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Crossed with Brendan. I type too slowly.

Incidentally, I would still be interested in theories about the Nina, which in this case are all the letters along the top and bottom rows of the grid. It could be a reference to the anniversary of the Statue of Liberty or is it just a common phrase in UK politics at the moment?

Roof, a Nina is a message concealed by the setter in the completed grid.

See for instance https://www.crosswordunclued.com/2009/10/what-is-nina.html

"Perimeter Ninas", reading around the boundary, are common.
In this case a semi-perimeter Nina, across top and bottom rows.

Rainman, I couldn't see a clear political interpretation of the Nina, though 1d suggested one.

Somebody upthread (sorry, forgot who) mentioned a UK music group, which I think is more likely. https://www.thenewimmigrants.org/

Damn, I posted a spoiler. Mods please remove that last one.
Didn't drink enough coffee yet on Saturday morning. :-(

I wondered about 1d, but it seemed to be only loosely connected. I also saw the band mentioned in a Google search, but you might have expected some song titles to appear in the clues. It seems odd to have a Nina without a hint of a theme elsewhere.

Hi Rainman,

In regard to the Nina, it's currently a real hot button topic, not just here in the UK but also mainland Europe, and that's without even mentioning the USA, where ICE raids are apparently a daily occurrence.

What Philistine's motive for using it as a Nina is remains a mystery, at least to me, as there is no context, Is he for it, against it - how are we to know? It's akin to another setter writing 'Liberal Democrats' in the grid.

Of course, it could just be the band of the same name:-)

Thanks, Brendan. I don't live that far from one of ICE's more notorious detention centres, so obviously it's a hot topic. But it's the second word that puzzles me. It was used historically to refer to the wave of US migrants in the nineteenth century, but I haven't heard it recently so I wondered if it was used in the UK of people crossing in boats or some other contemporary context.

Well it didn't take long to finish once I decided to try one of my answers for 23d in the grid. Although I can't parse the middle three letters, it led me to the answer for 25ac. Gosh why didn't I get that sooner.

I tried a similar exercise in the north west corner and had soon filled them in. Initially I couldn't parse 4d, then the penny dropped. And the rest were a write in, though I can't fully parse them all - just spotted the anagram in 2d. Personally Rocky, I like the anagrams. Several I can't parse at all - 26 and 27ac and 17d and some I can only partially parse.

FOI was 9ac, LOI 16ac, CODs 9ac,14ac,24ac

Thanks for the explanation of Ninas, back to my ironing

Happy Christmas

AFAICT, the Nina will remain a mystery unless Philistine speaks out.

I can't find any of the band's song titles (the few I could look up on Google, at least) in the grid.
The most relevant news story (global) seems to be Cheeto Mussolini's suspension of the US "green card lottery", which happened only this past week, surely after this Prize puzzle had been scheduled.

Hi Roof
The middle letters of 23d have appeared quite often recently. It's an exclamation.
26 met a pieman...
27 I don't like. It's "showrooms" with the first letter (chief???) moved, but to the right, not downwards.
17d 3 alternate letters, then a God (?) upwards