A French naval vessel has escorted around 100 suspected illegal migrants into British waters unchallenged by UK authorities this morning.
The group of men, women and children landed at Samphire Hoe beach near Dover, Kent this morning.
Several small boats were spotted nearly 12 miles off the coast of Dover on the French-British sea border shortly before 7.30am.
It is thought there are up to eight vessels involved in what are the first crossings of the month.
There were 741 arrivals in May, a record for a single month, 1,359 suspected illegal migrants have completed the journey since lockdown began in March.
Border Force and RNLI ships picked them up and took them to Dover harbour for processing, meaning that so far this year, 1,600 migrants have crossed the Channel and into the UK.
Almost half of this year’s arrivals have been since the start of lockdown in Britain, with a record 145 on VE Day. Just 6 per cent this year have been returned to France.
This comes after the Home Secretary instructed Border Force chiefs to examine whether they have the legal authority to turn migrant boats around in the Channel and send them back to France. She has also been in talks with her French counterpart about how to tackle the issue.
At present, the border patrol cutters are only allowed to intervene when they see a migrant vessel in danger.
[give_form id=”1772″ show_title=”false” show_goal=”false” show_content=”below” display_style=”modal”]
Editor-in-Chief | Carl D. Pearson has been involved in British politics and media from an early age, with the key knowledge of what it takes to run a news organisation for the 21st century. Mr Pearson, as Editor-in-chief, is responsible for supervising the daily tasks of publishing media and content to UNN’s website and various platforms.
[sibwp_form id=4]
