Channel crossers are hardly risking lives

I HEARTILY agree with Mike Jackman’s letter (July 3), but Oliver Wolfe’s reply was way off the mark of what Mr Jackman actually wrote.

Genuine refugees are congregating in refugee camps all over the Middle East where they can apply for asylum status through the proper channels. The thousands crossing the channel via people smugglers are merely trying to jump the queue, at a price they can afford.

They are hardly risking their lives, as many are given to believe, as you can count on the fingers of one hand any immigrants who have perished during this crossing. I’d say this is a 99.9% success rate as they never set out when conditions are bad.

These illegal migrants are not arriving at our shores from some dastardly ruthless brutal regime but from France, which is supposed to be an already safe haven having travelled through a host of safe haven countries on the way. The attraction is that this country offers better terms for them regarding our benefits system. If reports are true, even our own border protection vessels are picking them up from French waters with the encouragement of the French, who appear to be taking our money for stopping this mass migration under false pretences.

Even the RNLI are reported to be picking up migrants (allegedly in peril) from French waters, which shows they really are milking our already generous system for all its worth. This could prove detrimental to the donations the RNLI rely on to carry out its genuine tasks of saving lives around our own shores!

However, these illegal immigrants know they will be welcomed here and accommodated in the nearest Premier Inn and not in disused army barracks. It’s all very well for Robert Wolfe of Bideford saying, “We are a hugely wealthy nation and should help these illegal immigrants”, but try telling that to the thousands of homeless and families living in B&Bs all over the country, who would willingly swap for the conditions offered to illegal immigrants.

Our immigration and asylum system is broken. Now is the time for Priti Patel to quickly introduce her Nationality and Borders Bill.

Edward Kynaston Forest of Dean