Jenrick: Migrants who pose ‘real harm’ are watched by MI5

SMALL boat migrants who pose ‘real harm’ to Britons are being monitored every day by the security services, a former minister said yesterday.

Robert Jenrick warned that some arrivals have been deemed to be a risk to our security.

In a speech in Washington DC, he said that extremists and organised criminals were among them.

Mr Jenrick, who quit as immigration minister over the Rwanda Bill in December, said he was made aware of the ‘bleak reality’ of the new arrivals’ backgrounds every day while at the Home Office.

The Mail revealed last April that 19 suspected terrorists arrived in Britain via small boats during 2022. Other

‘A risk to our security’

migrants who arrived prior to that – plus some who reached Britain last year – are also understood to have been flagged as potential terrorism risks. Some are believed to be under surveillance by MI5, GCHQ and counter-terrorism police.

‘We have to view this as a national security emergency because we know little, if anything, about these people who are breaking into our country on small boats,’ Mr Jenrick told GB News.

‘What we’ve learned is that there is a very significant link between some of them, and serious organised crime. If you look at the Albanians who are coming across, a very strong link, for example, with the drug trade in the UK.

‘Some of the issues are even more serious than that, and that there are individuals who come across on small boats who are being monitored by our security services every day because they’re deemed to be a risk to our security and would actually do real harm to British citizens.’

Security sources told the Mail last year that the 19 foreign terror suspects who reached Britain illegally from northern France during 2022 were linked with groups including Islamic State.

Most went on to lodge asylum claims and could not be deported due, in part, to human rights laws. The Government was powerless to remove any of the 19 to their home countries, because they claim to face a risk of torture or ill-treatment.

The men were believed to be living in hotels paid for by the British taxpayer.

Seven were already under ‘active investigation’ in other countries when they arrived here, it is understood. Five of the known terror suspects who arrived in 2022 were Iraqi, five were Iranian, four were Afghan, four were from Somalia and one was Libyan.

Of the seven who were under active investigation, five were linked to Islamic State or its offshoots.

The security services apparently established the true identities of many of the 19 suspected terrorists through fingerprinting carried out on all Channel arrivals.