If you leave with thirty boats at the same time, the Coast Guard will not be able to intercept them all. The human traffickers who transport migrants from Calais or Dunkirk in France to the United Kingdom seem to have discovered a new method. In recent weeks, coast guards on both sides have reported that large numbers of boats carrying migrants have been discovered and intercepted on certain nights.
On the last two days in March, the French and British Coast Guard recorded nineteen inflatable boats attempting to cross the dangerous Calais Pass. It was a treacherous journey. It was precisely in those days when the weather seemed radiant that there was a strong current in the strait between France and the British territorial waters.
Often the passengers are young men
British patrol boats took 371 people from the water earlier this week, while 73 were recovered from the French side. This is a normal shot. Every day, the police in Dover report some “incidents” as they are called, in which the “accident” reaches a single boat. In most cases the people on board have been rescued and the boat confiscated. The passengers are often youngsters, but children are also there on a regular basis.
If things continue like this in recent months, a record number of immigrants will reach the UK’s southern coast by 2021. There are 602 people in this quarter, more than three times what it was in the first quarter of last year, when 187 people arrived . In the whole of 2020, more than 8,000 people arrived in the UK via the Canal, more than four times the number in 2019. It looks like that number will be even higher this year. Last Tuesday, 183 people arrived in one day.
The British government has already made every effort to curb the flow of refugees. There are boat patrols, drones and aircraft deployed and there are consultations with France.
Control does not lead to fewer immigrants
The large number of immigrants coming to Dover is embarrassing for the British government: one of the main reasons for leaving the European Union is that the country will regain control of its borders. Now that control doesn’t seem to lead to fewer migrants, at least not by sea.
Britain’s Home Secretary Priti Patel announced last week that she wanted to distinguish in the new asylum law between migrants who arrive legally and those who arrive suddenly ashore. The latter should have fewer opportunities to submit an asylum application and be sent back to the former safe country where they were previously informed. Lawyers are wondering how to do this, because after Brexit, the UK will have fewer options to send migrants back to their country of arrival.
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Under favorable weather conditions, migrants arrive in the UK by boat. Much to the dismay of Home Minister Priti Patel.
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