Almost 700 illegal immigrants were detected reaching the British shore in small boats on Monday, a new daily record this year.
It comes after July saw a record high monthly number of illegal immigrants crossing the English Channel to arrive in the UK.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said on Tuesday in its daily update that 696 people were smuggled into the UK on Monday on 14 boats.
The previous daily record this year was set on April 13, when 651 people made the journey on 18 boats, according to Home Office, which led the Channel operations before handing control to the MoD on April 14.
The MoD figures also showed that 3,683 people managed to cross the English Channel on 90 small boats in July, compared to the previous monthly record—3,136 crossings on 76 boats in June.
A record 1,185 people made the crossing to the UK on Nov. 11, 2021—the highest figure recorded since the start of 2020.
French authorities are stopping around half of the attempted crossings, but the number has continued to increase. By Monday, some 17,085 illegal immigrants arrived in small boats this year.
Last month, two reports criticised the Home Office over its “ineffective” response to the challenge, one said the border force’s approach to preventing the journeys was “ineffective and possibly counter-productive,” while the other said the initial processing of those who arrived has been “ineffective and inefficient.”
In one of the reports, former Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer said the Border Force Maritime command has been “ill-equipped” to deal with a challenge that is “all consuming.”
As a result, Border Force has been “effectively rescuing people and then escorting them into port and enabling them to enter the UK,” Downer said. “It is unsurprising that there is some public disquiet about this issue.”
The Ministry of Defence was enlisted to help the Home Office since April. Neither department has vessels designed to conduct search and rescue.
In his recommendations, Downer said the Home Office should contract for vessels better suited to the task and place them under the command and control of either the Coast Guard or Royal Navy. He also said he was pleased that such plans were already being developed.
To deter immigrants from making the dangerous and unnecessary journey from France, Downer said the UK government should keep “all legal and operationally feasible options,” including turning boats around “when it is safe and legal to do so” using “contracted vessels and specialist crews.”
He also recommended the UK quickly move illegal arrivals to a third country for processing, and reach an agreement with France in order to return small boat arrivals.
Since the UK’s exit from the European Union, the Dublin Regulation, which enables E.U. countries to return asylum seekers to the first E.U. country they arrived in, no longer applies to the UK. As a result, few illegal immigrants were successfully returned. An effort to sign a new bilateral deal with France has so far been unsuccessful.
