The crisis in the English Channel saw more illegal boat migrants cross from France last week than the entire year of 2019, as Home Secretary Priti Patel is finally set — she claims — to implement a turn back the boats approach.
In the week leading up to September 10th, a total of 1,959 illegal aliens crossed the Channel in small rubber boats, taking the total for the year to around 14,500, compared with 8,400 for all of last year.
Analysis conducted by The Telegraph found that the number of illegal arrivals was four times higher than the same seven day period last year when around 500 landed. The massive increase in illegal boat migration also means that more illegals arrived last week than in all of 2019 when an estimated 1,890 arrived by boat.
With at least 50 more migrants landing on British shores on Monday, the total for September has already surpassed the monthly total for September of last year.
It comes as the Home Office is making preparations to enact the turn back the boats approach long advocated by Brexit leader Nigel Farage.
On Monday, Mr Farage released footage from the Channel purporting to show Border Force officers on jet skis apparently undertaking training manoeuvres with a dinghy full of volunteers, attempting to turn the boat around.
Yet, the Brexit leader noted: “It would appear that the dinghy just continues but in wake and water considerably rougher and choppier than the on than the ongoing sea conditions.”
The footage shows the Home Office’s Border FOrce is at least attempting to learn how to turn boats back, but doubts remain over whether they would actually enact such tactics. Government sources, when the matter of turning boats back has come up in the past, have always pooh-poohed the idea as being too dangerous. It has even been claimed that boat migrants would threaten to throw children overboard the boats if threatened by coastguard vessels in a bid to blackmail compliance from government authorities.
In response to the footage, a Home Office spokesman said that the government will “evaluate and test a range of safe and legal options for stopping small boats,” and that it would “continue to explore all options available” to stem the tide of migrant crossings.
“All operational procedures used at sea comply, and are delivered in accordance with, domestic and international law,” the Home Offices spokesman added.
Another reported plan from Home Secretary Priti Patel is to implement X-rays of teeth and wrist bones in order to verify the age of alleged asylum seekers.
According to a government document seen by The Mail on Sunday, the Home Office will look to transition to a more accurate means of testing the age of migrants, with current checks merely amounting to immigration officials studying the behaviour of the migrants to determine if they are lying.
As many illegal migrants destroy or throw away their identity documents prior to coming to the UK, the hope is that using scientific methods, such as scanning teeth and wrist bone density will cut down on the defrauding of the asylum system.
Under current rules, children who are fleeing from war, humanitarian crises, or terrorism are provided financial assistance until the age of 25. Asylum seekers over the age of 18 are still provided government support but the handouts are much lower, thereby incentivising the fraud.
The problem has been longstanding, with an alleged 38-year-old man falsely claiming in 2016 that he was a child migrant. Left-wing activists attempted to claim that he was working as a language interpreter for other migrants after photos emerged of the man online, however, these claims were proved untrue.
In another notable example, a student was pulled from classes at Stoke High School after it was alleged that he was a 30-year-old man rather than 15, as he claimed.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka