Illegal Boat Migration Triples over Last Year, as Another 42 Land on British Soil on Tuesday

DOVER, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 06: Nine migrants drift in the English Channel after their engi
Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

The number of illegal boat migrants who have landed on British soil so far this year is treble the number who came during the same period last year, as another 42 aliens were brought ashore at the Port of Dover on Tuesday.

Tuesday’s arrivals mean that some 1,483 illegal migrants have crossed the English Channel from France since the start of the year, with 223 landings in January, 308 in February, 831 in March, and 121 to date in April.

During the same time period last year, approximately 466 illegals were taken ashore, according to the Daily Mail, which noted that if current trends continue then some 25,000 migrants will make the illegal journey by the end of the year, three times as much as last year’s record 8,400.

There are an estimated 56,000 supposed asylum seekers in the United Kingdom, the vast number of whom are deemed ineligible for asylum by the government.

Once in the UK, asylum seekers are provided accommodation, a weekly stipend of at least £35.39, access to National Health Service (NHS) healthcare, free dental care, and education for children between the ages of five and 17 — all at the expense of the British taxpayer.

Writing to the Home Affairs Committee, Home Secretary Priti Patel revealed last month that there are some 8,700 migrants — the majority of whom are illegal boat migrants — being housed at taxpayer expense in around 90 hotels across the country.

Patel also said that the migrant hotel scheme has already cost the government £258 million. The programme was first brought to light in July of last year by Brexit leader Nigel Farage, who later revealed that migrants were being housed in a hotel in Priti Patel’s own constituency.

Last month, Home Secretary Priti Patel announced a raft of proposed reforms to Britain’s “broken” asylum system, including preventing migrants who arrive illegally from applying for leave to remain status and barring them from receiving citizenship.

The plan also revealed that the total spending on the asylum system will cost £1.3billion this year, up from around £1 billion during the previous year.

Despite handing over another £28 million to the French in November, on top of the £192 million that the UK has already sent to France to stop illegal immigration, France has been unwilling to come to an agreement on the issue of migrant returns.

The UK, for its part, has refused to adopt a unilateral turn back the boats approach, as has successfully worked in countries such as Australia.

Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who spearheaded the wildly successful Operation Sovereign Borders policy, called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson last year to follow suit and send the boats back to France, rather than taking them ashore in the hopes of deporting them at a later date.

“You’ve got to be firm to be fair, you’ve got to be tough to be kind in the end, and the kindest thing you could do is to close down the people-smuggling trade. That means as soon as you come across a people-smuggling boat, you stop it and take it back to the place from where it came,” Abbott said.

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