More than 1,800 illegal migrants have crossed the English Channel from France in the past week, despite continued promises by the leftist Labor government to stem the flow.
According to the Ministry of Home Affairs numbersBetween November 4 and November 10, 1,806 illegal immigrants crossed the English Channel in 30-person smuggler-run boats that set off from the Calais coast and landed on British shores.
On Saturday, 572 illegal immigrants were detained in Dover, with another 209 arriving the following day.
The PA news agency calculates there have been nearly 33,000 illegal Channel crossings since the start of the year, a 22% increase on last year.
But it's still lower than 2022, a record year when about 40,000 people arrived at this point.
The timing of the latest 2,000 illegal arrivals has undermined Prime Minister Keir Starmer's week-long attempt to highlight his nascent government's efforts to crack down on illegal immigration.
In the Immigration Week media blitz – a classic tactic to try to convince the public that the British government is actually tackling pressing issues – Starmer adds to his plan to “bust the gangs” manipulating smugglers announced that it would invest 75 million pounds. both sides of the strait.
The prosecutor-turned-prime minister told the Interpol General Assembly in Glasgow that the government would also “treat smugglers like terrorists”. The left-wing leader also said London had agreed to step up intelligence sharing with countries such as Kosovo, North Macedonia and Serbia.
The government continues to face criticism for failing to simply send boats back to French shores. Nigel Farage's populist British Reform Party, for example, has long argued that Britain should follow former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott's example of “turning the ship” with Operation Sovereign Borders. Indonesia.
Sir Keir also announced that one of his first acts as prime minister was to send illegal immigrants to a processing center in the African nation of Rwanda, rather than keeping them in China to process their asylum claims, a plan drawn up by the previous Conservative government. The plan was abandoned.
To tackle the growing backlog of asylum claims, the Starmer government has reportedly It plans to fast-track approval to grant legal residency to immigrants from Afghanistan, Iran, and Syria.
Meanwhile, the number of people reporting to the UK government that they may be victims of modern slavery in the country rose to a record high of 4,758 in September. telegraph paper reported last week.
This was a 15% increase compared to the same period last year, mainly as a result of an increase in the number of Vietnamese illegal immigrants, who are the largest ethnic group to cross the English Channel illegally. It has become. Previously, it was common for foreigners in Bientomase to enter the country illegally in trucks. However, after 39 Vietnamese people died in the back of a truck in 2019, inspections became stricter.
When people enter the UK from Southeast Asian countries, many are recruited by traffickers into black market trade such as prostitution and cannabis plantations.
