The Home Office has claimed that migrants who steer dinghies across the English Channel “could face life behind bars”, but the real jail terms are likely to be two or three years, The Independent can reveal.
New laws that came into force this week raised the maximum penalty for facilitating illegal immigration from 14 years to life imprisonment.
The same act made it easier to prosecute asylum seekers for piloting boats by removing a requirement that the offence had to be done for gain and making entering British waters without permission a crime.
