[ad_1]
Britain and France have signed a new agreement aimed at curbing the number of immigrants crossing the Canal in small boats.
Home Secretary Priti Patel and her French counterpart Gérald Darmanin said they wanted to make the route used by more than 8,000 people this year unviable.
They agreed to double the number of French police officers who patrol a 150 km stretch of coastline as the target of human trafficking networks.
However, the Interior Ministry did not say how many more officers would be deployed.
The ad was criticized by a charity as an “extraordinary mark of failure” akin to “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”
Meanwhile, Amnesty International UK said it was “deeply disappointing”.
Patel and Darmanin also agreed on an enhanced surveillance technology package, with drones, radar equipment, cameras and optronic binoculars.
The team is expected to help the French deploy officers to the right places to spot the migrants and detain them before they start their journey.
The agreement also includes measures to help migrants stay in France and measures to increase border security at ports in the north and west of the country.
It builds on previously agreed measures that, according to the Interior Ministry, had seen the proportion of crossings intercepted and stopped since rising from 41% last year to 60% in recent weeks.
Patel said the new agreement with France “will make a difference” in the numbers.
Speaking inside the Foreign Office after talks with his French counterpart, he said: “We know that the French authorities have prevented more than 5,000 migrants from crossing into the UK, we have had hundreds of arrests and that is due to intelligence and communications. joint ventures that we share between our two authorities.
“This new package today that I just signed with my French counterpart, the French Interior Minister, effectively doubles the number of police officers on French beaches, invests in more technology and surveillance, more radar technology to support the police effort and furthermore of that, we are now sharing in terms of strengthening our border security. “
He said the number of migrants crossing had grown exponentially, partly due to the good weather this year, and blamed smuggling gangs for “facilitating” dangerous travel.
“We must not lose sight of the fact that illegal migration exists for a fundamental reason: because there are criminal gangs – human traffickers – that facilitate this trade,” said Patel.
He added that the cost charged by traffickers has dropped so “people are putting their lives at risk.”
Despite deteriorating weather conditions, the UK Border Force has continued to deal with migrants making the dangerous journey from northern France.
The number of crossings on board small boats has exploded this year, with more than 8,000 arriving in the UK, compared to 1,835 in 2019, according to data analyzed by the PA news agency.
This despite the Interior Secretary’s promise last year to make such trips a “rare phenomenon.”
A recent report recorded nearly 300 border-related deaths in and around the English Channel since 1999.
Written by Mael Galisson of Gisti, a legal service for asylum seekers in France, it described the evolution of border security in and around the Strait of Dover as a “story of death.”
He claimed that responses to the migration crisis have become increasingly militarized, forcing people to turn to more dangerous routes.
Bella Sankey, Director of Detention Action for the humanitarian charity, said: “It is an extraordinary mark of failure that the Home Secretary is announcing with such fanfare that she is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
“No amount of massage in the numbers masks his refusal to take the sensible step of creating a safe and legal route to the UK from northern France, thus avoiding crossings and the deaths of children.
“Instead, it wastes taxpayers’ money on more of the same measures that have no chance of having a significant impact on this dangerous situation.”
Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds argued that Conservatives had “regularly announced progress and failed to deliver on it.”
He said: “An agreement with the French authorities alone is not enough. Conservatives continue to fail to establish safe routes and have abolished DfID [the Department for International Development], the department that has addressed the reasons people run away from their homes in the first place. “
The agreement was also criticized by the UK human rights group Amnesty International. Steve Valdez-Symonds, its director of the refugee and migrant rights program, said: “It is deeply disappointing that once again these two governments have ignored the needs and rights of people who should be at the center of their response.
“Women, men and children make dangerous journeys across the English Channel because they are not offered safe options, either to reunite with their family in this country or to access an effective asylum system, to which they are entitled .
“The UK government must share the responsibility for providing shelter with its closest neighbor.
“This continued focus on simply closing routes to the UK is blind and reckless; it only increases the risks that people, who have already endured incredible hardships, are forced to take.”
Clare Moseley, Founder of Care4Calais, said: “This surveillance, drone and radar package sounds like the government is preparing for a military enemy.
“These are ordinary people, from engineers to farmers and their families; they are not criminals and they do not want to undertake this terrifying journey ”.
