An urgent security review has been launched after two small boats managed to land in Britain without interception within 48 hours. Border Security Command detained 21 people who landed at Samphire Hoe near Dover in Kent on Tuesday afternoon, but up to 10 migrants are at large without having been processed.
Two uncontrolled landings in two days
The small dinghy was thought to have been carrying about 30 people who crossed the Channel from France. It followed another uncontrolled landing on Monday, when five migrants reached The Warren, a rocky coastline near Folkestone, Kent.
The Tories described it as an embarrassment for the Home Office, which has spent millions on Border Force vessels, surveillance drones and hi-tech detection equipment to avoid uncontrolled landings.
Security concerns raised
Tony Smith, a former director general of Border Force, said it is vital that migrants are intercepted in the Channel so they can be processed through security and biometric checks at the Manston centre in Dover. He told The Telegraph: “To avoid our controls altogether does worry me as it poses a much greater security risk than the ones we are picking up in the Channel. It may be that they are criminals. They may be people previously deported from the UK.”
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has ordered an immediate border security review into how the migrants evaded security measures on the channel. Usually, dinghies are picked up by Border Force, RNLI, or Coastguard boats and taken to Dover after they reach the median line with France.
Official response and figures
Mahmood said: “This was not acceptable. Our improved monitoring has led to uncontrolled crossings becoming incredibly rare. But even one is one too many. That is why I have ordered an urgent review by the Border Security Command into how this happened, and what must be done to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
However, Mahmood said these new tactics showed the efforts in the Channel were working, since the gangs are being forced to change their approach, and "as a result we are significantly reducing the numbers coming here by small boat". She said it served as a reminder the gangs have "no regard for human life" because they are putting people on increasingly long and dangerous crossings to evade the border controls.
Small boat arrivals declined in the first five months of 2026, with around 9,000 people crossing the channel by the end of May. That was 38% lower than in 2025, though most arrivals occur during the warmer summer months. A total of around 36,000 people arrived by small boat in the year ending May 31, 2026, 13% less than in the same period a year before, according to Migration Observatory figures.
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, described it as a "day of despair" for Labour. "Our border security has descended into chaos, with illegal immigrants crossing at will over ever larger distances and in ever larger boats," he said. Philp ordered that anyone who arrives illegally is deported to their home country, or a safe third country.
