Dover's 'woke' signs welcoming Channel migrants to Britain to be scrapped

Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick was said to have been left shocked by the welcome signs.

A source told the Telegraph: “He has ordered that they remove all of the woke signage and make it unambiguously clear to arrivals that they have broken the law and that they can expect to be removed, and that if they facilitated arrivals they can expect to be told they will be prosecuted.

“It needs to be a law enforcement environment for those who have broken the law and entered the UK illegally, not a welcome centre.”

Border Force staff will also receive new powers to seize and examine migrants’ mobile phones.

The devices have been described as a potential “gold mine” of intelligence which can help establish who migrants are, where they have been and where they have come from.

Modified powers from an amendment made to the Illegal Migrant Bill will come alongside the creation of a specialist team of experts to examine phones in real time.

People-smugglers encourage those making the perilous 21-mile journey to ditch any documents.

A Freedom of Information request made last year showed only two per cent of 16,510 migrants were picked up by Border Force with passports.

Border Force has also been told by Jenrick to conduct more probing interviews of migrants.

A source added: “We want to strengthen our understanding of migrants’ patterns with a view to tackling the migrant crisis more upstream.”

Migrants can be held for up to five days in the Garden of England’s Manston processing centre, up from the 24-hour rule previously in place.

Extending the period in which migrants can stay at Manston should allow more time to question and investigate those arriving on British shores.

Rishi Sunak pledged to stop the boats as he set out the pillars for which voters should judge his stint in Downing Street.

Recent legislation announced that anyone found to have entered the country illegally would not only be removed from the UK within 28 days but also blocked from returning or claiming British citizenship.

The Prime Minister’s plan will see those arriving in small boats either returning to their home nation or another “safe third country”, such as Rwanda.

However, official figures have shown that more than 5,000 migrants have already crossed the English Channel in 2023.

The same milestone was reached just four days earlier in 2022.

A record-breaking 45,000 people made the journey by the end of last year.