![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/a-border-force-boat-full-of-migrants-arrives-in-britain-with-an-inset-image-of-tony-smith.png\")
<\/p>\nFormer Director General of the UK Border Force Tony Smith has explained why the police are \u201cfast tracking\u201d small boat migrants into Britain without a proper vetting process.<\/p>\n
Speaking on GB News, Smith gave his take on a concerning new report that revealed just one in 15 illegal migrants are questioned upon arrival on British shores.<\/p>\n
This means many migrants with a criminal past, beyond illegally arriving into the country, are able to circumvent police checks before being handed free accommodation.<\/p>\n
According to Smith, authorities are concerned about the legal rights illegal migrants are handed.<\/p>\n
Tony Smith said the lack of checks are extremely concerning<\/p>\n
PA \/ GB NEWS<\/p>\n
He told Martin Daubney: \u201cIt\u2019s very worrying. I spent a lot of time in border security and it\u2019s really important anyone coming into this country is thoroughly screened.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe already know the migrant boats are turning up undocumented. We don\u2019t know who they are. There\u2019s a huge presser here which is getting them through the Manston Process really quickly.<\/p>\n
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a short-term holding facility which means we can\u2019t keep them for more than 24 hours. If we do, we can be sued for unlawful detention.\u201d<\/p>\n He continued: \u201cIf you hold them for more than the period allowed under the regulation, you are then liable. The Home Office got into trouble about this a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n \u201cThe process established means you can\u2019t properly interview them and investigate them. What we should be doing is detaining them. We could put a detention holding facility at Manston and keep them there until we have done a thorough investigation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not making good use of facial recognition technology. There are 6.2 billion photos our police have. A lot of people have been here before and been through our system.<\/p>\n Tony Smith joined Martin Daubney on GB News<\/p>\n GB NEWS<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re pushing people through and it\u2019s really, really worrying.\u201d<\/p>\n Manston is a short-term holding facility located on a former military base in Kent and has faced criticism for its conditions, particularly concerning overcrowding and basic amenities.<\/p>\n It was opened in February 2022 in response to the hefty number of Channel migrants arriving on British shores.<\/p>\n The report by HIs Majesty\u2019s Inspectorate of Constabulary revealed arrivals are only asked to take part in voluntary interviews with a Home Office Intelligence team, rather than being compelled to do so.<\/p>\n Labour has announced a new \u2018taskforce\u2019 fronted by a deputy chief constable in response.<\/p>\n The former border chief said the lack of a proper deterrent is Britain\u2019s biggest stumbling block in halting the migrant crisis.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t join the Border Force to process people quickly into the country, that\u2019s not what they want to do, I know these people well and they want a removals deterrent\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey expect to be able to arrest someone who hasn\u2019t got the papers and send them somewhere. We can\u2019t send them back to France and they abolished the Rwanda plan.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the boldest attempt I\u2019ve seen anywhere in the world since sovereign borders and they had a huge fight in the courts in Strasbourg. We were nearly there. If we could have just got a few flights away, I would have loved to have seen some of the messages running around Dunkirk and Calais.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a basic error for it to be abolished having gone that far.\u201d<\/p>\n Labour\u2019s Border Security Commander Martin Hewitt told GB News: \u201cPolice forces across the UK are already very committed to this issue.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile immigration related arrests and charges have increased, we know there is more to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Director General of the UK Border Force Tony Smith has explained why the police are \u201cfast tracking\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,528,5804,12,1144,285,712,512,16,1259,3106,15,6225,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-106686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-labour-party","14":"tag-migrant-crisis","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-northern-ireland","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-scotland","19":"tag-sgg","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-uk-news","22":"tag-uk-politics","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-video-news","25":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114518388103080435","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Tony](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/tony-smith-and-a-gb-news-panel.png\")
![\"Sudanese](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/sudanese-migrant.png\")