Calais migrant crisis costs Britain £100,000 a day – that's £200MILLION in just five years

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/611620/Calais-migrant-crisis-cost-UK-100000-pounds-daily

CASH-STRAPPED Britain is spending nearly £100,000 a day tackling the migrant crisis in Calais, the Daily Express can reveal.

By Giles Sheldrick, EXCLUSIVE

PUBLISHED: 12:00, Tue, Oct 13, 2015 | UPDATED: 12:23, Tue, Oct 13, 2015

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The migrant crisis is costing the UK £100,000 per day

Official figures show for the first time how securing the besieged port town and surrounding region is proving a huge drain on taxpayers.

Since 2010 almost £200million has been spent trying to repel those looking to sneak into the UK.

The sum lays bare the scale of the migrant threat just 20 miles off the English coast. Calais, the focus of the chaos, has been turned into a waiting room for economic migrants with 5,000 holed up in a camp dubbed the Jungle.

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Ukip MEP Mike Hookem said: “This huge sum of money has not stemmed the flow of migrants trying to get into Britain illegally and consequently must be chalked up as a waste of money. The Calais crisis is making a mockery out of our immigration and security policy and is an insult to people in the UK who are genuinely in need.”

The outlay includes £7million on fencing to surround the Eurotunnel terminal, a £2million upgrade of detection technology and boosting Border Force’s dog searching capability by £1million.

The amount spent over the past five-and-a-half years could have funded 8,000 nurses.

Lured by the prospect of jobs, benefits and free healthcare stowaways were stopped at the border at a rate of 153 a day in the first six months of the year, the Home Office said.
There were 27,755 attempts to sneak into Britain illegally between January and June.

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Calais has become a waiting room for economic migrants with 5,000 holed up in the Jungle

This compares to 12,980 in the first six months of 2014 and 6,238 in 2013.

It means the number risking their lives for the chance of a new start jumped 350 per cent in just two years.

If the French were doing their job properly none of this would have occurred

Tory MP Philip Hollobone

Tory MP Philip Hollobone said: “British taxpayers will be staggered at the amount of money spent on extra security in and around Calais.

“If the French were doing their job properly none of this would have occurred.

“Asylum seekers continue to try to break into Britain because they know so many do get through.

“What we should be doing is returning asylum seekers who make it here to the last safe country they came from and in most cases that will be France.

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There were 27,755 attempts to sneak into Britain illegally between January and June

“If we make it clear that asylum seekers making their way to Britain will be returned, the flow would dry up.

Calais is the frontline in Britain’s fight against illegal immigration.

With as many as 150 migrants arriving every day, they swell the numbers of a lawless community rife with mafia gangs and people traffickers.

During the summer knife-wielding gangs fought pitched battles trying to force their way on to British-bound trains and trucks.

The crisis prompted Home Secretary Theresa May and counterpart Bernard Cazeneuve to sign an AngloFrench agreement to make the UK a “less attractive place for illegal migrants”.
But the true scale of the burden on the public purse emerged after the Conservatives’ Lord (John) Patten demanded to know the cost of the British commitment in northern France.

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