Home Office dockside migrant reception centre grows from a single office to sprawling mass of cabins (and still buckles under the strain)
- More than 10,000 migrants have arrived in UK so far this year, more than 2020
- A record-breaking 22,000 arrivals are expected by the end of the year
- Despite ballooning in side, the Home Office’s reception centre is still buckling
- The reception centre at Tug Haven, where migrants are taken for an initial assessment after crossing the Channel, has space for about 380 people
Sprawling across the Dover Docks, the Home Office’s migrant reception centre has ballooned in size in recent months under the strain of ever-growing numbers of arrivals.
Previously a simple brick building at the end of a jetty, the vast complex now includes an enormous marquee and at least ten cabins to handle the hundreds of migrants picked up by the Border Force every day while crossing the Channel.
More than 10,000 migrants have arrived in the UK so far this year – with a record-breaking 22,000 arrivals expected by the end of the year.
Our pictures, taken last Thursday when 475 migrants arrived in the UK, show some of them being processed by Home Office officials while a coach and bus wait to whisk them away.
Growing crisis: Dover’s migrant reception centre has expanded from a single building to include a marquee and several cabins (pictured last week)
The reception centre at Tug Haven, where migrants are taken for an initial assessment after crossing the Channel, has space for about 380 people.
But it emerged earlier this month that the expanded site is still buckling under the pressure of record numbers of migrants crossing the Channel.
When 430 reached the UK on July 19, immigration officials were forced to register them in a public car park because there was no more space in the centre. Pizza takeaways were ordered because there were no cooking facilities.
A damning official report last year said the Tug Haven reception centre ‘resembled a rubble-strewn building site’.
Peter Clarke, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, said: ‘Detainees almost always arrived wet and cold, but then often had to spend hours in the open air or in cramped containers. Basic supplies, including dry clothing, ran out during the inspection and some detainees were placed on escort vehicles in wet clothes.’
In one case, a 15-year-old boy was held for more than 66 hours. A lone 80-year-old woman was held for more than 40 hours. Inspectors also found there was ‘nowhere suitable’ to isolate migrants displaying symptoms of Covid-19.
February 2020: Dover’s migrant reception centre seen in February last year
The Home Affairs Select Committee reported last week that women with babies and very young children were among 56 migrants held in a cramped room covered with thin mattresses at a unit in Dover. It said it was ‘wholly inappropriate’ and a clear Covid risk, with some migrants held beyond legal time limits.
The Home Office said it took the welfare of migrants seriously but services were under pressure from ‘unacceptable numbers of people’ crossing the Channel with the help of traffickers.
It emerged last week that a multi-million-pound facility to process migrants will be built in Dover to cope with the worsening crisis.
The £2 million Intake Unit, which will be converted from a disused welding site, will be ready next May, according to Home Secretary Priti Patel.
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