Brexit leader Nigel Farage released footage of illegal migrants “landing under the cover of darkness” at Shakespeare Beach in Dover, England.
The footage appears to show over a dozen mostly male migrants being escorted by local police after they, Mr Farage claimed, had landed on British shores in the early hours of Tuesday.
In a message directed to Home Secretary Priti Patel, Mr Farage questioned: “How many like this now get away?”
Mr Farage has been reporting on instances of migrants evading the British Border Force and clandestinely entering the country, often travelling across the English Channel by night in order to go unseen.
In April, the Brexit leader turned investigative journalist spoke to local fishermen in the beach town of Pett Level in East Sussex, who informed Farage that they often witnessed migrants arriving in under the cover of darkness. They went on to claim that people smugglers in the UK would meet the migrants and swiftly collect the migrants as well as their boats before they were detected by the Border Force.
“This scandal, I think, is far bigger than anyone realises,” Mr Farage remarked at the time.
The Brexit Party leader said that he contacted the Home Office in May, to ask whether the government accepted that migrants are entering in the country undetected, what the current estimate was, and what if anything they are doing to track down the clandestine arrivals.
“Well, the Home Office came back and said: ‘It is completely inaccurate to claim small boats are arriving into the UK every day. We are using all the skills of the Border Force, the National Crime Agency, Immigration Enforcement, and French law enforcement (you’re having a laugh!) to dismantle and arrest the criminal gangs who trade in people-smuggling, and since April the 1st we’ve stopped so many from coming, blah blah blah blah,’” Farage said.
On Monday, Home Secretary Priti Patel told MPs that the government is planning on refusing alleged asylum seekers who come to the UK from safe countries, where they are bound by law to remain.
“We want to ensure our asylum system is not being abused by those who are not genuine asylum seekers.” Patel said in comments reported by The Times.
Ms Patel said discussions were continuing with Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands to stop the crossings. The government was also looking at legal, safe routes “for the protection of those that need our help”.
Chris Philip, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Immigration Compliance at Home Office, admitted that the UK’s asylum system is “not fit for purpose” as it is often mired by “vexatious” legal manoeuvres by pro-migrant lawyers.
Mr Philp said that after Brexit the government would redouble “its efforts to make sure people that come here from safe countries, for example, are rapidly returned”.
Nearly 7,000 illegal migrants have been recorded landing in the UK by immigration authorities since the start of the year, over three times as many arrived in 2019. As pointed out by Mr Farage, the true number of illegal migrants is likely to be much higher, not only because of migrants going undetected but also because the Home Office has refused to publish the numbers of alleged child migrants arriving.
While this is for the privacy of minors, claiming to be underage when actually a full adult in order to access preferential treatment at the hands of European migration offices is now a well understood and established tactic for new arrivals. Given many destroy or dispose of their documents before crossing into their destination nation, truly verifying the age of migrants can be difficult, however.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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