Rishi Sunak’s migrant crisis headache

The extraordinary scale of the Channel migrant crisis was laid bare yesterday in a major test for Rishi Sunak’s new premiership.

The official in charge of tackling illegal crossings admitted for the first time that the asylum system was ‘overwhelmed’ by the numbers trying to reach the UK.

The Home Office’s clandestine Channel threat commander Dan O’Mahoney told a committee of MPs that there had been an ‘exponential’ rise in arrivals from Albania, facilitated by criminal gangs.

He suggested it was equivalent to ‘between 1 and 2 per cent’ of the entire adult male population of Albania travelling to the UK in small boats.

The MPs also heard how the Government is now spending almost £7million a day housing asylum seekers and other migrants in hotels – and the cost could continue to rise.

Pictured: Migrants crossing the English channel trying to reach the UK who were rescued by the RNLI (file image) 

It was among a string of extraordinary revelations at the Commons Home Affairs committee yesterday as MPs also heard:

•  This year has seen a record 38,000 people make it to Britain after crossing the world’s busiest shipping lane in small boats;

•  Some 12,000 Albanian nationals have arrived in Britain in small boats already since the start of 2022 – up from just 50 in 2020;

• Despite being paid £54million by Britain last year to stem the tide, the proportion of migrants being stopped by French officials has actually fallen; 

• The Home Office has only processed 4 per cent of asylum claims by migrants who crossed the Channel last year; 

Pictured: RNLI rescuing migrants who were trying to reach the UK recently (file image)

The Daily Mail can also reveal today that residents in a Dover retirement complex have been told to ‘lock their doors’ after incidents of ‘immigrants trying to gain entrance to people’s homes’.

 Dover district council wrote to residents to tell them to take security ‘precautions’ after a panicking young Albanian walked from the beach into a lone woman’s flat and hid in her bedroom this weekend. 

Sir John Hayes, a former Home Office minister and close ally of Home Secretary Suella Braverman, said: ‘It’s absolutely critical the Government gets a grip of this and it’s critical that they do before the next election. People don’t think we have taken back control of our borders.

 ‘Thankfully we have a PM who understands that. The French need to step up to the mark and we need to be dealing with the issue offshore which is why the Rwanda policy needs to work.’ 

Former Home Secretary Priti Patel and Dan O’Mahoney, Clandestine Channel Threat Commander, pictured 

Sir John Hayes, a former Home Office minister and close ally of Home Secretary Suella Braverman, said: ‘It’s absolutely critical the Government gets a grip of this and it’s critical that they do before the next election. People don’t think we have taken back control of our borders’

Dover MP Natalie Elphicke said: ‘It’s clear that the attempts to tackle the Channel crisis are failing at every level. ‘I have raised concerns with the Prime Minister about the small boats crisis. It is clear the situation is now out of control. Restoring order at the border is a key test for the new Government.’ 

The figures revealed to MPs yesterday illustrate the scale of the challenge facing Mr Sunak’s fledgling administration.

 The new Prime Minister has already indicated his determination to tackle the issue, identifying ‘control of our borders’ as one of his priorities in his first speech outside No 10. The Home Affairs committee yesterday heard about a series of troubling failures in the asylum system. 

The cost of keeping asylum seekers – including Channel migrants – in hotels has surged to a staggering £5.6million a day, plus an extra £1.2million a day spent on hotels for Afghans brought here under official relocation schemes, the MPs were told.

A group of people thought to be migrants walk through the Border Force compound in Dover, Kent, after being brought from a Border Force vessel following a small boat incident in the Channel, on October 14, pictured 

Ship BF Hurricane arrives in Dover carrying migrants picked up in the English Channel on October 18

Last year the French stopped around 50 per cent of individual migrants from crossing – this year the figure is 42.5 per cent. Mr O’Mahoney said: ‘If the French weren’t stopping around 50 per cent of crossings we would be seeing in excess of 2,000 people a day arriving in the UK in small boats. 

‘It would be completely unmanageable, there would be people dying in the Channel and the system that is already overwhelmed would be at breaking point.’ 

Officials also revealed that of asylum claims lodged by Channel migrants during 2021, just 4 per cent were processed, helping to push the backlog past 100,000. Of those who made it through the creaking system, 85 per cent were granted refugee status or another type of leave to remain in the UK.

The commander added: ‘The rise [in crossings] has been exponential and we think that is, in the main, due to the fact that Albanian criminal gangs have gained a foothold in the north of France and they’ve begun facilitating very large numbers of migrants.’ 

Many migrants will ‘disappear’ from Home Office-booked hotels and go to work illegally, Mr O’Mahoney added. 

A group of migrants are brought into Dover Marina by Border Force and Immigration Officials

Around 3,000 people are being held at the Home Office’s Manston processing facility in Kent which was only designed to cope with 1,600 arrivals a day, MPs heard. 

Tamsin Baxter, of charity The Refugee Council, said the fact only 4 per cent of those arriving by boat to claim asylum last year have had a decision on their asylum claim is ‘appalling and indicative of an asylum system in urgent need of reform’.

A Home Office spokesman said: ‘Manston remains resourced and equipped to process migrants securely and we will provide alternative accommodation as soon as possible. We urge anyone who is thinking about leaving a safe country and risk their lives at the hands of vile people smugglers to seriously reconsider.’ 

Additional reporting: David Churchill

Lock your doors to stop migrants sneaking inside: SUE REID reports on the astonishing warning to families near Dover after Albanian teenager wandered into woman’s house and demanded to make a call 

By Sue Reid for the Daily Mail

Residents in Dover are being told to lock their doors to stop runaway Channel migrants slipping into homes to demand money, phones and getaway cars.

In an extraordinary letter, Dover district council warned tenants at a retirement complex to take security ‘precautions’ after a panicking young Albanian walked from the beach into a lone woman’s flat and hid in her bedroom this weekend.

The council called the event ‘unnerving’ and said tenants must lock up to ‘avoid’ it happening again. It is believed to be the first ever official warning of its kind in this beleaguered south coast area which has been overwhelmed by illegal migrant boat arrivals.

The 16-year-old Albanian was one of around 90 young men in two traffickers’ boats who landed undetected by the authorities on Sunday at Dover’s Shakespeare Beach after crossing from Dunkirk.

In an extraordinary letter, Dover district council warned tenants at a retirement complex to take security ‘precautions’ after a panicking young Albanian walked from the beach into a lone woman’s flat and hid in her bedroom this weekend. Pictured: Sue Doyle (right) who had the migrant hide in her bedroom

Pictured: The Wycliffe Estate near Shakespeare Beach near where migrant boats landed on Sunday 

The beach was left strewn with discarded red lifejackets as the arrivals ran to avoid police and Border Force. It is thought 30 are still at large somewhere in the UK, some collected in waiting cars by UK-based Albanian relatives, friends, or gang-masters who were waiting for them. The Albanian teenager went into the home of Sue Doyle, 59, in Aycliffe – a short walk from the beach – when she opened her door in the morning to let out her dog into the fresh air.

Once inside, the migrant asked Ms Doyle for a lift to Manchester. When she refused, he demanded to use her mobile phone to ‘airdrop’ his location to a ‘getaway’ car he said was waiting nearby to take him to London or further north.

Her neighbour, alerted by Ms Doyle, raced into the house, found him hiding in the bedroom, and ‘grabbed him by the scruff of the neck’.

He wrestled himself free, but by then police had arrived and took him away for questioning. They told a surprised Ms Doyle ‘no offence had been committed’ and she didn’t press charges.

A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in by the Dungeness lifeboat following a small boat incident in the Channel, pictured

In a new ruse, Albanians are believed to be deliberately avoiding being picked up in the Channel – by patrolling Border Force rescue vessels and lifeboats – to reach British beaches and then escape to work in the black market, including cannabis growing farms scattered around the UK.

The Daily Mail has been told by Albanian sources that the arrivals are afraid of being detected after 12 male and female economic migrants were turned round in 72 hours and deported back to the capital Tirana by the Home Office earlier this month on a special flight from Stansted. They are also wary of being taken to the over-crowded main processing centre in Manston, Kent, a former RAF base where more than 3,000 migrants are currently housed in tents and old buildings suitable for half that number. Some have been kept there far longer than the five days that is promised as they wait for places in Home Office requisitioned hotels, which are running out of beds.

To bring down numbers there, some migrants, say our Tirana sources, have been let out of Manston – after their identities have been logged – on immigration bail. They have been taken by officials to Kent train stations, given tickets, and told to go ‘anywhere you want’. The Home Office has confirmed that ‘full security checks’ are carried out before migrants are allowed to leave. Those given bail have to report in person regularly. A spokesman added: ‘Despite the lies they have been sold by people smugglers, those entering the UK illegally via the Channel will not be allowed to start a new life here.’

Pictured: A group of migrants are brought into Dover by a border force vessel 

A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dungeness beach by the Dungeness lifeboat following a small boat incident in the Channel, pictured 

‘They plan to be free in Britain,’ a source in the UK linked to immigration control said last night. ‘They deliberately don’t call the rescue services in mid-Channel when they reach English waters. They want a chance to reach a beach and get away to start a new life. They also worry about being fingerprinted if they are brought into Dover by rescue vessels.’

After the Albanian escapee was found, local MP Natalie Elphicke said there was ‘growing concern’ over migrants landing on beaches without being intercepted at sea. At the Manston processing centre, an informant told us that the migrants are fed a vegetable-lacking diet of mainly crisps and packet croissants, adding: ‘Food is poor, boredom rife and sanitation basic. This may be to discourage migrants from making the Channel crossing.’

The informant said: ‘It is now dawning on these people that the life in this country is not what they were told or paid traffickers’ money for. There is little hope, if they claim asylum, of their case being processed, let alone accepted. No money, no work, no education, no homes, no future and a life in basic hotels stretching into the future.’

With this prospect in store, no wonder they are running from beaches in a new headache for the over-burdened immigration system. And for the people of Aycliffe in Dover.