Hundreds of small boat migrants have reached Britain today following a two-week hiatus in Channel crossings.
Home Office Border Force vessels and an RNLI lifeboat made repeated trips into the middle of the Channel to pick up boatloads of migrants.
At least 300 migrants have already been brought into Dover.
It included one migrant brought ashore on a stretcher while receiving medical care.
There is further activity in the strait, meaning the total is likely to rise yet further.
Today’s arrivals are the first since October 22 after a 14-day period of high winds on the Channel.
There have been 36,954 arrivals so far this year, not including today’s, representing a 17 per cent increase on the same point in 2024.
Today’s unconfirmed number will push this year’s running total past 37,000.
It is already the second-highest annual total since the crisis began nearly seven years ago.
UK Border Force ‘Hurricane’ brings migrants ashore at Dover earlier today after they were picked up in the middle of the Channel
One migrant was brought ashore on a stretcher at the Port of Dover, receiving medical care
Since Labour came to power 60,196 migrants have reached Britain, not including today’s yet-to-be confirmed number.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer scrapped the Tories’ Rwanda scheme – which was designed to deter small boat crossings and save lives – as one of his first acts in office.
Small boat migrants disembark from a Border Force vessel at Dover earlier
An RNLI lifeboat was also involved in picking up migrants from the Channel and bringing them into the Port of Dover
Migrants were pictured crowded onto the bow of the RNLI lifeboat, ‘City of London II’, as it made its way into Dover
Labour signed a ‘one in, on out’ deal with the French in July, in an attempt to get on top of soaring Channel crossings.
The treaty allows the Home Office to sent migrants who arrive by small boat back to France, in exchange for an equal number of migrants who have made an official application to come here.
The Home Office confirmed on Wednesday there have been 94 migrants removed from the UK under the deal so far.
In addition, 57 migrants have been brought to the UK under the reciprocal terms of the deal.
They are handed three-month visas and a chance to ‘regularise’ their stay here, usually by making asylum applications.
The scheme was thrown into crisis last month when it emerged a small boat migrant who had been deported under the treaty had come back to Britain a second time by small boat.
The unnamed Iranian man was finally deported to France again on Wednesday, 18 days after his second small boat crossing.
His farcical back-and-forth journeys left the Government’s flagship scheme in disarray, raising new questions over ministers’ plan to tackle the Channel crisis.
The Iranian had first arrived here on August 6 – the day the deal with France came into force – and was detained before being removed from Britain on September 19 on a scheduled flight.
But he later slipped out of a migrant shelter in Paris, where he had been housed, and headed back to the northern French coast.
There he boarded a dinghy back to the UK, arriving alongside 368 others on October 18.
The Iranian claimed he was not safe in France and that he was a victim of modern slavery at the hands of people trafficking gangs.
Such claims are often used in legal challenges in an attempt to thwart the removals process.
Other migrants deported under Labour’s scheme are also reported to have made their way back to the French coast to attempt a second crossing.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has pledged to ‘do whatever it takes’ to scale up removals of illegal migrants.
Amid today’s surge of crossings, the French coastguard rescued 94 people after their small boat collapsed as they attempted to cross from Dunkirk.
The French maritime prefecture said it had dispatched a number of coastguard and naval boats after receiving reports of multiple boats setting off.
At 9.20am, it was notified that one of the boats had broken apart four nautical miles off the French coast, with the 94 occupants thrown into the water.
A number of vessels were involved in the rescue operation, plus an aircraft dispatched from the UK and a French Navy helicopter.
Three of those rescued were suffering from hypothermia, according to the maritime prefecture.
A spokesman said: ‘On the morning of Thursday November 6, multiple departures of migrant boats were reported to the Gris-Nez Regional Operational Surveillance and Rescue Centre (Cross).
‘At 9.20am, one of the boats, located approximately four nautical miles off Dunkirk, broke apart and all its occupants fell into the water.
‘Cross Gris-Nez immediately broadcast a mayday relay message.
‘The Minck quickly made contact with the vessel and was joined by a boat from the VB Abeille Normandie, the SNS 276 Notre-Dame des Flandres from the SNSM station in Gravelines (59), and the ESMP 04 of the Maritime Gendarmerie based in Dunkirk.
‘The Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Center in Dover immediately offered the assistance of a British aircraft, which was integrated into the search and rescue operation deployed in the area by Cross.
‘Simultaneously, Cross tasked the French Navy’s Dauphin helicopter based in Le Touquet with the search and rescue operation.
‘The Minck, assisted by other resources on site, rescued all those in the water and brought them on board for medical care.
‘Ninety-four people were rescued, including three suffering from hypothermia.
‘The survivors were then disembarked in Dunkirk for care by state services on land.’
