Nearly 100 more illegal boat migrants were brought ashore in England on Sunday as January is on pace to see a record 1,000 make the journey across the English Channel.
While it has been reported that the government will stop reporting daily crossing figures, a statement from the Home Office provided to Breitbart London confirmed that 87 migrants were “rescued or intercepted” by British authorities on Sunday in three separate instances.
The Home Office said that authorities in France were able to stop an additional ten migrants from reaching British territorial waters.
A record 28,400 illegal migrants crossed the English Channel last year, trebling the figure seen in the year prior, which itself was a record year for illegal crossings.
Though January presents difficulties for people smugglers to successfully launch the small boats across the waterway due to the wintery conditions, the total for the month is quickly approaching 1,000, with approximately 840 crossing since the start of the year.
The government has been warned that if it fails to confront the furious pace of illegal migration across the Channel, then up to 65,000 could break into the country this year.
UK Border Force Threatens Strike over Plan to Make Them Enforce Border https://t.co/YjV6f2c2Gj
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 7, 2022
In a move largely regarded as an attempt to quell the more conservative base of the Tory Party, the government is set to deploy the Royal Navy to the Channel to coordinate the response to the crisis. However, the navy will likely not be used to actually turn the boats back to France.
Brexit champion Nigel Farage told Breitbart London that the move will relegate the Royal Navy to nothing more than an “expensive taxi service” for illegal aliens.
“Using the Royal Navy to ferry migrants into Dover is a waste of military resources and a more expensive taxi service than border force,” Mr Farage told this publication last week.
Other mooted plans by the government include granting powers to border authorities to detain all single male migrants who are brought ashore. At present, those who are brought ashore by the Border Force or RNLI are not subject to detention. The Home office is also reportedly looking to find a third-party country to house migrants while their asylum claims are processed.
The government has also been accused of attempting to cover up the scale of the immigration problem, with leaked plans revealing the alleged intention to scrap the daily reporting of migrant arrivals in favour of a quarterly reporting scheme.
Responding to the plan, Dover MP Natalie Elphicke said: “This is not a statistical exercise – this is a serious crisis where people are exploited by criminal gangs on a daily basis and lives are tragically lost. Daily figures are vital so the progress in tackling this crisis can be properly monitored.”
Farage: Deploying Navy to Channel Migrant Crisis is ‘Expensive Taxi Service’ https://t.co/ayDvQSs4Hf
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 20, 2022
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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