Border Security Command

People-smuggling gangs sending migrants across the English Channel in small boats are a serious threat to global security and should be treated like terror networks, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has told an international law-enforcement conference.

The U.K. government on Wednesday announced new measures to curb the arrival of migrants on boats from France and to step up the removal of failed asylum seekers.

It said 100 new "specialist intelligence and investigation officers" would be recruited to the National Crime Agency (NCA) to help dismantle smuggling gangs that run the dangerous Channel crossings.