WALKING through the many migrant camps of Grande Synthe, I’m struck by the scenes in front of me.
Rotting food and piles upon piles of litter line the edges of the camp. I’m only 15 miles from Calais, yet it feels a million miles away from civilisation.
Doug SeeburgThe Sun’s Thomas Godfrey visited a migrant camp just 15 miles from Calais[/caption]
Doug SeeburgAs vans drive in with supplies, entire migrant families emerge from their tents in the forest to snag the best snacks[/caption]
Doug SeeburgThomas says it looked like the grottiest street in the most impoverished third-world country[/caption]
While Sir Keir Starmer convened 40 nations for a Border Security Conference, hundreds of migrants here were queuing up to scoff a hot meal dished out by volunteers in a converted car park lined with tents.
Today’s offering is soup. Yesterday’s was chicken.
As vans drive in with supplies, entire migrant families emerge from their tents in the forest to snag the best snacks, snapped up from the supermarket down the road.
Others used taps to wash their feet, plugged their phones into a communal diesel generator, or played football in the fields a mile from the same beaches they dash across to launch their death trap dinghies.
There aren’t any toilets, so, frankly, you have to watch your step.
Of the migrants who can speak English, most tell me that they‘ve chosen the UK because it will treat them far better than France.
There aren’t asylum hotels here, though they do get free bus passes.
Many more are only in camps because they know someone – a relative, a friend, or a brazen influencer flaunting their taxpayer-funded, four-star hotel on social media – who has already made the crossing.
Take Ali Mohammed, a Yemeni who claims he was forced to flee the Houthi rebels. He had already spent a year coming to France, so I asked him what was so bad that he had to risk his life for Britain.
“There’s nothing wrong with France. It’s not bad here,” he told me.
It took me by surprise, but why? France is, of course, safe – yet, in the last five years, 150,000 have fled on dinghies for Dover.
Ali, at 40, is much older than most asylum seekers. He’s tried to get on a boat twice but the police slashed it before it could launch.
He says the British government will treat him better than the French government, with the difference worth enough to risk his life in the Channel, which has all too often turned into a floating graveyard.
“It is a better life there. I have lots of friends who have crossed who tell me they are in hotel accommodation”, he adds.
“They send me messages telling me to come.”
‘BETTER LIFE’
We already know that social media is the one-stop shop for migrants.
Some smugglers will, sickeningly, dish out discounts if you film your crossing and post it online.
In Grande Synthe, you quickly learn that mobile phones are essential.
As we were filming interviews, one man approached The Sun’s photographer. He is well-mannered but doesn’t know much English.
He does know how to ask for a SIM card, which he needs to message his family – but also the gangs that will facilitate his crossing.
Doug SeeburgAbdul Rahman, 29, from Tanzania[/caption]
Doug SeeburgMohammed Al Adiroos from Yeman, who has tried many times to cross but keeps getting caught by the French police[/caption]
Doug SeeburgMigrants say that they’ve chosen their final destination as the UK because we’ll treat them far better than France[/caption]
Doug SeeburgMigrants waiting to make the crossings live in tented camps in the woods and fields and get fed by the French Red Cross[/caption]
People smugglers will use big group chats to message co-ordinates directing would-be migrants to a beach spot in the middle of the night.
It is there that they hide among 15-foot sand dunes, mostly between Calais and Dunkirk, and wait for high tide to jump into the water.
Others use World War Two bunkers to stay out of view of police cars and heat-seeking drones that buzz above the coastline.
Some parts of the 100-mile shores are so inaccessible to cars that by the time guards arrive, the dinghies are already out at sea.
Apart from cruel people smugglers, nobody is better off because these camps exist.
Of the migrants who can speak English, most tell me that they‘ve chosen the UK because it will treat them far better than France.
Both British and French authorities are stretched to their maximum levels, and the spiralling number of small boat crossings cost the taxpayer billions of pounds a year in hotel bills and migrant allowances.
As for the migrants, everyone who leaves this camp knows that if they get on a boat and don’t make it to Britain, there are only two outcomes.
They get caught, come back to Calais, and have another go.
Or their boat capsizes and they drown – like eight others this year alone already have.
CHANNEL MIGRANTS UP UNDER LABOUR
By JACK ELSOM, Chief Political Correspondent
CHANNEL arrivals are up 31 per cent since Labour came to power despite their election pledge to smash the criminal smuggling gangs.
The continuing influx will only add to the eye-watering burden on taxpayers to house and process illegal migrants.
Last year the government spent £5.38billion on asylum seeker accommodation and support – and 8,000 more migrants are in hotels since Sir Keir Starmer became PM.
Since January a whopping 6,642 people have made the perilous journey from France across the busy shipping lane.
That far exceeds the 4,644 who had arrived by the same point last year, and the 3,683 who crossed in 2023.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is now in a race against time to prove her decision to axe the Rwanda deterrent – and divert the money into a Border Security Command – is working.
On Labour’s watch 29,884 have now come to Britain, which is more than the 22,648 in the same period under the Tories.
The number is likely to pass the 30,000 milestone tomorrow after more boats were seen crossing the Channel.
The Government boasts of ramping up deportations to the tune of 19,000 people since coming to office, with enforced returns up 24 per cent.
Yet critics say the majority of those are voluntary returns, where foreign offenders are given assistance to return home.
Since the Channel crisis erupted in 2018, just 3 per cent of the 153,000 small boat migrants have been deported.
As of December, 112,187 asylum seekers were taking some form of government accommodation and subsistence.
Some 38,079 of these are in taxpayer-funded hotels, up from 29,585 in June and costing around £4.5million every day.
The number of asylum claims last year rose 18 per cent to 108,000 in the highest annual haul since records began.
However the proportion that were granted fell from 67 per cent in 2023 to 47 per cent.
The strain of small boats on the nation’s finances comes as Chancellor Rachel Reeves makes swingeing spending cuts and tax hikes.
Rob Bates from the Centre of Migration Control said: “Our quality of life is in freefall, and every corner of society is being walloped by the Labour government. Imagine the good that could be done to our society were these billions to be redirected to helping our own homeless and needy.
“It is a national shame that our asylum system has taken priority over everything else and is a situation that must be brought to an end immediately.
“There must be no more asylum applications processed, the system must be frozen and the backlog cleared by removing every single individual who entered our country illegally, without exception.”
France has long been accused of not doing enough to stop small boat crossings despite being given £500million since 2023 under a deal signed by Rishi Sunak.
Until recently the Home Office published the number of migrants Calais cops had prevented from leaving their beaches, which were often well below the amount that made it off.
The prevention stats have not been disclosed for months, with the government blaming errors in the way the data is compiled.
On a visit to Calais last month Ms Cooper hailed an agreement directing £7million of existing funds to stronger law enforcement in France.
Her French counterpart Bruno Retailleau also pledged to begin intercepting small boats in shallow waters, which has proved successful in neighbouring Belgium.
Mr Retailleau said: “We need to rethink our approach so that we can intercept the boats.”
Currently French police use knives to deflate the dinghies when they are on the beaches, but lack capacity to detain migrants, meaning many have another attempt later.
Ms Cooper’s Borders Bill will also give authorities powers to arrest migrants who refused to be rescued by the French because they want to get to Britain.
She will also give police “counter-terror style” powers to seize laptops, mobile phones and financial assets from suspected people smugglers.
The Tories say Labour lacks a deterrent like the Rwanda plan to dissuade would-be migrants from flocking to Britain.
It has emerged ministers are considering the possibility of processing asylum claims in one of the Balkan states.
Sir Keir’s spokesman said: “There isn’t a silver bullet to solve this problem. We’ve always said that we’ll take a pragmatic approach by looking at what works, and we’ll consider the widest range of options to secure our borders.
“And the best deterrent to these crossings is preventing people from making these life threatening journeys in the first place, while sending a clear message to anyone arriving here illegally that you’ll be processed and returned quickly. And we are seeing evidence of that.”
MORTAL RISK
Some don’t care about the risk. Mustafa, from South Sudan, tells me he’ll get on any boat he’s offered because it could be his only chance.
Badar, from Syria, says the rain and wind don’t matter, and the mortal risk is one he must take.
As we left Grande Synthe, green-jacketed volunteers had begun the daily ritual of trying to empty and wash out the muddy roadside ditches that have become bins.
It’s futile. Tomorrow they’ll be filled up with the same junk.
These people, their journeys, and their unwillingness to give up on coming are proof that the prime minister’s pledge to “smash the gangs” has become as leaky as Britain’s broken borders.
Apart from cruel people smugglers, nobody is better off because these camps exist.
Some 30,000 migrants have landed in Dover since Labour took office and the stream doesn’t seem to be stopping.
After all, the camps that litter Grande Synthe are only ever getting busier.
Doug SeeburgThe camps are littered with rotting food, human faeces and piles upon piles of rubbish[/caption]
Doug SeeburgFrench police patrol the beach where many migrants start their crossings to the UK[/caption]
Doug SeeburgThe white cliffs of Dover from the beach near Calais[/caption]
Doug SeeburgA discarded life jacket on the beach in France[/caption]
Doug SeeburgThe migrants that get caught come back to Calais and have another go[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
