The boat migrant crisis in the English Channel set yet another daily record on Monday, with the British Border Force taking over 430 illegal aliens ashore after they set sail from France in fourteen boats.
On the very day that Home Secretary Priti Patel’s Nationality and Borders Bill was put forward before the House of Commons for a second reading, another record was set for illegal boat migration, with no end to the crisis in sight.
The estimated 430 aliens who landed on British soil on Monday takes the total number for the year to 8,187, according to an analysis conducted by The Times. If the spate of warm weather in the Channel continues, then the tally of illegal migrants for this year may surpass the 8,420 seen last year by the end of the month.
So far this month, over 1,850 people have reached Britain after travelling in rubber dinghies from France. This is the second month in a row to surpass the total for the entire year of 2019.
A local witness on Monday told The Sun: “It was unbelievable. They managed to get on land and then just ran all over the place in every direction.
“They looked like they’d won the lottery. They were very pleased.”
She said that by the time the police had arrived the migrants had absconded, saying: “Some went down a footpath, others into the town in different directions, a group went up a hill and another towards the opposite end of town,” adding: “I’ve never seen them just arriving and run everywhere.”
Britain’s clandestine Channel threat commander, Dan O’Mahoney said: “There is an unacceptable rise in dangerous small boat crossings across the Channel because of a surge in illegal migration across Europe.”
On Nigel Farage’s primetime debut on GB News on Monday evening, the Brexit leader shared footage of what he claimed were 47 migrants being escorted by police under the White Cliffs of Dover.
Farage noted that all of the migrants were “young men”, saying: I’m not so sure that desperate people have brand new Nike trainers, smart iPhones, or when they arrive high five each other or punch the air.”
“This is economic migration,” Farage said, adding that “very few of these people would ever qualify as refugees.
“If it’s so awful where they’ve come from why on earth have they deserted the women and children?” the Brexit leader questioned.
Mr Farage said that the failures from Priti Patel to tackle the migrant crisis has left the United Kingdom “humiliated on the world stage,” adding that the Home Secretary “has made a series of strong statements… she keeps telling us what she’s going to do and nothing has changed the problem is getting worse.”
While the Home Secretary has repeatedly promised to get tough on illegal migration — even proposing increased jail time for illegal migrants as a deterrent and possibly holding asylum seekers in a third country to process their refugee claims — the government has so far been unwilling to merely send the boats back to France rather than ferrying them ashore.
With the exception of Albania, in the seven months after leaving the European Union, the UK has failed to sign agreements with European nations, notably France, on the issue of migrant deportations, which have already drastic declined over the past year.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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