Press Association
Thursday 11th March 2010
Plans for a crackdown on illegal cross-Channel immigration are being discussed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy at an Anglo-French summit.
The UK hopes the meeting, in the French town of Evian-les-Bains, will secure a deal for the UK to help with detection technology to counter people smuggling, sources said.
The immigration issue was thrust back into the spotlight last week when the United Nations refugee agency opened an office in Calais to deal with around 1,600 migrants trying to get to the UK.
It is trying to persuade the "undocumented aliens" - many of them trafficked children living in squalid camps on the outskirts of the port - that they will be sent home if they are caught illegally in this country and should claim asylum in France if they are genuinely fleeing persecution.
Although the problem is nothing like on the scale of the estimated 68,000 who passed through the controversial Sangatte reception centre several years ago, it has led to serious concerns.
