Charities today appealed for a rethink of efforts to use police enforcement in France to stem the flow of migrants in small boats across the English Channel, after a Home Office minister said that the drive was pushing people to resort to longer, riskier and more dangerous journeys in their efforts to reach Britain.
Chris Philp was speaking on a visit to France to assess whether the ￡54m paid to Paris by home secretary Priti Patel to fund tougher action against people-smuggling gangs was delivering results for the British public.
He is understood to have pressed French officials over why the additional cash – part of an agreement under which French police were to double patrols on Channel beaches and step up intelligence sharing with their UK counterparts – had not prevented more than 1,000 migrants completing the perilous cross-Channel crossing to Kent in the past two days alone.
But the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants warned that the government’s hardline approach was “pushing desperate people to take more extreme risks”, while the charity Refugee Action said that as a result “business has never been better for the criminal smuggling gangs”.
Both appealed for the government to create safe routes for refugees to find sanctuary in the UK.
Mr Philp and clandestine Channel threat commander Dan O’Mahoney heard that some 8,000 migrant attempts to reach the UK have been thwarted by French authorities so far this year, almost three times the number in the same period of 2020.
But French officers have complained that they have been thrust into a “cat-and-mouse” game with smugglers, who have adopted “increasingly evasive tactics” to find spots along a 100km stretch of coastline to be able to launch boats undisturbed.
The total number of migrants making the life-threatening journey across the Channel in small boats this year passed a record 10,000 on Thursday.
Charities have warned that people are being driven to make the dangerous voyage across one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes because of the increasing difficulty of alternative methods for reaching Britain, such as in lorries and vans.
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Mr Philp said: “In recent months we have seen a surge in illegal migration across Europe and the number of crossings we have seen over the last few weeks is simply unacceptable.
“Ruthless criminals are treating people like human cargo, smuggling them across borders. They have no care for human life and are taking riskier and longer crossings.
“I’m in France today to meet with French law enforcement and make sure the new funding we have provided, which has doubled patrols and meant greater intelligence sharing, delivers results for the British public.
“Seeing the vastness of coastline now being exploited by organised gangs shows the scale of the problem facing the French. We must step up to the challenge, and working together offers the best chance of putting an end to his criminal trade and protect lives.”
JCWI campaigns director Minnie Rahman said: “The Home Office is freely admitting that their policies and practices put people in danger, pushing desperate people to take more extreme risks and increasing reliance on people-smugglers.
“Ministers use meaningless rhetoric while the government worsens the chaos within the asylum system and treats asylum-seekers with utter disregard and cruelty.
“Actions speak louder than words and if the government truly wanted to put people-smugglers out of business, they would accept that the solution that is right in front of them – work with France to ensure that people can travel to the UK safely and have their claims heard.”
Tim Naor Hilton, chief executive of Refugee Action, said: “It’s scandalous that ministers know their failure to open up more routes to safety is forcing refugees into making ever-more dangerous journeys.
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“Nobody wants to see people risking their lives in rickety boats. It’s time the government created more routes for refugees to find sanctuary here, such as family reunion schemes, humanitarian visas, and a long-term commitment to welcome 10,000 people a year via resettlement programmes.”
Despite considerable public attention on the issue of unauthorised Channel crossings, the UK receives significantly fewer asylum-seekers than comparable European countries. Last year, despite a sharp rise in small boat arrivals, asylum applications in Britain fell to 29,456, compared with 93,475 applications made in France and 121,955 in Germany.