AMID the sprawling squalour of the New Jungle camp in northern France, Somalian Mali Ali insists that Britain’s one-in, one-out deterrent is falling on deaf ears.
“Everyone will still try to come,” says the 22-year-old Manchester United fan, with a sweep of his hand towards a dozens-strong queue of migrants waiting for food handouts.
Hung on a wire fence at the entrance to the ramshackle encampment near the town of Loon-Plage are laminated signs detailing Labour’s flagship deportation scheme.
Issued by charity Refugee Legal Support — which was set up by UK asylum lawyers — the advice includes the words: “Important! Only a very small number of people can be detained to be transferred under this scheme.”
The current odds of being deported are not lost on many of the migrants gathered at this chaotic and lawless waystation not far from the shores of the Channel.
Iraqi former soldier Safa Ali, 35 — who showed me the scar on his leg that he says was broken by an IS sniper’s bullet — revealed: “Of course people will take their chance.
“Thousands have passed over the water to Britain and only 26 have been sent back. Maybe I’ll get deported, but I’ll still try.
‘I will be killed’
“I can always claim asylum in another country afterwards.”
He was referring to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s announcement last week that 26 migrants have now been deported to France.
In return, 18 have travelled by legal means in the other direction.
More than 10,900 migrants have arrived on dinghies since the policy was introduced, meaning that at the current rate, they have around a one in 420 chance of being sent back.
Promising further deportations, Mahmood insists the scheme is “ramping up” and that the returns would send a “clear message” to “think twice” about travelling to the UK illegally.
At the Loon-Plage camp, Somalian Ali Farah, 24, who has a sister in London, told me: “It hasn’t put anyone off.
“Somalia is horrible, with guns and war. If I go back, I will be killed.”
Despite the New Jungle having had millions of pounds of law enforcement directed at it, it remains a human smuggling bazaar, where deftly-planned clandestine crossings have never been more lucrative.
On October 8 alone, 1,075 people made the perilous crossing to British waters on 15 dinghies.
Last Friday — a day after the Home Secretary’s deportation figures announcement — a further 557 migrants arrived on seven boats.
I was told by migrants in northern France that the going rate for a place on a dinghy is now between £1,200 and £1,400.
It means the ruthless criminal masterminds behind the people- smuggling industry here grossed as much as £2.3million in just two days.
So much for PM Sir Keir Starmer’s hollow pre-election pledge to “smash the gangs”.
Smugglers have actually refined their business model since then to screw even more profit from their human cargo.
We have now entered the era of the mega-dinghy — lumbering 40ft-long behemoths.
French officials say the number of migrants per boat has increased from an average of 53 to 59.
In the last week of September, a dinghy laden with 125 migrants broke the previous record of 106, which had only been set the month before.
At least 20 people have perished crossing the Channel this year, yet smugglers continue to reap vast profits. The 15 dinghies on October 8 each carried on average 72 people.
If they each paid £1,400 for their passage, the gross take was £100,800 per boat — or £1.5million for the whole flotilla.
Gangs are like the Hydra. You cut off one head and more appear.
Kevin Saunders, the UK’s former Border Force chief in charge of operations in Dunkirk
The Government has taken out some serious smuggling operations, but it is like playing whack-a-mole.
Kevin Saunders, the UK’s former Border Force chief in charge of operations in Dunkirk, told me: “Gangs are like the Hydra. You cut off one head and more appear.
“There’s so much cash involved. It’s why gangsters have switched from the drugs trade to people smuggling — plus the sentences for those caught aren’t so severe.”
In truth, the crossings are currently dictated more by prevailing Channel winds than Westminster policy.
Boats crossed on a run of six consecutive days, beginning on October 8, before the weather changed. So what of the £476million in British taxpayers’ cash lavished on French coastal policing?
The gendarmes were not keen for us to watch how some of it was being spent this week.
As riot cops moved in to break up makeshift New Jungle shops using a JCB-like digger, an officer demanded Sun photographer Paul Edwards and I produce our passports and Press credentials.
Despite standing on a public road, we were then told: “Leave, now.”
Every few days, French cops move in to break up the camp’s stalls and remove tents.
The idea is to prevent the settlement from becoming permanent and acting as a draw for those heading to Britain.
Yet there has been a migrant camp hereabouts for around two decades.
In a patch of dense woodland a short stroll away, I discovered a tented encampment so settled that at least two groups of migrants there raise their own broods of chickens.
A party of Eritreans keep a number of Rhode Island Reds, which scratch in the mud between the tents.
Meanwhile, a Kurdish man, who has his own grain supply for his birds, showed us where his hens were laying eggs in a lean-to.
He and his friends also keep doves for the cooking pot and have fashioned a makeshift dovecote from discarded wood and tarpaulin.
‘Rats in our tents’
Not long after the heavy-handed raid by French cops this week, it was business as usual in the camp.
A rickety stall was soon selling fluorescent orange life-jackets for around £13 each.
Some of the roughnecks that gather around the rudimentary shops did not appreciate The Sun’s presence in the camp, which swarms with people smugglers.
One hoodie-wearing thug walked menacingly towards us and mouthed: “F*** off.” Another cycled past and said in a threatening tone: “It’s dangerous for you here.”
When a thug covering his face with a scarf tried to snatch Paul’s camera from his bag, it was time for us to go.
We read about the deportations from the UK on the signs and it is a worry.
Nahom Berhie
In a patch of woodland away from the main migrant camp, I met welcoming and articulate Eritrean Nahom Berhie, who learnt his decent English by reading translations of Russian author Dostoevsky.
The Arsenal fan, 23, tells me: “We read about the deportations from the UK on the signs and it is a worry.
“France and Germany don’t want us, so we have no other option but to come to the UK.”
Armed with a broom, Nahom is sweeping up leaves and rubbish in a forlorn attempt to keep his corner of this French forest tidy.
“Rats get into our tents and the cold weather has made me sick,” he tells me. “The police come and break things up every two weeks and tell us to go somewhere else. Eritrea is plagued by war and dictatorship.
“I want to add value when I get to the UK and pay my way.”
Another friendly face, Hassibullah Amiri, 26, a butcher from Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan, said of the one-in, one-out policy: “I haven’t heard about it, but many people are going to the UK and I will, too.
“I’ve been in the camp for a month living on food given out by charities.”
A number of the Sudanese, Iraqi, Somalian, Eritrean and Ethiopian migrants I met in the camp had already had their asylum claim rejected in another European country.
In a phenomenon known as asylum shopping, they were now trying their luck with the UK. One Kurd from Iraq told me he had lived in Germany for seven months before journeying to Loon-Plage after he was threatened with deportation.
A Sudanese mother and her four children had been told by the German authorities they would be sent to Greece, where they first entered the EU, so opted instead for a place on a dinghy.
So far this year, more than 36,000 people have crossed the Channel before them, around a third higher than the same point in 2024.
I haven’t heard about it, but many people are going to the UK and I will, too.
Hassibullah Amiri
This week, the Home Secretary admitted that the UK has lost control of its borders.
If the 2022 record of around 46,000 crossings is surpassed this year, it may well prove electoral kryptonite for Labour.
Britain’s £200,000-a-year Border Security Commander Martin Hewitt said on Thursday that just 12 civil servants are working full time on the one-in, one-out scheme.
And he admitted that it was “frustrating” that French plans to allow its officers to block dinghy departures within 300 metres of the shoreline have stalled.
Former Border Force chief Kevin Saunders told me: “French police are still not wading into the sea to prevent the boats leaving.
“I’d like to see UK immigration officers patrolling the beaches to work with the French.”
Returning to the New Jungle, I watched as a party of men laden with fluorescent orange life-jackets tramped along a busy main road and into the camp.
For the winds are due to become more favourable soon and the boats will sail again.
