Since 2018 more than 100,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel using small boats, despite the British Conservative government’s tough stance on illegal immigration, with setbacks to government policy on the issue mounting.

Yesterday Thursday, 755 migrants made the dangerous sea crossing to British shores – a daily record number since the beginning of the year – the British Home Office said.

According to an AFP tally, 100,715 migrants have made the crossing since the United Kingdom began counting these crossings in 2018, mostly from French shores. Tight measures at the port of Calais and the Eurotunnel terminal have made it more difficult – if not impossible – to smuggle migrants by truck, leading people smugglers to choose the sea route.

Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has vowed to “stop the boats” of migrants as opinion polls show Labor leading in the 2024 general election.

One of the busiest straits in the world, the English Channel is often the scene of deadly shipwrecks of small boats packed with migrants. Twenty-seven people lost their lives in November 2021. Yesterday, Thursday, 17 migrants were rescued, according to the Ministry of the Interior.

Despite Brexit promises to “take back control” of the border, the number of migrants who managed to reach British soil in small boats reached record levels in 2022, with 45,000 people.

Since the beginning of the year the number is 15,826, indicating a downward trend.

Having adopted a harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric, the Sunak government has multiplied in recent days the announcements of measures aimed at combating the phenomenon.

This week he said he was setting up a team to tackle “lawyers who help migrants take advantage of the immigration system” in Britain. It also increased its financial support to France for coastal surveillance.

At the same time, the British parliament adopted a controversial immigration law in July that denies the right to apply for asylum in Britain from immigrants who enter the country illegally, and the UN has denounced the law as contrary to international law. The law provides for the deportation of asylum seekers to their home country or to third countries such as Rwanda, a plan currently blocked by the courts.

Today, British authorities removed migrants from a barge at a dock in southwest England after Legionella bacteria was detected in the water supply. The bacterium can cause Legionnaires’ disease, a lung infection that the National Health Service describes as uncommon but “very serious”.

As of Monday, migrants had begun being transferred to the three-story barge Bibby Stockholm, which can accommodate around 500 people in more than 200 bedrooms, as part of a program to reduce the cost of supporting asylum seekers. This program is criticized by numerous human rights organizations.

None of the migrants on the three-decker barge showed symptoms of the disease, a Home Office spokesman said, assuring the migrants’ “health” and “welfare” were of the “highest priority”. According to the authorities, there is no “immediate risk” to the local population, as the bacteria was found on the barge and not in the water supply.