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The government has sent a formal request to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) asking for help to deal with migrants attempting to cross the English Channel in small boats.
The Home Office said it is possible the Royal Navy could be brought in to patrol the migrant traffic.
The MoD said on Saturday it is "working hard" to identify how best to assist.
It comes after a record number of unaccompanied migrant children arrived in the UK on Friday.
On Saturday morning, the BBC filmed a rubber boat with up to 20 people on board, including a baby, departing from a tourist beach in the north of France.
BBC Europe reporter Gavin Lee said the "overloaded" boat struggled for almost an hour at the water's edge, adding there was no sign of any surveillance from French authorities on the beach near the harbour of Gravelines.
And across the Channel in Dover, BBC reporter Simon Jones said the UK coastguard was dealing with a number of incidents of migrants coming ashore.
Our reporter said local people have been asking why more is not being done by the French to patrol the coastline, but French authorities have said they need more money from the UK government.
Questions have also been raised about why once people arrive in the UK they are not sent back to France.
Ministers said they will press French authorities to crack down on migrants attempting to cross the Channel.
Home Secretary Priti Patel has described the situation as "complex", saying in a tweet on Friday that the government faces "serious legislative, legal and operational barriers".
'Political failings'
On Saturday the MoD said it would "do all it can" to support the government.
"We are assessing the requirement using the formal Military Aid to the Civilian Authorities process and are working hard to identify how we can most effectively assist," it said in a statement.
But an unnamed MoD source also told the PA news agency that the idea of using the Navy was "completely potty".
The source said such action would be "inappropriate and unnecessary" and that military resources should not be used to address "political failings".
Former Labour home secretary Jack Straw said any attempt to model Australia's controversial "push back" tactics - used against migrants travelling from Indonesia - would not work and could lead to boats capsizing.
"The crucial point here is the obvious one, is that it requires the co-operation of the French," Mr Straw said.
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Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Immigration Minister Chris Philp said migrants should be fingerprinted. However, it is unclear what the proposal will amount to, as the fingerprints of asylum seekers are already stored under the European Union Eurodac system.
Mr Philp said migrants would know "they face real consequences if they try to cross again", and added he would "negotiate hard" with French officials about how to deal with the crossings.
Former director general of UK Border Force, Tony Smith, said smugglers have identified a "loophole" in international law.
The UN's 1951 Refugee Convention says that once a person is in the jurisdiction of a country - such as territorial waters - then authorities are obliged to rescue people, bring them ashore, and allow them to lodge an asylum application, Mr Smith told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
However, under a long-standing EU deal, called "Dublin III", the UK has the right to send back anyone who is seeking asylum if they could have reasonably claimed it in another country along the way.
That arrangement will cease at the end of the Brexit transition period - next January - unless the UK and the EU agree a similar deal.
Migrants spotted setting off from France
Our team arrived just before first light to the main tourist beach of Petit Fort Philippe near Gravelines this morning, 20 miles east of Calais.
Within minutes, we spotted more than 20 migrants carrying a rubber boat and its motor in the distance.
They were holding it above their heads as they walked for 15 minutes from the dunes, past the beach huts to the sea.
Children were at the back, holding hands and wearing life jackets. When they first got into the water, they were clearly in trouble.
The boat was overloaded with 21 people on board, letting in water and came back to shore.
Several men, who appeared to be smugglers, appeared from the dunes to the shore and took a woman and her child off the boat. They then relaunched.
It looked dangerously close to sinking and still overcrowded despite the calm waters.
In total, it took almost an hour before the boat left. In this time, there was no sign of any surveillance. We called the police to alert them, worried that the boat may be in imminent danger.
They told us they were on the way. Four hours later, there is still no sign of them.
Several bird spotters on the beach had witnessed the same thing. One told us that this is the third time this week that boats have left from here, and that each time, he could hear children crying before they got into the boat.
More than 1,000 migrants arrived on UK shores using small boats in July, while 235 were detained this Thursday - the record for a single day.
MPs have launched an inquiry into the rising numbers entering the UK, while Labour has accused ministers of "failing to get to grips with the crisis".
'Defies belief'
Fisherman Matt Coker told the BBC it was "very common" for him to see people trying to cross the Channel in inflatable boats, adding that he saw them "every calm day".
"Some of the things I've seen it defies belief," Mr Coker said, adding that he had witnessed people paddling across the Channel in inflatable canoes and kayaks with shovels and bits of wood.
Meanwhile, French police have told the BBC that they are catching more migrants attempting to cross to the UK by sea than ever before.
Officers said they have intercepted 10 times the number of migrants from boats in French waters in July this year, compared to the same period last year.
They said their success rate in catching migrants has increased from 40% in 2019 to 47% in 2020.
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2020-08-08 12:49:22Z
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