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		</div><p>Britain&#8217;s Home Secretary Sajid Javid has questioned whether migrants using small boats to make risky journeys across the English Channel to the UK are genuine asylum seekers.</p>
<p>Speaking on a visit to Dover on England&#8217;s south coast amid a “major incident” over the number of people attempting the journey to Britain he questioned why they had not sought asylum in the first safe country they entered.</p>
<p>He also suggested that those picked up by UK authorities faced having asylum requests denied as a deterrent to prevent others undertaking the same dangerous journey.</p>
<p>Last month Mr Javid announced that two more Border Force cutters will patrol the English Channel after scores of migrants risked the perilous crossing over the Christmas period.</p>
<p>The Home Secretary, who cut short a family holiday in South Africa to take personal control of the situation following criticism of the Government’s response, defended describing it as a “major incident”.</p>
<p>He told reporters today that 539 people had crossed the Straits in 2018, with 80% making the journey in the last three months of the year.</p>
<p>He said “almost every case” saw those crossing go on to seek asylum in the UK, adding: “A question has to be asked.</p>
<blockquote><p>If you are genuine then why not seek asylum in your first safe country?</p></blockquote>
<p>“Because France is not a country where anyone would argue it is not safe in anyway whatsoever, and if you are genuine then why not seek asylum in your first safe country?”</p>
<p>Following talks with high-level officials on Monday, Mr Javid redeployed two cutters from overseas to join HMC Vigilant, which is already patrolling off the South coast.</p>
<p>He also pledged:</p>
<p>– Better co-operation between French and UK law enforcement agencies;</p>
<p>– More work on disrupting attempts to cross the Channel “both directly, but also in more covert ways”;</p>
<p>– The British Government doing “everything we can” to ensure migrants are returned to France where possible;</p>
<p>But the Home Secretary acknowledged that if Border Force vessels pick up migrants in British waters, they would be taken to a port in Britain.</p>
<figure id="attachment_123275" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-123275" style="width: 600px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/94248FE5-02E5-4C56-92E3-65A6B90A131D.jpeg"><img class="size-full wp-image-123275" src="https://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/94248FE5-02E5-4C56-92E3-65A6B90A131D.jpeg" alt="" width="600" height="337" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-123275" class="wp-caption-text">HMC Searcher, one of four cutter ships patrolling UK waters, arrives at the Port of Dover in Kent as the Home Secretary Sajid Javid bolsters the Border Force fleet in the Channel</figcaption></figure>
<p>Today he said the UK had to send a strong message to trafficking gangs that they “won’t succeed and we won’t allow people to succeed”.</p>
<p>He said that anyone who made it to the UK would see an asylum request processed “in the normal way”.</p>
<p>But pointing out that the journey across the world’s busiest shipping lane was highly perilous and being undertaken by children as young as nine, Mr Javid continued: “It’s incredibly dangerous, please do not do that, you are taking your life into your own hands.</p>
<p>“Also if you do somehow make it to the UK, we will do everything we can to make sure that you are often not successful because we need to break that link, and to break that link means we can save more lives.”</p>
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