Over 800 migrants set to cross Channel in small boats despite Labour returning TWO asylum seekers to France
WATCH: Mark White reveals that 400 small boat migrants are currently crossing the English Channel.
|GB NEWS
Donald Trump has encouraged Sir Keir Starmer to bring in the military to deal with the crisis
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At the end of a frustrating week for the Government in which just two small boat migrants have been returned to France, GB News can reveal that at least 800 others are currently crossing the English Channel.
After nine days of windy weather, preventing migrant crossings, conditions improved overnight.
At first light, people smugglers around the Calais and Dunkirk areas pushed multiple small boats out into the Channel.
GB News has been told that Border Force is braced for a "significant day of migrant activity".
The small boat crisis rumbles on for the Government
|GB NEWS
An Eritrean man who lost a High Court bid to halt his removal was on a flight that left Heathrow for Paris at 6.15am on Friday.
Across the morning, several migrant boats were spotted emerging from river systems around Dunkirk. Criminal gangs will often use the cover of upstream river systems to launch so called 'taxi-boats'.
Those boats were later seen off several French beaches, as hundreds of migrants waded waist deep into the water to scramble on board.
Just after 10am on Friday, the first Border Force vessel, the Typhoon arrived into Dover harbour with the first group of migrants for the day.
GB News counted 166 people as they were taken off the Typhoon and led to the migrant processing facility in the harbour.
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Migrants departing Gravelines in France in an attempt to cross the Channel
|GB NEWS
Our Kent producer confirmed the Border Force vessel was carrying the occupants of two migrant boats, intercepted as they entered UK waters.
They are the first to reach the UK since 188 migrants crossed on 10 September. Nine days of windy weather in the Channel has scuppered attempts by criminal gangs to launch boats from French beaches.
Thousands have massed in makeshift migrant camps around Calais and Dunkirk, waiting for an improvement in weather conditions.
GB News has been told that a run a good weather is now expected in the days ahead, with conditions likely to be calm enough for more migrant launches.
A small boat carrying people thought to be migrants near Gravelines in France
|PA
Cabinet minister Peter Kyle suggested the armed forces should remain focused on defence, after Donald Trump signalled during his state visit that military intervention could be used to deal with illegal migration to the UK.
Asked about the US president’s claims, the Business Secretary told the BBC: "Well, what he suggested was the military are used, but we have the UK Border Force that is now established and has been reinforced and bolstered and have new powers under this Government.
"The Navy actually does have a working relationship with the UK Border Force, and the Navy can be called upon if needed."
At least one inflatable dinghy full of young men made its way out to sea from Gravelines beach, north-east Calais, at daybreak on Friday.
As the boat came close to shore, people waded through waist-high water towards it and a child was passed aboard before it went out to sea.
In the town itself, at about 5.30am, a group of 40 young men suddenly appeared from a quiet side street carrying an inflatable boat over their heads before launching it into a canal.
Police officers watched on from the bank as the driver of the boat struggled to keep it in a straight line.
Earlier in the night, a group of men formed a human chain to help haul people out of the mud after a failed attempt to launch a boat in the canal.
People walking along the seafront stopped to look, including an angry British tourist who said he was "never coming back to France."
"Where are the police? They’re doing nothing," he said.