Immigration policy is a mess. For at least the past decade, it has been characterised by unrealistic targets and broken promises. Every government has promised to reduce dramatically the number of foreigners who arrive here in search of work, or justice, or hope. Every government has failed. The numbers keep going up. David Cameron promised to reduce immigration to below 100,000 a year. So did Theresa May. Boris Johnson claimed his version of Brexit would see immigration fall precipitously. None of them came close to keeping their word.
Curbing immigration, both legal and illegal, is an immensely difficult problem, so perhaps it is not surprising that successive governments have failed. What is surprising is the stupidity of many of the policies which they have claimed would succeed.
In April, Johnson announced that his solution to the growing problem of illegal immigration was that the Royal Navy would take control of monitoring migrants crossing the Channel.
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