Migration Watch: Illegal Channel Crossings to Cost British Taxpayer Nearly Quarter of a Billion Pounds

DEAL, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 15: Migrants run inland after landing on a beach on September 15
Luke Dray/Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

Illegal boat migrant crossings of the English Channel will cost the British taxpayer nearly a quarter of a billion pounds sterling over the next decade, the Migration Watch UK think tank has found.

In a report seen by Breitbart London, Migration Watch said that if the massive influx of illegal migrants is not reduced, Britain will spend some £240 million just to pay for housing and other payments to the illegal aliens.

This figure does not represent the myriad of other asylum-related costs, such as the money spent on processing, appeals, legal aid, detention, removals, security, nor the impact on public services.

Over the past twelve months, some 8,500 illegal boat migrants have successfully crossed the English Channel from France. Once in the UK nearly all of the illegal aliens make asylum claims, despite travelling from a safe, first world country, where under international asylum rules they are bound to remain.

While their asylum claims are being processed they are provided free housing accommodation, free access to the National Health Service (NHS), free dental and eyesight care, education for their children, and a weekly allowance £37.75 to £39.60 per week, all at taxpayer expense.

Migration Watch noted that according to the Home Office, some 81 per cent of migrants that arrive by illegal crossing the English Chanel are not deemed to have credible asylum claims.

Commenting on the findings, the chairman of Migration Watch UK, Alp Mehmet said: “The shambles in the Channel adds to the strains on an asylum system which is already at risk of collapse.”

“In the midst of ballooning budgets, rising backlogs and a shameful failure to keep track of rejected claimants, the asylum system is wide open to abuse. It is a gaping hole in immigration control that is being exploited by both traffickers and those who have no credible claim to asylum,” Mehmet added.

The think tank said Britain spends some £400 million per year in asylum related costs as a whole, with £30 million alone being spent on legal aid for asylum cases each year.

Millions more are being squandered as a result of last-minute legal challenges by pro-migrant lawyers. As a result of the challenges, between January of 2015 and December of last year, the government cancelled 213,000 aeroplane tickets to remove failed asylum seekers.

While the government recoups 90 per cent of the ticket fare, the cancellations still cost the public about £2 million per year.

Another £130 million per year is spent on support payments for failed asylum claimants, who by rights should be removed from the country, despite the repeal of the funding requirement from the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act by the Conservative Party in 2016.

It is estimated that there are currently some 41,600 failed asylum seekers remaining in the country, up from 24,700 in 2011.

One of the largest drivers of cost has been the government’s policy of housing illegal migrants in hotels, which Migration Watch pointed out began last summer and spiked in February of this year, far before the Chinese coronavirus crisis had any impact on the UK.

It is estimated that there are currently some 60,000 asylum seekers and failed claimants living in taxpayer-funded accommodation in the UK, 10,000 of which are being put up in hotels across the country.

Upon discovering one such migrant hotel in the West Midlands, Brexit leader Nigel Farage said: “There is a big sign on the White Cliffs of Dover, saying ‘everybody welcome’. It’s costing us a fortune.”

Farage added that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government is “doing nothing about it”.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here: @KurtZindulka

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