Nigel Farage released footage on Tuesday apparently showing illegal boat migrants being loaded onto coaches at the Port of Dover, as the UK Border Force brought over 100 more migrants ashore after crossing the English Channel from France.
The Brexit Party leader questioned whether the migrants will be moved to “a hotel near you” — a reference to an investigation Mr Farage carried out last week that uncovered a hotel in the West Midlands housing 147 asylum seekers at public expense while refusing to take bookings from native Britons.
On Tuesday, 120 migrants, including 12 women and 108 men, successfully reached British shores. The migrants presented themselves as coming from Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Afganistan, Kuwait, Sudan, and the Palestinian territories, according to The Times. Another 38 migrants were intercepted in the Channel and brought back to France.
There are an estimated 48,000 asylum seekers in the United Kingdom. They are typically given accommodation, a weekly stipend of at least £35.39, access to National Health Service (NHS) healthcare, and education for children between the ages of five and 17 — all at the expense of the British taxpayer.
It is estimated that between 2019 and 2029 the asylum programme will cost some £4 billion.
Mr Farage has warned that many of the rejected asylum seekers “will still stay in the country… picking fruit, working in the rag trade in Leicester or whatever it is. They will move into the illegal slave economy in this country.”
Between 2017 and 2019, the United Kingdom received 2,390 asylum seekers from other EU states under the bloc’s Dublin III regulations, yet has only successfully returned 786 who failed to gain refugee status.
The Dublin agreements, which require bogus asylum seekers to be returned to the first EU country they entered rather than the last one they were in prior to their rejection — usually France, in Britain’s case — supposedly in order to stop “asylum shopping” by migrants seeking the host with best benefits rather than settling in the first safe country they reach.
The problem is the first EU country the migrants enter is often impossible to determine, leaving countries stuck with them even after their asylum claims are found to be illegitimate.
The chairman of Migration Watch UK, Alp Mehmet, said: “The Dublin agreements have simply not worked for the UK. If anything they have backfired.”
“The EU scheme has resulted in almost three times as many people being transferred to the UK than have gone the other way,” Mehmet added.
Home Secretary Priti Patel is reportedly preparing a “fair borders bill” to be introduced later this year, which will seek to stop migrants and pro-migrant lobby groups from artificially drawing out the asylum application process. The bill will require those would-be asylum seekers to present all of their justifications for receiving the status at the outset of their application, rather than being able to add reasons during the process, which is currently permitted.
“There is an entire industry of lefty lawyers funded by taxpayers’ cash, and using every legal loophole known to man, determined to ensure that the meritless claims of people who have no right to be in this country are successful,” a Whitehall source told The Times.
Over 3,500 illegal boat migrants have arrived in the UK so far this year, compared to 1,890 for the whole of last year. Only 155 illegal migrants have been deported between the start of 2019 and May of this year. Another 166 are currently set to be removed to France, Italy, and Germany.
There are also another 557 awaiting the results of fingerprint results from European Union databases to determine if they should be removed.
Lucy Moreton, of the Immigration Services Union, said that the massive increase in illegal boat migration was a result of people-smuggling groups telling people that the English Channel route will be closed after Brexit is completed at the end of the year.
“We know people-smugglers are telling migrants that once Britain leaves the EU this will stop. This is used by them to gee up people to make the journey in case they miss out. Of course, it is not true. They are just saying it to encourage people to get over now,” Moreton said.
“It is perceived to be a successful route, and it is. Prices have come down in the last seven months from around £10,000 a crossing to £4,000, so it is accessible to more people than it was before,” she added.
Follow Kurt on Twitter at @KurtZindulka
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.