Migrants successfully crossing the English Channel in small boats fuelled others to make the perilous journey, MPs were warned today.
More than 5,500 have reached the UK so far this year packed into little inflatables sailing through the Dover Strait. Realising people desperate to come to Britain were safely landing on UK shores motivated other potential migrants to attempt the voyage, the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee heard.
Kent County Council leader Roger Gough said: “Awareness of the cross-Channel route has clearly become a big factor.” He believed the coronavirus lockdown – when fewer lorries were travelling between England and France, making it harder for illegal migrants to stowaway – led to would-be asylum seekers hunting
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