Border wallBritain building a 13-foot high wall in Calais to prevent refugees from entering U.K.

Published 8 September 2016

The U.K. government announced it was going to build a 13-foot wall in Calais to block refugees from crossing the channel. The 13-foot barrier will stretch for one kilometer along the dual carriageway approaching the port. The barrier aims to prevent refugees from climbing into trucks and other vehicles in an attempt to smuggle themselves into the United Kingdom.

The U.K. government announced it was going to build a 13-foot wall in Calais to block refugees from crossing the channel. 

People are still getting through,” immigration minister Robert Goodwill told the Home Affairs Select Committee. “We have done the fence, now we are doing the wall.”

The Christian Science Monitor reports that the 13-foot barrier will stretch for one kilometer along the dual carriageway approaching the port.

The barrier aims to prevent refugees from climbing into trucks and other vehicles in an attempt to smuggle themselves into the United Kingdom. 

Goodwill also said: “The security that we are putting in at the port is being stepped up with better equipment.

We are going to start building this big new wall very soon as part of the £17million package we are doing with the French.”

The government has come under criticism for its approach to the question of reuniting children living in the Calais “Jungle” camp with their families in the United Kingdom.

Home Office minister Baroness Williams of Trafford defended the government’s policy, saying many young children were coming to Britain very quickly and it was “one child too much” if a child had to stay in Calais for any longer than it should.

She told peers refugees in Calais should first claim asylum in France, saying: “We all want the same thing for these children — for them to be safe and to be in an environment that’s in their best interests, certainly away from the Jungle in Calais.

This government is working tirelessly with the French government in ensuring those processes are expedited as quickly as possible.”