28,000 migrants breach UK border
Rise in numbers evading port and tunnel checks as France agrees the Jungle will not be moved to Kent
TENS of thousands of migrants have entered Britain illegally and avoided detection at the border, police forces have admitted.
Nearly 28,000 migrants were picked up in the UK over the past three years by inland police forces, with arrests trebling in some rural counties.
A spokesman for Theresa May, the Prime Minister, insisted that existing checks at ports were “effective”.
Britain yesterday pledged to work with France to help police the port and tunnel around Calais as the two countries’ governments agreed the Jungle migrant camp near Calais would not be moved to Kent.
According to a BBC survey, the number of arrests of those illegally entering the UK rose from 7,700 in 2013 to 9,600 in 2015 as the refugee crisis worsened on mainland Europe. However, this disguised large disparities between individual police forces, with many rural areas seeing much steeper rises than their urban counterparts.
In Cambridgeshire, the number of migrants arrested for illegal entry increased by 238 per cent over the twoyear period. In Warwickshire and Cheshire, arrests were up by 93 per cent and 81 per cent respectively.
In the Home Counties and the south of England, there were increases in Surrey of 72 per cent, in Thames Valley of 42 per cent and in Hampshire of 101 per cent.
The figures – which came from 39 police forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland – do not include those detained at ports or airports, or those arrested after outstaying their visas.
Many were picked up at truck stops or motorway service stations after entering the UK hidden in trucks.
The findings add to concerns about the security of Britain’s borders. The Daily Telegraph is running a Border Security campaign to draw attention to lapses. Keith Vaz MP, the chairman of the Home Affairs select committee, said the figures were at odds with ministers’ claims that there was “watertight security at our borders”.
He said: “If 27,000 people have been arrested for entering the country illegally by our police forces, then it shows that this problem is even worse than we had anticipated and we expect urgent action to be taken.”
Downing Street dismissed concerns about increasing numbers of migrants getting into the UK. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman insisted that “the arrangements we have in place are proving to be effective but we are not complacent about border border control”.
The Home Office said it would act to remove someone who is found to have no right to remain in the UK.
Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary and Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, yesterday met in Paris to discuss the escalating migrant crisis in northern France.
The two countries agreed that the shared border would not be moved from Calais to Kent in a blow to Nicolas Sarkozy, who is trying to regain the French presidency, and who suggested the move at the weekend.
Under the 2003 Le Touquet Treaty, British immigration officials check passports in Calais while their French counterparts do the same in Dover – an arrangement known as juxtaposed controls. The two governments agreed to “step up joint efforts to improve the situation in Calais” and agreed more investment in coming months “to protect the shared border”.
Asked about Mr Sarkozy’s suggestion, Mrs May’s official spokesman pointed out that Mr Sarkozy had himself set the agreement up in 2003.