Labour has announced plans to use counter-terrorism powers against gangs smuggling people across the Channel.
Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer said her will establish a new Border Security Command with specialist officers to target people smugglers.
Sir Keir announced the plans in Dover alongside local MP Natalie Elphicke, who dramatically defected from the Conservatives to Labour on Wednesday.
The Conservatives called the plans a "re-brand" of government schemes.
Speaking ahead of Labour's policy launch in Dover, Ms Elphicke took a shot at her former boss, claiming "nowhere is Rishi Sunak's lack of delivery clearer than on the issue of small boats".
Her constituency is the arrival point for many people who make the dangerous journey across the English Channel.
"A fresh approach is needed - an approach that puts at its heart a commitment to border security," she said.
Under Labour's plans, counter-terror powers would also be extended to cover organised immigration crime, including the power to search people suspected of being involved in people smuggling, close bank accounts, restrict their travel and trace their movements before an offence has taken place.
The party's planned Border Security Command would be modelled on the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism set up by the last Labour government and would bring together the National Crime Agency, Immigration Enforcement, the CPS and MI5.
The plans were praised by former counter-terror chief Neil Basu.
Writing in The Telegraph newspaper, Mr Basu said he was "heartened to see Sir Keir Starmer putting forward practical policy proposals to turbocharge the work of the multiple agencies working on this most challenging of issues".
"I am surprised it has not been considered before", he added.
Mr Basu also criticised Rwanda scheme which he says has "no evidence whatsoever" it will work despite being "a grossly expensive project costing over £500m".
Sir Keir has already pledged to cancel the government's plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda, which was passed into law last month.
The government the scheme will act as a deterrent to people smugglers and people attempting to cross the Channel illegally.
No deportation flights have taken off yet as the scheme has been delayed by legal challenges, but the government is now hoping for the first flights to be in July.
Sir Keir has branded it a "gimmick" and says it would spend £75m of the money earmarked for it in the first year to set up the new Border Security Command.
In his speech Sir Keir said Rwanda plan cannot be an effective deterrent as only a small proportion of people who arrive on small boats will be sent there.
Instead his plans would make Britain's shores "hostile territory for people-smuggling gangs", he said.
Both the Conservatives and Labour have accused each other of creating an "amnesty" - generally understood to mean allowing all those entering the country illegally to stay with a full legal pardon.
Labour's plans, which the Conservatives have dubbed an "amnesty for illegal immigrants", will allow those arriving in the UK on small boats to apply for asylum - which is currently banned under the Illegal Migration Act.
Labour have repeatedly denied they have plans for an amnesty on those entering the country illegally.
Sir Keir accused the Conservatives of "a Travelodge amnesty" by not processing asylum claims and housing people in hotels instead - though the plans do not amount an amnesty either as they involve deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Nearly 9,000 people have crossed the English Channel in small boats so far this year, provisional Home Office figures show. This is up almost a third (32%) on the same period last year, when 6,691 people made the crossing, and a 14% rise compared with the same period in 2022 when the number of people was 7,750.
The Border Security Command will hire hundreds more specialist investigators and cross-border police, Labour said.
It would be led by a former police, military or intelligence chief who would report directly to the home secretary.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, said the new unit will "pull together National Crime Agency, MI5, the Borderforce, police forces across the UK, but crucially work with Europol, with police forces across Europe".
"We know that some of these networks stretch through into Iraq, to Kurdistan, through to the money markets in Kabul - this is an entire criminal industry that has been established," she added.
Citing the case of a seven-year-old girl who died in attempting to cross the channel last month, Ms Cooper said People smuggling is "undermining border security and putting lives at risk".
Home Secretary James Cleverly accused the plans of failing to act as a "deterrent" to illegal migrants.
A source close to Mr Cleverly told the BBC: "Labour talk about sending people home, with returns agreements but can't name a single country they would do them with.
"Starmer's "new plan" is his old plan, which is no plan."
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2024-05-10 09:25:29Z
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