The new Border Security Command has received a “significant, immediate cash injection” of £75 million to support the multi-agency unit with tackling illegal immigration crime, the government has announced.
The investment will be spent on purchasing state-of-the-art monitoring technology such as covert cameras and establishing a new unit to improve intelligence-sharing across the UK’s police forces, the Home Office said on Tuesday.
The funding also covers recruiting additional personnel, including 100 more specialist investigators at the National Crime Agency (NCA).
NCA Director General of Operations Rob Jones said that it is currently leading around 70 investigations into organised illegal immigration crime gangs, and was devoting more resources to the endeavour than ever before.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Criminal gangs are getting away with undermining our border security and putting lives at risk. The Border Security Command will deliver a major overhaul and upgrade in law enforcement against smugglers and trafficking gangs to boost our border security.
“State of the art technology and enhanced intelligence capabilities will ensure we are using every tool at our disposal to dismantle this vile trade.”
10,000 Illegal Immigrants Arrived Since July
The announcement comes as the number of illegal immigrants who arrived by boat since Labour won the election hit the 10,000 mark.Some 1,093 illegal immigrants arrived last weekend alone, with French authorities confirming that another eight had died in the early hours of Sunday off the coast of Ambleteuse in northern France while trying to make the journey.
Home Office figures show 65 illegal immigrants crossed the English Channel in two boats on Monday, taking the provisional total for the year so far to 23,598, with 10,024 arrivals having arrived since Sir Keir Starmer became prime minister on July 4.
The total for 2024 to date is 1 percent lower than this time last year (when 23,940 arrived) and down 21 percent on the same period in 2022 (29,783).
Responding to the news, a Number 10 spokeswoman said immediate work was taking place and the government was tackling small boat crossings “on all fronts.”
European Cooperation
The spokeswoman added that there had already been a 50 percent increase in the number of British officers stationed at Europol—part of the government’s strategy to work with European partners to tackle illegal immigration.Hewitt accompanied Starmer on the trip, where Meloni discussed how her country had achieved a 60 percent drop in illegal immigration by sea in the past year.
Meloni’s strategy includes a combination of tackling organised illegal immigration crime and working with North African nations to prevent crossings in the Mediterranean Sea, as well as a new processing deal with Albania which has been compared to the UK’s Rwanda scheme.
The Italian prime minister told a press conference that Starmer had shown “great interest” in Italy’s deal with Albania. However, Starmer signalled that he was more interested in Italy’s work in tackling the source issues of illegal immigration, saying he believed the reduction was “more likely attributable to the work that the prime minister [Meloni] has done upstream.”
Starmer dropped the previous Conservative government’s plans to remove immigrants who arrived illegally in the UK to Rwanda.
During Monday’s trip, he referred to the plan as a “gimmick” that cost £700 million and resulted in just four volunteers going to the African country, before stating that his government had overseen “the single biggest flight that has ever taken off returning people to their country of origin.”
