A convicted people smuggler has alleged that illegal immigrants are gaining entry to the UK because Border Force guards are not doing their jobs properly and “just don’t care”.
Gangs are smuggling migrants into the UK via the Kent seaport of Dover using forged passports which are being checked and passed by French border guards, according to an investigation by the BBC.
An illegal immigrant who made it past Border Force told the broadcaster that gangs are taking advantage of “sleepy” UK border guards who are overworked.
“The people working in immigration they [are] tired, they [are] sleepy. They don’t really look at the passport,” said the unnamed female.
“We can easily pass through immigration or the gate,” she added.
A convicted people smuggler also told the BBC that the lack of scrutiny by the cross-channel border forces is making facilitating illegal immigration a successful business.
“To come over, it will probably cost between £10,000 to £12,500. A visual check, and that’s if they want to do that, if they really want to do their job properly then they can but they, sometimes they just don’t care,” he said.
The Home Office told the broadcaster that passports are checked by “rigourously trained” border officials.
Border Force came under criticism in recent months for stopping and refusing entry to right-wing speakers and journalists, but not showing such scrutiny when allowing entry to Islamic fundamentalist hate preachers such as Ebrahim Bham who called all Jews and Christians “agents of Satan”.
In April, there have been a number of arrests and convictions for people smuggling including on Monday when a lorry driver was convicted of smuggling Albanians after he was stopped at the port of Dover by Border Force, and two men were found guilty of attempting to bring 19 illegal immigrants into the UK by yacht.
Earlier in the month, the National Crime Agency arrested three people smugglers from Greater Manchester and Staffordshire in an international operation that busted a gang believed to have brought some 3,000 migrants into Europe.
In 2016, illegal immigrants made more than 56,000 attempts to breach Britain’s borders from French ports and terminals amidst estimations that there are more than one million illegal immigrants living in the UK who are unlikely to ever be removed.
Terror laws watchdog chief David Anderson warned last year that the UK’s maritime borders have become “porous” after successive governments have “dismantled” border security, leaving them vulnerable not only to illegal immigration but returning Islamist foreign fighters and Islamic fundamentalist terror groups.