Migrants brave choppy Channel in latest small boat crossings
At least four boats are understood to have been intercepted as they made the crossing from France.
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Your support makes all the difference.Men, women and children have been brought ashore by Border Force in the first migrant crossings of the English Channel in a week.
At least four boats are understood to have been intercepted as they made the crossing from France in choppy conditions.
The migrants wore life vests and were wrapped in blankets as they came off the patrol boat at Dover, Kent, to be processed by the Home Office.
The boats arriving are the first since October 16 when 185 people were brought ashore from six small boats.
The latest arrivals come as a total of 26,116 have been brought ashore since the start of 2023, which compares with 37,575 by this point last year.
The crossings come after the Home Office announced on Friday that an annual cap on the number of refugees accepted in the UK would be launched in January 2025.
Local authorities are being invited to set out their “capacity” to accommodate people coming to Britain via safe and legal routes in order to determine the limit, the department said.
Plans for a cap were introduced in the Government’s flagship Illegal Migration Bill, which became law earlier this year, but until Friday a date for its launch had not been fixed.
A Home Office spokeswoman said: “The unacceptable number of people risking their lives by making these dangerous crossings is placing an unprecedented strain on our asylum system.
“Our priority is to stop the boats and, thanks to the work of the Small Boats Operational Command alongside our French partners, crossings are down by more than 20% compared to the same point last year.
“The Government is going even further through our Illegal Migration Act which will mean that people arriving in the UK illegally are detained and promptly removed to their country of origin or a safe third country.”