British Home Secretary Suella Braverman said on Monday said her political party is "serious about stopping the invasion," in reference to recent arrivals of migrants on England's southern coast.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Braverman suggested the refugees were "actual members of criminal gangs" and asked people to "stop pretending that they are all refugees in distress."
Hundreds of people who crossed the English Channel in small boats have been moved to Manston, a former airfield in southeast England, after another processing center was hit with gasoline bombs on Sunday by an attacker who then killed himself.
There already were 3,000 people at the facility, which is intended to hold about half that number.
Braverman defended her department's handling of the migrants at processing centers, saying the country faces "so many arrivals so quickly, it is practically impossible to procure over a thousand beds at such short notice."
She also denied she ignored legal advice about using emergency accommodation for migrants and that she didn't blocked the use of hotels.
"I've never ignored legal advice. As a former attorney general, I know the importance of taking legal advice into account at every point, at every point, at every point," she added.
The U.K. receives fewer asylum-seekers than many European nations, including France and Germany.
But there has been a sharp increase in the number of people trying to cross the channel in dinghies and other small craft.
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Some 40,000 have made the hazardous journey across one of the world's busiest shipping lanes so far this year, up from 28,000 in all of 2021 and 8,500 in 2020.
Dozens have died, including 27 people in November 2021 when a packed smuggling boat capsized.
Britain and France have wrangled over how to stop the people-smuggling gangs that organize the journeys.
Britain's government has announced a controversial plan to send people who arrive in small boats on a one-way journey to Rwanda – a plan it says will deter people from crossing the Channel and break the business model of smuggling gangs.
Critics say the plan is immoral and impractical, and it is being challenged in the courts.
Braverman also recently came under fire for sending sensitive government documents from her private email account, a lapse that led to her resignation in the final days of former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss' brief premiership.
She was reappointed last week when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took office.
"It's been said that I sent a top secret document. That's wrong. It's been said that I said a document about cyber security. That's wrong. It's been said that I sent a document about the intelligence agencies that would compromise national security. And it's wrong, wrong, wrong." Braverman said in response to accusation about misuse of official documents.