Hundreds cross calm Channel despite Rwanda policy
MORE than 200 migrants have crossed the Channel after 11 days of no arrivals.
At least seven small boats made the 20-mile voyage yesterday as fairer weather returned after a period of high winds and rough seas.
The last day of migrant arrivals was April 19, when 263 made the crossing.
It comes after Tory MP Andrew Bridgen last week hailed the lack of arrivals as proof that the Home Secretary’s Rwanda policy was paying dividends.
Priti Patel signed an agreement on April 14 to send asylum seekers 4,000 miles away to claim refugee status from the African country. In addition, a new strategy for the military to take charge of the Channel was announced.
The Government has come under huge pressure to cut the number of migrants crossing the Channel in small boats, which has already hit a record 6,500 this year.
It is hoped the Rwanda deal and the increased military presence will deter people-smuggling gangs who operate in the north of France.
Mr Bridgen said on Thursday that the Rwanda policy was “working already”. “No illegal migrant crossing for a week and no income for people traffickers, freeing up civil servants to work on Ukrainian evacuees,” he tweeted.
“We should offer the illegal migrants already here the option of returning to France or going to Rwanda.”
But Nigel Farage, the former Brexit Party leader, said: “There are some saying Rwanda is working, it’s a success because virtually no migrants have come now for the last six or seven days. Believe you me, I know this subject.
“That is nothing to do with the prospect of being shipped off to Rwanda. It’s because there has been a persistent, strong, north-easterly wind in the English Channel. When it gets calm again, the boats will continue to come.”
Official figures show that 2,143 migrants made it across the Channel in 58 small boats last month.
A total of 28,526 migrants crossed the Channel in 2021 – significantly higher than the 8,410 in 2020.
Tom Pursglove MP, the minister for justice and tackling illegal migration, has said: “The rise in dangerous Channel crossings is unacceptable. Not only are they an overt abuse of our immigration laws but they also impact on the UK taxpayer, risk lives and our ability to help refugees come to the UK via safe and legal routes.
“Rightly, the British public has had enough. Through our Nationality and Borders Bill, we’re cracking down on people smugglers and fixing the broken system by making it a criminal offence to knowingly arrive in the UK illegally and introducing a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for those who facilitate illegal entry into our country.”