Nine boats have been intercepted carrying more than 500 migrants across the English Channel, the latest Home Office figures show.
In all, 537 people tried to make the dangerous crossing on Saturday (September 30), bringing the total for the year to 24,830.
That is down on last year’s figures which by this time in 2022 had reached 33,001. The numbers are still up on 2021 when 17,085 had made the journey by September 30 and it was 7,000 by the same point in 2020.
It comes as an investigation by the News Advocates Investigates podcast found migrants are being offered trips across the Channel from Dunkirk for £1,500 per person, with claims they will then be taken to a four-star hotel by police once they arrive on British shores.
People smugglers are also claiming Brexit has made it easier for them because there are “no fingerprint” checks any more, according to the podcast, which detailed a range of shocking insights into how the gangs operate.
A team of undercover reporters posed as family members seeking to bring a cousin to Britain illegally, recording their conversations with the people smugglers in secret.
On the safety of crossing the Channel, one of the gang said: “If the boat has a problem the [UK] police will come help the boat.
“When the boat goes into the English Channel the police are waiting and will help… They will take him to a four-star hotel.”
They added on claiming asylum in the UK: “After eight months you’ll have your interview… You have to make a good case, a political case… Political is good because they cannot bring you back to your country.”
And on discussing how to claim asylum from India, they added: “Say he has a problem with the Bombay mafia… Say I have a problem with this mafia, they want to kill me and my family.”
Home Secretary Suella Braverman stepped up her rhetoric this week on the migrant crisis, predicting there will be a “disintegration in our society” if action is not taken to curb the number of migrants arriving in the UK on small boats.
Mrs Braverman told a US audience in a speech last week that international treaties, such as the UN Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), should be reformed.
She argued their definitions of what an asylum seeker is needs to be tightened, claiming discrimination for being gay or a woman should not be enough to qualify for international refugee protection.
But her remarks have been criticised by her predecessor at the Home Office, Dame Priti Patel, who suggested they may have been made to “get attention”.
The senior Conservative, who led the Home Office for three years during Boris Johnson’s premiership, said the British people want to see results on the pledge of stopping small boats crossing the Channel.
She said interventions such as speeches were “no substitute for action” and appeared to criticise Mrs Braverman’s comments on multiculturalism, saying integration in Britain by ethnic minorities is something to be “proud of”.
Asked on Sky News what she made of the speech, Dame Priti said: “I don’t know what the intention was around that – it might just be to get attention, to have the dividing lines that previous commentators were mentioning as we go into the run-up to a general election.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pledged to stop the Channel boats – one of his five commitments to the electorate ahead of a likely General Election next year.
Dame Priti said: “This side of a General Election, if I might politely suggest it, is about delivery and the Government will be judged on delivery.
“When you make pledges, statements and promises, you have to deliver. But of course pledges are no substitute for action. I think the public, they are sick of hearing about some of these issues and the failure to deliver.
“I think it is right everyone puts a shoulder to the wheel and cracks on and does the work.”
