British Home Secretary Suella Braverman will reportedly sign an agreement with French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin on Monday morning to curb illegal migrant crossings along the English Channel.
According to the Financial Times, the deal will increase the deployment of French officers and volunteers to the Channel’s shores and prevent migrants from boarding small boats to cross over to the United Kingdom (UK).
French officials quoted by Sky News said that France would deploy 300 patrolling officers in the English Channel, adding to its existing deployment of 200 officers.
The UK will also send its border force officials to observe the functioning of the French operations centre in an effort to increase cooperation on border policing.
BREAKING - Number of people crossing the English Channel in small boats this year reaches 40,885 after another 972 crossed on Saturday in 22 vessels. The surge in arrivals happened despite French police efforts to stop people reaching the beach near Dunkirk yesterday. pic.twitter.com/7jpJg3VUIf
— Mark White (@markwhiteTV) November 13, 2022
The deal will require the British government to increase funding to France from $65 million to $74 million in 2022-2023. Since 2018, the British government has provided over $200 million to France, which spends over $258 million on preventing migrants from entering the UK.
The increased funds will help France install drones, night vision equipment, and CCTV cameras.
In the run-up to the deal, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna and her British counterpart James Cleverly emphasised the “urgency of tackling all forms of illegal migration.”
After their meeting on Friday, the two ministers released a joint statement celebrating the “progress made toward a major new agreement” on migrant crossings and “stressed the urgency of tackling all forms of illegal migration, including makeshift boat crossings, and addressing their root causes.”
The deal comes just days after British PM Rishi Sunak met with French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the COP27 climate conference in Egypt. Sunak revealed that he had discussed the migrant crossing issue with Macron and was optimistic about an agreement in this regard.
He said, “I’m leaving this [summit] with renewed confidence and optimism that working together with our European partners, we can make a difference, grip this challenge of illegal migration and stop people coming illegally.”
The UK and France are allies with cultural links that span centuries. Our cooperation is vital across a huge range of areas, from supporting Ukraine to our own defence and energy security.
— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) October 28, 2022
It's in that spirit that I am looking forward to working with President @EmmanuelMacron. pic.twitter.com/yBBNoQSdKD
The English Channel has been a problematic issue for France and the UK. Since the beginning of this year, 40,885 illegal migrants have shown up on the UK’s shores, 28,526 higher than in 2022. In fact, just this Saturday, 22 boats arrived in the UK carrying 972 migrants. The Home Affairs Committee revealed last week that the British government spends $8.2 million per day housing asylum seekers.
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said the dangerous surge in Channel crossings reflects the government’s failure to prevent human smuggling and trafficking.
The newly-appointed Sunak government has vowed to crack down on illegal immigration.
Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, for instance, has stressed that illegal migrants are abusing the UK’s “generosity,” arguing for a shift to a more basic housing system to remove a “pull factor” for the migrants. “Conditions in the UK are almost always better than in neighbouring countries, which helps explain why the UK is a destination of choice for economic migrants on the continent’ asylum shopping,’” he argued.
This morning I attended the French Armistice Day service at the Arc de Triomphe hosted by President @EmmanuelMacron.
— James Cleverly🇬🇧 (@JamesCleverly) November 11, 2022
As friends & allies, the UK & France will always stand shoulder to shoulder in defence of freedom and democracy.
🇬🇧🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/CmnB1qko90
While tendering her resignation to former PM Liz Truss last month, later-reinstated Home Secretary Braverman called the UK’s immigration system “broken.”
Sunak has underscored the need to speed up the assessment of asylum claims. It is estimated that merely 4% of applications of migrants that entered through the English Channel in 2021 have been processed. Around 725 migrants have waited over five years for their asylum applications to be processed.
The British government has faced a barrage of criticism for the inhumane conditions at Manston, Kent’s overcrowded migrant processing centre. The facility hosts over 4,000 migrants, despite having a capacity of just 1,600.
Braverman, in particular, has faced backlash for her characterisation of migrants as ‘invaders.’ She has also been accused of ignoring legal advice on the conditions of a migrant facility in Kent, which has seen several incidents of violent clashes and disease outbreaks.