deterrent in place."

On Tuesday, Brazilian police official Valdecy Urquiza is expected to be named the new Interpol general secretary, replacing Jürgen Stock of Germany. He will be the first chief of the Lyon, France-based organization not to come from Europe or the United States.

Interpol, which celebrated its centennial last year, works to help national police forces communicate with each other and track suspects and criminals in fields like counterterrorism, financial crime, child pornography, cybercrime and organized crime.

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Juergen Stock Interpol secretary general, center, Graeme Biggar National crime agency director general, left, and Samuel Heath Interpol communications director, right, address the media at 92nd Interpol general assembly in Glasgow, Scotland, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Scott Heppell)

The President of Interpol, Ahmed Naser Al Raise, speaking at the opening ceremony for the Interpol General Assembly in Glasgow, Scotland, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Scott Heppell)

Juergen Stock Interpol secretary general speaks to the media at 92nd Interpol general assembly in Glasgow, Scotland, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Scott Heppell)

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, right, and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, left, walk at the Interpol General Assembly in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (Russell Cheyne/Pool Photo via AP)

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at the Interpol General Assembly in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (Russell Cheyne/Pool Photo via AP)

Valdecy Urquiza, Interpol's vice president for the Americas and head of international cooperation at the Brazilian federal police, poses for a portrait at the Interpol General Assembly in Glasgow, Scotland, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Scott Heppell)

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaking at the opening ceremony for the Interpol General Assembly in Glasgow, Scotland Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Scott Heppell)

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at the Interpol General Assembly in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, Nov. 4, 2024. Russell Cheyne/Pool Photo via AP)

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer, seen on a large video screen, speaking at the opening ceremony for the Interpol General Assembly in Glasgow, Scotland Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Scott Heppell)

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at the Interpol General Assembly in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, Nov. 4, 2024. (Russell Cheyne/Pool Photo via AP)

A man survived being shoved onto subway tracks ahead of an incoming train in New York City on New Year's Eve and is expected to fully recover, relatives said, while the person accused of pushing him was being held without bail Thursday on attempted murder and assault charges.

Joseph Lynskey, 45, was standing on the platform in the West 18th Street station in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood on Tuesday afternoon when another man pushed him onto the tracks as a 1 train approached. Police called it a random attack.

Lynskey's condition has been upgraded from critical to stable, police said. His injuries include a fractured skull, broken ribs and a ruptured spleen, authorities said.

“Miraculously, he survived the horrific attack, but he suffered many injuries and remains hospitalized in NY,” his sister, Jennifer Lynskey, wrote in a Facebook post. “Anyone who's ever met Joe knows he's one of the kindest, most thoughtful, and caring humans out there."

“Joe has a long road ahead of him, both physically and emotionally/mentally,” she continued.

She urged people to donate to a GoFundMe page to help pay for his medical expenses and other bills. The page had raised over $70,000 by Thursday afternoon.

Joseph Lynskey did not return phone and email messages Thursday.

He is head of content and music programming for Gray V, a New York City-based company that creates soundtracks and music playlists for customers, according to his LinkedIn page. He was born and raised in Miami and performs as a DJ known as Joe Usher, his website says.

A police report said surveillance video showed the suspect push Joseph Lynskey onto the tracks as a train approached, and he was hit by the train.

The recording, published by news outlets, shows a man standing on the platform, appearing to be looking at his phone, when another man in a black jacket with his hood up passes behind him, stops, then charges back and pushes him. The victim falls onto the tracks in front of the train as it arrives at the station.

Other videos posted on social media show firefighters going down to the tracks through a gap in between subway cars and pulling a person back up onto the platform.

Authorities did not say how Lynskey escaped with just broken bones. While a direct hit with a train is often fatal, some who fall from New York City’s platforms do manage to survive. Safety experts say if it’s not possible to get back on a platform or outrun a slowing train, lying down in the trough between the tracks may work in some stations, and there might be a space between the train and the platform at some stops.

Kamel Hawkins, 23, was taken into custody later that day. A judge in Manhattan approved a request by prosecutors on Wednesday to detain the Brooklyn resident without bail pending his next court appearance on Monday.

Hawkins already had pending assault and harassment charges in Brooklyn, where he is accused of throwing bleach on a woman and trying to break into her home after threatening her, according to prosecutors.

Hawkins' lawyer in the subway case, Darryl Hairston, did not immediately return a phone message Thursday. His lawyer in the Brooklyn case, Jeremy Gross, said he had no immediate comment.

Hawkins' father, Shamel Spencer, told The New York Times that he's stunned by the allegations. He said Hawkins had some troubles with the law, but he never thought his son would be charged with anything so violent. He also said he had been seeking help for his son because of concerns about his mental health and that he didn't seem like himself in recent weeks.

“He’s not a bad kid at all,” Spencer said.

The possibility of being pushed onto the tracks is a long-running nightmare for many New Yorkers. While it occurs rarely compared to the millions of rides each day, a push just this past March killed a person in East Harlem.

In New York, personal safety in the subway is generally comparable to safety in the city as a whole. But life-threatening crimes such as stabbings and shoves spread alarm about the trains, which carried more than 1 billion riders in 2024.

Police figures show major crimes on subways were down through November compared with the same period last year, but killings rose from five to nine.

Police officers patrol the F train platform at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue Station, Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)