Britain’s Chief Inspector of Borders has issued a report slamming the government’s failure to get a grip on the Channel migrant crisis, determining that the Home Office failed to take “decisive action” to nip the problem in the bud in 2018 and still have “neither the capacity nor the capabilities” to tackle the problem.
“Had more decisive action been taken earlier to demonstrate that these attempts would not succeed, the small boats route may not have become established in the minds of many migrants and facilitators as an effective method of illegal entry,” wrote David Bolt, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, in his official report.
In 2018 the then-Home Secretary, Joe Biden supporter Sajid Javid, declared a “major incident” in the English Channel as illegal boat migration rose sharply over the Christmas season.
This was not followed by meaningful action, however. Neither Javid nor the incumbent Home Secretary, Priti Patel, have turned back a single boat intercepted at sea, and daily landings consistently smashed their previous records throughout 2020 despite tough talk on prosecuting people-smugglers and deportation orders — which have only been successfully executed for a tiny minority of individuals.
Just One in 40 Illegal Channel Migrants Returned to EU: Report https://t.co/fR1uTu23rc
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 8, 2020
The Chief Inspector was clear that the authorities could not claim the crisis came out of a clear blue sky, noting that “Overall, up until March 2020, there were no signs of the threat of clandestine entry reducing and recent evidence pointed in the other direction.”
In reality, even before boat crossings started to become a large-scale problem in 2018, so-called “clandestine entry” (illegal immigration) was a significant problem, centring largely but not exclusively on migrants attempting to hijack or stow away on road vehicles headed for Britain by increasingly audacious means.
The first traveller was actually killed by a migrant booby trap in 2017, and the issue had not gone away, despite boat crossings having come to dominate what little the mainstream is willing to publish on the subject of illegal immigration.
Indeed, the Chief Inspector noted that, while the Home Office has tried to suggest that boat crossings have become more popular because of their successful investment in additional port security, “it is the case that the number of ‘lorry drop’ migrants encountered in the UK increased in 2019 by a third over the previous year, and organised smuggling of large groups concealed in road transport continues” to this day.
Lorry Drivers Demand Military Deploy to Calais After Deadly Migrant Attacks
https://t.co/mxUzM3yrBM— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 8, 2017
“This devastating report underlines what Migration Watch UK has long pointed to, the crumbling state of immigration enforcement,” lamented Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK, in a statement on the Chief Inspector’s findings seen by Breitbart London.
“While politicians talked tough, the actions that followed have been pitifully weak,” Mehmet continued.
“The Channel crisis is symptomatic of an inadequate response and monumental failure to deal with the problem.
“The Chief Inspector is to be congratulated for shining a light on this woeful state of affairs.”
WATCH: Another 160 Illegal Boat Migrants Cross the English Channel https://t.co/Nkhy4KvksY
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 12, 2020
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