Local police in west Belgium have been told to wave through third world migrants seeking to travel to Britain, as authorities said that trying to deal with the massive illegal immigration influx was putting “basic policing” at risk.
Attempts to search for and intercept migrants in transit have kept officers in Kruibeke very busy since the Flemish town became a major “hub” for migrants seeking to break into Britain after the Calais ‘Jungle’ was dismantled, according to police chief Wim Pieteraerens.
After consultation with the town mayor, officers in Kruibeke will no longer engage in proactive efforts to stop illegal immigration, Pieteraerens told local media, explaining that policing migrants in transit took up too large a proportion of the force’s capacity.
“For a year and a half, in the fight against the problem of transmigrants, we actively searched for people who were hiding in the area and waiting to sneak aboard trucks [bound for Britain] along the E17 in the evening,” he said.
“This is no longer possible because our basic police services have been compromised and we have not always been able to respond quickly to emergency calls from the public.”
Moreover, the police chief added that officers’ efforts appeared to have little impact, asserting that “95 to 99 percent of the individuals we arrested were then just released by the Immigration Office with an order to leave the area, [meaning] almost every day we were being confronted with the same people.”
Belgian Interior Jan Jambon said while he understands the frustration of authorities in Kruibeke, proactive attempts to detect and intercept migrants in transit are important in the fight against people trafficking, stating: “Smuggling gangs will be forced to move their business onto different routes if they feel that the police are on their backs.”
Commenting on the news, Conservative MP for Kettering, Philip Hollobone, said: “The British public are completely fed up with EU police forces and immigration authorities effectively waving through illegal immigrants to continue on their way to Britain.”
But Breitbart London has previously reported how UK border guards at Heathrow Airport were told not to ‘waste time’ interrogating potential illegal immigrants, according to a leaked memo, while earlier this year a convicted people smuggler alleged that individuals are being allowed into Britain because ‘sleepy’ Border Force guards are failing to do their jobs properly.
Warning that illegal immigration poses a huge security threat, a report from Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) published May said that lax UK policy was leaving the borders wide open, with airfields and small ports almost completely unguarded.