Channel migrants asked just four screening questions as Border Force ‘beyond breaking point’

Channel migrants are being asked just four questions on arrival in England instead of the usual 40, with the Border Force union claiming the summer surge of migrant arrivals has pushed the system to breaking point.

The ISU, the union for borders, immigration and customs, said officers had been forced to scale back the number of initial screening questions because of a huge increase in the number of migrants having to be processed on the quayside at Tug Haven in Dover.

The union claimed this meant there was an increased risk that a migrant who could pose a risk to national security may be able to slip through the net.

“Border Force has a mandate that we identify every individual who comes into the UK but the numbers are such that we are no longer able to do that,” said Lucy Moreton, the professional officer at ISU.

“The whole system is beyond breaking point. It is just broken. We are no longer able to identify or screen individuals. We are just focused on getting them from Tug Haven to the next step of their journey, which is five days in an asylum centre.

“What should be a 40-question screening debrief is reduced to four questions. It is a risk to national security.”

Ms Moreton said the four screening questions on arrival had been boiled down to someone’s name, their country of origin, whether they were seeking asylum and if they had family in the UK.

Other questions to establish their route to the UK, contacts, the time they had spent in France and Europe, how much they had paid to be smuggled and any reasons for their asylum claim have been dropped from the debrief at Tug Haven.

She said face-to-face questioning in immigration centres had also been scaled back because of Covid restrictions and the need for social distancing. Instead, it was done via mobile phones provided by the Home Office, with 14,000 mobile phones handed out this year.

“It’s a conference call between the screening officer, an interpreter and the migrant but the phones get swapped and switched and numbers are misrecorded,” said Ms Moreton. “It can be impossible to verify that the individual you are talking to matches the person whose photograph was taken when they disembarked.”

It came as it was confirmed the number of migrants detained by Border Force crossing the Channel in small boats has now reached 16,299 this year – nearly double the 8,410 who arrived in the whole of 2020.

In 14 separate incidents on Wednesday, 459 people arrived, according to the Home Office, making this month the busiest on record. Official Home Office statistics show 3,872 people have arrived in 113 incidents so far this month, breaking the record of 3,509 who made the dangerous journey in 117 boats in July.

Dan O’Mahoney, who was appointed Clandestine Channel Threat Commander by Priti Patel, said: “The Government is determined to tackle the unacceptable rise in dangerous Channel crossings using every tool at our disposal, at every stage in the journey.

“But this is a complicated issue requiring changes to our laws. The Government’s New Plan for Immigration provides the only long-term solution to fix the broken system and deliver the change required to tackle criminal gangs and prevent further loss of life.”

Government sources said that all 40 questions would be asked, although not on immediate arrival but at different locations.

A Home Office spokesman said the union’s claims were inaccurate, adding: “We will never compromise on our national security. Mandated checks on UK arrivals still take place, including during periods of large volumes of arrivals.”