Rwanda Bill causing migrants to head for Ireland instead of UK, deputy PM says

Published

2 years ago

April 26, 2024

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The threat of deportation to Rwanda is causing migrants to head for Ireland instead of the UK, Ireland’s deputy prime minister has said.

The Rwanda Bill, which will see asylum seekers “entering the UK illegally” sent to the central African nation – regardless of the outcome of their application – was passed on Tuesday, despite human rights concerns.

Micheal Martin told The Daily Telegraph that the policy was already affecting Ireland, as people were “fearful” of staying in the UK.

The former Taoiseach said: “Maybe that’s the impact it was designed to have.”

Mr Martin, who is also Ireland’s foreign secretary, said asylum seekers were seeking “to get sanctuary here and within the European Union as opposed to the potential of being deported to Rwanda”.

His words follow those of justice minister Helen McEntee, who told a scrutiny committee in the Irish parliament earlier this week that migrants and refugees were crossing the border with Northern Ireland.

Ms McEntee said “higher than 80%” of people seeking asylum in Ireland entered the country through Northern Ireland, a border crossing that is open as guaranteed under a UK-EU Brexit treaty.

It comes amid increasing tension over immigration levels in Ireland, which is grappling with a housing crisis that has affected its own people as well as asylum seekers.

Overnight, six people were arrested during a protest at a site earmarked to house asylum seekers in Newtownmountkennedy in Co Wicklow.

Gardai said officers came under attack after workers were brought onto the site, suffering “verbal and physical abuse throughout the day, which escalated into rocks and other missiles being thrown this evening”.

Fires were lit, an axe was found and officers were “forced to defend themselves” with incapacitant spray, helmets and shields.

Three patrol cars were also damaged.

Irish broadcaster RTE said protesters accused gardaí of using unnecessary force, and intimidating and aggressive tactics against a legitimate and peaceful protest.

According to RTE, there have been protests during the past six weeks at the site, known as Trudder House or River Lodge.

It is reportedly being considered as a site for 20 eight-person tents housing asylum seekers but some locals have said it is unsuitable and the village’s resources are already over-stretched.

Ms McEntee said there was “a lot of misinformation about migration at the moment”.

She tweeted late on Thursday to promote the EU Migration and Asylum Pact, which she described as “a real game changer” and “something we must opt into”.

Politics

Gensler separates Bitcoin from pack, calls most crypto ‘highly speculative’

Published

1 hour ago

December 3, 2025

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Gensler separates Bitcoin from pack, calls most crypto ‘highly speculative’

Former US Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler renewed his warning to investors about the risks of cryptocurrencies, calling most of the market “highly speculative” in a new Bloomberg interview on Tuesday.

He carved out Bitcoin (BTC) as comparatively closer to a commodity while stressing that most tokens don’t offer “a dividend” or “usual returns.”

Gensler framed the current market backdrop as a reckoning consistent with warnings he made while in office that the global public’s fascination with cryptocurrencies doesn’t equate to fundamentals.

“All the thousands of other tokens, not the stablecoins that are backed by US dollars, but all the thousands of other tokens, you have to ask yourself, what are the fundamentals? What’s underlying it… The investing public just needs to be aware of those risks,” he said.

Gensler’s record and industry backlash

Gensler led the SEC from April 17, 2021, to Jan. 20, 2025, overseeing an aggressive enforcement agenda that included lawsuits against major crypto intermediaries and the view that many tokens are unregistered securities.

The industry winced at high‑profile actions against exchanges and staking programs, as well as the posture that most token issuers fell afoul of registration rules.

*Gary Gensler labels crypto as “highly speculative.” Source:* *Bloomberg*

Under Gensler’s tenure, Coinbase was sued by the SEC for operating as an unregistered exchange, broker and clearing agency, and for offering an unregistered staking-as-a-service program. Kraken was also forced to shut its US staking program and pay a $30 million penalty.

The politicization of crypto

Pushed on the politicization of crypto, including references to the Trump family’s crypto involvement by the Bloomberg interviewer, the former chair rejected the framing.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said, arguing it’s more about capital markets fairness and “commonsense rules of the road,” than a “Democrat versus Republican thing.”

He added: “When you buy and sell a stock or a bond, you want to get various information,” and “the same treatment as the big investors.” That’s the fairness underpinning US capital markets.

ETFs and the drift to centralization

On ETFs, Gensler said finance “ever since antiquity… goes toward centralization,” so it’s unsurprising that an ecosystem born decentralized has become “more integrated and more centralized.”

He noted that investors can already express themselves in gold and silver through exchange‑traded funds, and that during his tenure, the first US Bitcoin futures ETFs were approved, tying parts of crypto’s plumbing more closely to traditional markets.

Gensler’s latest comments draw a familiar line: Bitcoin sits in a different bucket, while most other tokens remain, in his view, speculative and light on fundamentals.

Even out of office, his framing will echo through courts, compliance desks and allocation committees weighing BTC’s status against persistent regulatory caution of altcoins.

Magazine: Solana vs Ethereum ETFs, Facebook’s influence on Bitwise — Hunter Horsley