As police battle anti-migrant rioters in Northern Ireland, focus shifts to open Irish border – POLITICO

BELFAST — Northern Ireland police battled anti-migrant rioters for a second night with batons, shields and water cannons — as politicians shifted focus on how to police immigration along the U.K.’s open Irish border with the EU.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland said 12 officers were injured from petrol bombs, pavement stones and other objects hurled by militants Wednesday night. Officers deployed mobile water cannons to douse a 200-strong mob near a motorway roundabout on Belfast’s northern outskirts, where the rioters were kept from reaching a nearby hotel housing asylum seekers. Police arrested 16 rioters and issued a dossier of photos in hopes of identifying two others.

U.K. government officials said at least 27 immigrant families have been intimidated from their arson-hit homes since Monday night, when a Sudanese immigrant, 30-year-old Hadi Alodid, allegedly stabbed a local man repeatedly in the face, neck and back in the middle of a north Belfast street — a hideous incident captured on shaky smartphone footage and spread globally on social media platforms.