Priti Patel has blamed open borders in EU for facilitating “a mass migration crisis.”
She cited the schengen Agreement, which abolished national borders among member states, for leaving France “overwhelmed” with migrants trying to reach the UK.
Triple the number of migrants, around 24,500, have crossed the Channel in small boats this year.
Speaking to reporters in the US, they asked whether the £54m she has promised France to tackle the crisis in the summer was value for money given that more than 12,000 have crossed the Channel since the deal in July, Patel responded: “It’s not about value for money. There is a mass migration crisis.”
She continued: “You have people coming from the Sahel, you have them coming from Libya, right into Italy, Greece.
Now Greece has a different policy and they have not decided to sit behind the EU block of competency but as a result, if you speak to my French counterpart, and even their civil servants, they would all say 70 per cent of people come into northern France. They all come from Belgium. That is a fact because of open borders.”