ILLEGAL migration is at a crisis point.
Our porous borders are costing the taxpayer nearly £7 million a day on accommodation costs alone.
Unease is rising, with increasing numbers of local councils – including Ipswich and North Riding – taking out injunctions to prevent the block-booking of local hotels.
The situation is both unacceptable and bleak, with a blunt Home Secretary telling MPs on Monday that the asylum system was broken and illegal migration out of control.
In 2022 alone, 40,000 illegal migrants, 12,000 of them Albanians, arrived on the south coast in small boats.
Whether genuine refugees or economic migrants, all must have their claims assessed in centres like Manston in Kent.
There’s a statutory duty to process them within 24 hours, but the sheer volume means that takes at least six months to complete, requiring the Government to requisition thousands of hotel and hostel rooms across the country.
Britain now grants 76 per cent of asylum claims – in contrast to the EU average of 34 per cent - while deportations drop year after year.
Unsurprisingly, many believe a change in the law is urgently needed.
I’m one of them.
A whole industry has grown up around migration, involving human rights’ lawyers, legal aid, charities, the press and media.
Common sense has long since flown out of the window and, while we must remain sympathetic to genuine cases, this current circus must end.
It’s worth noting, too, that resources are already stretched to the limit caring for Ukrainians, Afghans and Hong Kong Chinese, quite apart from own citizens.
We left the EU for many reasons.
Let’s not forget that one of them was to take back control of our borders.