A record 7,000 small boat migrants have arrived in the UK so far this year, as hundreds more crossed the English Channel today.
People smuggling gangs took advantage of a small 12 hour weather window to push out multiple migrant boats from the French coast.
GB News counted a total of 428 Channel migrants as they were brought to the Border Force migrant processing centre at Dover harbour throughout the day.
At one point this morning, every available French patrol vessel was tasked with responding to at least eight small boats sighted in the Channel.
GB News counted a total of 428 Channel migrants as they were brought to the Border Force migrant processing centre at Dover harbour throughout the day
GB NEWS
Kent’s Dungeness lifeboat was also called in to assist, with all Border Force vessels already dealing with the migrant boats crossing into UK waters.
The latest arrivals take the total number of migrants who have made the illegal journey this year to more than 7,200.
That figure is 33 per cent higher than the 5,435 who crossed from France at the same point last year.
Today’s migrant boat launches are the first since last Friday when 154 arrived in UK waters in four small boats.
The overall number of arrivals is the highest at this point in the year since the small boat migrant crisis began in 2018.
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Today’s migrant boat launches are the first since last Friday when 154 arrived in UK waters in four small boats
GB NEWS
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to “smash the gang” and has invested millions of pounds of additional funding in a new Border Security Command.
One senior maritime security source told GB News it was clear that a law enforcement approach alone was not working.
The source said: “Officials are now trying to suggest that we’re seeing record numbers of Channel migrants because of the unusually high number of days when weather conditions have been favourable.
“But the fact is, if the law enforcement efforts against the criminal gangs were actually working, it wouldn’t matter how good the weather was.
“The ability of the criminal gangs to operate would be curtailed, and we’d expect to see a corresponding drop in small boat activity.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.
“The people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay and we will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.
“That’s why this government has put forward a serious, credible plan to finally restore order to our asylum system, including tougher enforcement powers, ramping up returns to their highest levels for more than half a decade and a major crackdown on illegal working to end the false promise of jobs used by gangs to sell spaces on boats.”
