Britain deploys drones in bid to stop migrants

LONDON — Britain this week began deploying sophisticated military drones to patrol the English Channel to end a surge in crossings by desperate migrants trying to reach its shores.

A British artillery regiment deployed its Watchkeeper WK450 to fly over the Channel. The unmanned aerial vehicle, bristling with sensors, will gather intelligence of illegal traffic to feed to the civilian Border Force and its French counterparts.

The drones, previously deployed in Afghanistan, were built in a joint venture by Israeli and British defense contractors. The aircraft are joining other military assets in the skies over the channel, including the Royal Air Force’s Shadow R1,designed to bring “battle-winning knowledge and effect to commanders at every level,” according to the RAF.

The deployment of expensive military aircraft to stop migrants — many of them Yemenis and Iraqis — in rubber dinghies from entering the country comes as Britain prepares to tighten its immigration and asylum laws after it leaves the European Union at year’s end.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed sympathy for the migrants but stressed that they were breaking the law. The Brexit vote, led by Johnson, was propelled by voters favoring curbs on immigration.

More than 5,000 migrants have arrived in England by small boats this year, a doubling of last year’s numbers. A single-month record of 1,468 crossings was reached in August.

On Wednesday, the daily record was broken when the Border Force intercepted 416 people aboard at least 27 boats. Police said there were children in some of the fragile craft, including those too young to walk.

Johnson, speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, said he felt “a great deal of sympathy with those who are so desperate as to put their children in dinghies or even children’s paddling pools and try to cross the channel.”

But the migrants, he said, were “falling prey to criminal gangs, and they are breaking the law. They’re also undermining the legitimate claims of others who would seek asylum in this country.”

Johnson said that because Britain is leaving the EU, it will soon be able to write its own laws governing how asylum-seekers are treated.

“We will address the rigidities in our laws that make this country, I’m afraid, a target and a magnet for those who would exploit vulnerable people in this way,” he said.

French aid workers say that most of the migrants attempting the crossing come from Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Oman.

Despite France’s robust asylum infrastructure, many migrants still aspire to enter Britain because of family connections and because English is the strongest second language most of them speak, the aid workers say.

The British Home Office’s new Clandestine Channel Threat commander, Dan O’Mahoney, told Parliament on Thursday that French authorities, on their side of the channel, had stopped 3,000 people from making the journey in 2020.