The 200,000th Channel migrant to officially reach Britain in the era of small-boat crossings is living comfortably in a four-star hotel on the leafy edge of a Hampshire commuter town. The Daily Mail has tracked the young man to the £134-a-night Crowne Plaza in Basingstoke.
The 200,000th Channel migrant to officially reach Britain in the era of small-boat crossings is living comfortably in a four-star hotel on the leafy edge of a Hampshire commuter town.
The Daily Mail has tracked the young man to the £134-a-night Crowne Plaza in Basingstoke. He arrived there on a Home Office coach on Saturday afternoon, 32 hours after reaching Dover. Since 2018, the Home Office has kept official figures on the number of asylum seekers entering the country illegally on small boats.
On Friday morning, the migrant stepped from the gangplank of a Border Force vessel on to the quayside of Dover port to become the 200,000th to do so. Some 69 other arrivals who had been on his boat checked into the Crowne Plaza with him.
All hailed from African and Middle Eastern nations, including Iran - a country whose recent refugees are of deep concern to security services here, who fear terrorists loyal to the regime could be in their midst. The men each paid £1,500 for the illegal sea crossing, generating a £105,000 haul for the trafficking gangs which Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer pledged to 'smash' two years ago.
Carrying a blue plastic bag containing his sodden clothes from the Channel crossing and wearing a Home Office-issue charcoal grey tracksuit with open-top sandals (given to him at Dover on arrival), migrant number 200,000 entered the hotel fewer than three days after setting off from a French beach early on May 8. His rubber boat was escorted by a French Navy ancillary vessel, Ridens, towards the UK coast.
Mid-Channel, he and the others were transferred to the Border Force cutter Ranger, which brought the clandestine travellers to the Kent port soon after 11am that day. From there, he was bussed 19 miles to the Manston processing camp in Kent where the Daily Mail photographed his arrival. The group of migrants that arrived at Manston last Friday were served a hot meal after being processed and given a bed for the night at the camp.
The following day, the 'residents' were served breakfast and lunch before a coach picked them up at 3pm to take them to the Basingstoke hotel, 121 miles away. We monitored them leaving Manston and their arrival in the Hampshire town soon after 5pm. Once inside, they were handed back the clothes they had worn for the Channel crossing and shown to their rooms by Home Office staff.
That evening they were given the choice of dining in the restaurant or eating a takeaway in their room (or outside on the patio in the evening sunshine)
Channel Migrant Small-Boat Crossings Basingstoke Crown Plaza Manston Processing Camp Immigration Officers Online Interpreters Anti-Semitic Golders Green Attacks Abdullah Albadri Israeli Embassy In London Bedouin Tribe Gaza Trafficking Gangs Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer Home Office Edict Human Rights Kent Port French Navy Ancillary Vessel Border Force Cutter Ranger Kent Processing Camp Basingstoke Hotel
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