EASTBOURNE MP Caroline Ansell has focused on the issue of migrants coming into this country via the Channel in her weekly post.
She says: “A second high profile media story this week focuses on migrants taking the dangerous trip across the English Channel. This continues to be a serious problem with a record number doing so this year. We’ve experienced this locally before, at Sovereign Harbour.
The recent good weather has made it easier but lives are still put at risk. I am angry that human traffickers prey on these souls and rake in a fortune from this illicit and illegal trade. Then there’s the dinghies we don’t intercept. Not picked up by the authorities, these people disappear, too often picked up criminal gangs on this side of the Channel and could be lost to a life of slavery.
The Nationality and Borders Bill, designed to tackle the problem and reform the UK’s immigration system, had its second reading in parliament this week and it includes proposals designed to disincentivize this illegal route undertaken largely by those with the financial means and the physical strength to make for our shores in this way.
What the Government will continue to do is to bring those who need our protection directly from those places of concern. Over the last six years, the UK has directly resettled 25,000 people from places of danger.”