On Monday morning, the home secretary and French interior minister Gerald Darmanin will sign the accord.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman will fly to Paris to sign a new joint declaration with French officials aimed at intensifying measures to prevent migrants from crossing the English Channel.
On Monday morning, the home secretary and French interior minister Gerald Darmanin will sign the accord.
According to the Financial Times, the deal would greatly expand the 200 French officers and volunteers who operate on Channel beaches and will urge France to aim for a higher percentage of migrants whose departure is blocked.
The publication said that it will also involve an increase in payments from London to Paris and better interaction between the border patrol teams of the two countries.
The United Kingdom and France have been discussing the revival of historic arrangements to patrol the English Channel for several months.
According to the Financial Times, the annual amount paid by the United Kingdom to France is likely to rise to €72 million (£63 million) in 2022-2023, up from €62.7 million (£54.8 million) in 2021-2022.
Since 2018, the British government has handed Paris a total of €200 million (£174.8 million) to police the border, while France spends approximately €250 million (£216.6 million) per year on border-related issues.
The new deal would expand the number of French officers patrolling to prevent small boat crossings from 200 to 300 by mid-2023, according to French officials, with the United Kingdom absorbing additional monitoring costs.
In addition, the agreement calls for the reinforcement of a French operations center, and for the first time, British border force officers will be present as observers, while respecting French sovereignty.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and his French counterpart Catherine Colonna released a statement on Friday emphasizing the “urgency of addressing all forms of unlawful migration.”
40,000 cross into the UK
Approximately 40,000 people have crossed the Channel in small boats so far this year, up from 28,526 in the same period last year, putting pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
On Saturday, 972 individuals traversed the channel on 22 vessels, bringing the total number of voyagers in 2022 to 40,885.
On Saturday, officials from the Border Force were spotted bringing groups of refugees ashore at Dover, marking the first arrivals this month following a period of severe weather.
In the past several years, the number of French nationals entering the United Kingdom using small boats has risen dramatically.
Official statistics indicate that 299 were found in 2018, followed by 1,843 in 2019 and 8,467 in 2020.
Italy, Greece, Cyprus, and Malta have demanded a change in European Union policy, claiming they were forced to bear the burden of migrants crossing the Mediterranean.
The four southern European governments stated in a single statement that the burden for lodging persons rescued by charity vessels should be more evenly distributed across the bloc.
Thousands will get immunized at the immigration center in Manston.
Thousands of migrants traveling through the Manston processing station in the United Kingdom will be vaccinated against the highly contagious disease diphtheria after dozens of cases were discovered in England.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) stated that it is collaborating with the Home Office to vaccinate migrants at the center after it was announced on November 10 that 39 instances of diphtheria had been detected among asylum seekers in England in 2022.
The UKHSA stated that residential environments should be regarded as “high-risk for infectious diseases.”
In many cases, the agency stated, the sickness was contracted abroad and brought to the United Kingdom, and it emphasized the need to “minimize the danger of further transmission.”
