The joint operation of the British Border Police, Royal Navy and French Navy, with helicopters and rescue boats, continues to work today, after a small boat with shipwrecked immigrants in the early hours of this Wednesday in the waters of the English Channel. The Coast Guard Service received notification around 3:40 a.m. (4:40 p.m. Spanish peninsula time) that the ship was in serious trouble. An ambulance helicopter immediately moved to the area. According to the latest data provided by the British Government, at least three people died and 43 people could be saved.

Late Tuesday night, the temperature dropped to 1º Celsius in Dover, the closest city on the English coast to the event site. Water temperatures in the morning were much lower, and authorities feared many of those on board might not survive.

“No one is risking their life in these conditions, unless they have no other choice. As long as there is no safer route to try to seek asylum, there is a risk of more accidents like this,” said Alex Fraser, Director of Refugee Support for the Red Cross.

The tragedy seen on the channel comes just hours after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made his announcement in the House of Commons new plans to tighten immigration policies and try to reduce the number of people arriving on English shores irregularly.

With the new measures announced, the Government will add more than 700 personnel monitoring the canal’s shores, and will create a new unified command integrating the army, police and civil administration to coordinate efforts.

Sunak has promised to continue the deportation policy to Rwanda which was successfully paralyzed by the European Court of Human Rights last June, soon after the British Government managed to clear up legal doubts that were still pending settlement by other high courts. And he has given orders to set up new spaces to replace the hotels currently welcoming asylum seekers, unable to absorb the growing numbers, and which constitute a daily expenditure of almost six and a half million euros to the UK public treasury. In January, the prime minister announced that currently unused summer camps, military bases and even disabled hostels would be used to accommodate at least 10,000 people.

tougher laws

Sunak shared speeches that have been delivered by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former Home Minister Priti Patel. The British system of asylum and protection, they decried, is too generous to allow thousands of people who exploit the protection of the law to squeeze through its cracks. The number of asylum applications pending completion in 2022 totals more than 166,000. “Our laws need reform. We have to control our borders, to make sure that those who come do so through legal and safe channels. Our legal framework is being exploited by people who have thwarted their expulsion from the country for months, even years”, assures the prime minister, an early-Brexit defender in charge of Home Affairs to Suella Braverman, policies that define the current migration crisis as an “invasion”. Sunak has promised by 2023 a new law that will make it clear “without ambiguity” that anyone entering the UK illegally will not have the opportunity to stay.

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