-optimized.jpg){kind=avatar}
The focus is to make illegal migration to the UK by small boat untenable, according to a first annual report by the Border Security Commander.
In a statement to open the report, Duncan Capps, the commander, says: “We have established clear cross-system priorities and secured increased system funding to deliver on them, while strengthening governance and accountability. We developed new offences and powers to act decisively. With partners, we have enhanced intelligence and law enforcement capabilities at home, while building deeper partnerships overseas. We have built a strong system at pace, and this report shows it is having an impact.” He describes stopping ‘small boats’ as used by organised immigration crime (OIC) groups as ‘a complex challenge that is made difficult by: a low-tech, adaptable, criminal business model with low barriers to entry; most activity taking place on foreign soil; and the willing criminal exploitation of people with high risk tolerance. There is no single action or silver bullet that can solve this problem’.
Networks
The report speaks of only ‘moderate’ evidence that France is a less viable launch point for small boat crossings to the UK; and, that smuggling networks within the UK are being disrupted. In the last two years, France has prevented roughly one third of attempts by migrants to reach the UK by small boat, according to the report. It stresses how ‘adaptable and resilient’ the crime networks are. For example new smuggling routes for migrants and equipment are created (such as setting off to cross to Britain from Belgium instead of from nearer France) in response to law enforcement pressure, and ‘tactics on the beaches continue to evolve’. The ‘top ten’ of country of origin of those arriving last year by small boat were Eritrea (about 7000) then Afghanistan, Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Iraq, Ethiopia, Syria, ‘Stateless’ and Yemen. Small boat arrivals increased by three per cent, by 1,248, the report admits.
In the UK, such crime extends to ‘cash-intensive business sectors suspected of facilitating money laundering’. Besides the physical world, the report covers how ‘social media is an increasingly critical enabler of OIC, with smugglers promoting their illegal services online and using it to communicate with potential customers’. As for the ‘threat landscape’ for the UK, the report notes that it’s ‘rapidly evolving, shaped by global instability, failing and repressive regimes, new technologies and the proliferation of illicit commodities. These conditions drive the displacement of people, enable organised criminal networks and fuel the production and trafficking of harmful goods.’
For the 80-page report in full visit the Home Office website.
Background
As stated in the report, the Command was created in July 2024, as one of the first acts of the then Labour Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, to in the report’s words ‘mobilise, cohere and scale a whole system approach to tackle this threat, exerting maximum pressure on criminal networks’.
Photo by Mark Rowe: Dover.
