LONDON – The UK is preparing to use new tactics at sea to send migrants trying to cross the Channel back to the coast of France. A statement from the Ministry of the Interior, reported this morning by the Guardian, states that the Border Guards will complete the training to carry out the necessary maneuvers for this type of operations by September, starting immediately afterwards to put them into practice.
The initiative, which follows the hard line against immigration carried out by Interior Minister Priti Patel (herself the daughter of immigrants who arrived in Britain from India), has already been heavily criticized by the French government, whose interior minister Gerard Darmanin says: “Saving lives at sea takes priority over immigration nationality, status and policy considerations.” Paris warns London that the use of such tactics risks having “a negative impact on cooperation” between the two countries, which have so far collaborated on French soil to try to limit illegal immigration across the Channel.
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The Border Guard Corps says new methods of redirecting small boats to France will only be used if British personnel believe they are “safe”, meaning they do not endanger migrants. Numerous Conservative MPs have long been asking Patel to take more decisive action to stop immigrants. A note from the British Home Office reports that 785 people landed in the UK on Monday on board rubber dinghies and small boats, just short of the daily maximum of 828 migrants reached last month. France has blocked about 200 of them. A record number of 13,500 migrants have caught up with British affairs since the beginning of the year. “Not giving children the opportunity to be protected is a violation of the human rights established by the UN Geneva Convention,” accuses the French deputy Pierre-Henri Dumont, representative of the Calais constituency. “Britain has left the European Union but has not left the United Nations and the international community”.
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