The milestone of the 200,000th migrant crossing the English Channel in a small boat has been reached, with the individual now residing in a four-star hotel on the outskirts of a Hampshire commuter town.
According to the Daily Mail, the individual, a young man, is currently staying at the Crowne Plaza in Basingstoke, where the nightly rate is £134. He arrived at the hotel via a Home Office coach on Saturday afternoon, just 32 hours after landing in Dover.
Since the Home Office began recording these crossings in 2018, the number of asylum seekers entering the UK illegally by small boats has steadily increased. This milestone was reached on Friday morning when the migrant disembarked from a Border Force vessel at Dover, becoming the 200,000th person to do so.
Alongside him, 69 other individuals from his boat were also accommodated at the Crowne Plaza. They originate from various African and Middle Eastern countries, including Iran—a nation whose recent émigrés have raised security concerns due to potential terrorist affiliations.
These migrants reportedly paid £1,500 each for their perilous journey, resulting in a £105,000 windfall for the smuggling operations that Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer vowed to dismantle two years ago.
Upon arrival, the 200,000th migrant carried a blue plastic bag containing his wet clothes from the crossing and wore a Home Office-provided charcoal grey tracksuit with open sandals. This was just days after departing from a French beach on May 8.
His rubber boat was escorted by a French Navy ancillary vessel, Ridens, towards the UK coast.
Mid-Channel, he and the others were transferred to the Border Force cutter Ranger, which brought the clandestine travellers to the Kent port soon after 11am that day.
Some of the 69 men from the same boat as the 200000th migrant checks into the four star hotel. All hailed from African and Middle Eastern nations
On Friday morning, the migrant stepped from the gangplank of a Border Force vessel on to the quayside of Dover port to become the 200,000th to do so
A coach arrives at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Onboard are the seventy migrants that arrived into Dover on Friday
From there, he was bussed 19 miles to the Manston processing camp in Kent where the Daily Mail photographed his arrival.
He was greeted by three female immigration officers and shown into a marquee to be given crisps, water and fresh fruit – gratis, of course.
The migrants were then interviewed for the first time, each one asked for their name, age, country of origin, and the reason behind their claim for asylum in this country.
From that moment, the migrants were referred to as ‘residents’ by Manston staff, under a bizarre and woke Home Office edict to respect their human rights.
Most of the men who arrived with migrant number 200,000 did not speak English and all were offered online interpreters, chalking up another hefty bill for taxpayers.
Many were quizzed for less than an hour by a team of immigration officials, despite the Government raising the national threat level to ‘severe’ following the anti-Semitic Golders Green attacks last month.
Indeed, one of the Crowne Plaza’s former migrant guests was convicted earlier this month at the Old Bailey of preparing a terror-related attack on the Israeli embassy in London.
Abdullah Albadri, 34, was billeted in the hotel the day after he arrived by boat for a second time last spring.
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The arrival of groups of migrants into Dover can be seen – after they were picked up in the Channel by Border Force
The men each paid £1,500 for the illegal sea crossing, generating a £105,000 haul for the trafficking gangs which Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer pledged to ‘smash’ two years ago
The group of migrants that arrived at Manston last Friday were served a hot meal after being processed and given a bed for the night at the camp
Notably, he was not picked up as a potential security threat when interviewed at the Manston camp. Barely two weeks later, the illegal migrant, who was born in Kuwait but said he was from a stateless Bedouin tribe, attempted to scale the embassy walls armed with two large knives. He told arresting police he wanted to stop the war in Gaza.
The group of migrants that arrived at Manston last Friday were served a hot meal after being processed and given a bed for the night at the camp. The following day, the ‘residents’ were served breakfast and lunch before a coach picked them up at 3pm to take them to the Basingstoke hotel, 121 miles away.
We monitored them leaving Manston and their arrival in the Hampshire town soon after 5pm.
Security guards stood by as the 70 disembarked from a back door of the vehicle, which was parked up close to the entrance to ensure their arrival was hidden from prying eyes.
Once inside, they were handed back the clothes they had worn for the Channel crossing and shown to their rooms by Home Office staff.
That evening they were given the choice of dining in the restaurant or eating a takeaway in their room (or outside on the patio in the evening sunshine). We know this because other residents of the Crowne Plaza, commandeered as a migrants’ hotel five years ago, talked to us on the road outside.
They had wandered back from nearby shops, through the quiet streets of the Basingstoke suburb of Eastrop.
Two Afghans, one of whom had just bought a pack of new earphones, told us they had come to Britain on a boat the previous Sunday (May 3), when several hundred migrants crossed the Channel to Kent in a number of traffickers’ dinghies.
The duo, in their 20s, had poor English. But smiling, they said the hotel food was good and they liked England very much.
Soon, they added, they expected to get a house. ‘Some we have seen going from the hotel to new homes this week,’ the taller Afghan said.
A drone view of a group of migrants arriving at the Manston Processing Centre after entering Dover
A view of the Crowne Plaza Hotel – now closed to the public. Seventy migrants that arrived on Friday were transported via coach from the Manston Detention Centre
Most of the men who arrived with migrant number 200,000 did not speak English and all were offered online interpreters
A group of four of the seventy migrants who arrived together are seen walking – each dressed head-to-toe in black
Two Ethiopians – Nathaniel, 30, and his friend Chekole – stopped to talk as well. Nathaniel proved to be knowledgeable about British politics.
‘There are too many migrants who are not refugees being sent to Britain by the traffickers,’ he said. ‘I believe the Reform Party will get it right. The asylum system needs to be stopped, sorted out, and started again.’
Apologising for his bad language, he said: ‘The traffickers don’t care a s***. They are funnelling migrants to the UK, only the UK. They push you on to the boats. They don’t care if you live or die, they want the money.
‘To be honest, we are worried about the number of Muslims here in the hotel, and the UK. We Christians know what they can do to us because we come from Ethiopia.
‘We love England. We want to give to your country. It is not the same feeling from everyone who arrives on the boats. You need to understand that.’
After first looking around to check that no one was watching (most of the boat migrants in UK hotels are Muslim), they each nervously fished out the cross they wore on a chain around their neck from under their T-shirts.
‘We had to hide our Christianity while we waited in France for a month after getting there via Libya,’ said Nathaniel.
‘They are all Muslims at the camps. We are less scared here in Britain,’ he added, pointing out that his name originates from the Bible.
In 25 years, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of Christian migrants I’ve met heading for the UK. Nathaniel agreed that he and Chekole are rarities among the 200,000 who’ve targeted Britain since 2018.
The very next morning, Sunday, migrant number 200,000 and his boat companions stepped out of the hotel to take in the air and explore their surroundings.
Four Iranians – one aged 31, another 29, and two claiming to be 17 – stopped to chat about their journey.
I did not ask this quartet why they had come. Nor did they tell me. But what we do know is that they were let into our country after scant checks, and that our security services have warned that the small boats transporting migrants are likely to be used by proxies of Iran’s feared Revolutionary Guard Corps to slip into Britain.
The fact is we do not know who may have woken up this morning at the Crowne Plaza hotel with lethal intentions for our country.
What we do know is that the Home Office, given the speed at which it screens the boat migrants, cannot possibly know either.
In September, the Government contract with the Crowne Plaza will end and it will undergo refurbishment before reopening to the public.
By then boat migrant number 200,000 will be living in a free house or flat, with a weekly welfare payment of almost £50 to keep him in the manner he expects to live in his new country – one he will almost certainly never leave.
