Thousands more asylum seekers and economic migrants are expected to cross the Channel this summer, Downing Street has signalled.
No10 stressed that the new Government was expecting the next few months in the “small boats” crisis to be “challenging”.
It will take some time before ramped-up efforts to target gangs behind the crossings, with a new Border Security Command, are successful, or not.
The first migrants to cross the Channel since Labour’s election victory have arrived in the UK.
Crossings resumed on Monday after a six-day hiatus amid poor weather conditions at sea.
Pictures showed groups of people wearing life jackets, and some wrapped in blankets, being escorted off a Border Force boat in Dover, Kent, with children among those seen being carried ashore.
It comes as newly appointed Home Secretary Yvette Cooper launched the Border Security Command designed to crack down on people smuggling gangs orchestrating the crossings.
So far this year 13,574 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel, according to the latest available Home Office figures.
This is already a record for the first six months of a calendar year.
No crossings have been recorded since July 1. The Home Office will confirm how many people made the journey on Monday, the first under the new Labour administration, in data published on Tuesday.
Crossings tend to rise in calmer weather, often in the summer.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “Clearly the Government has set out its very clear position that...the Rwanda scheme is dead and buried. The scheme was cancelled and flights won’t go ahead.
“The Government is now focused on the work needed to secure our borders and smash the gangs in addition to recruiting for the Border Security Command.
“The Home Secretary has also commissioned an investigation from the Home Office and the National Crime Agency into the tactics used by people smuggling gangs to inform a major law enforcement drive over the coming months and we’re getting to work straight away because we know that this summer will be challenging.”
Asked if those arriving by small boats would now have the right to claim asylum, the Prime Minister’s spokesman added: “We need to ensure that people who arrive here are processed so that people are not sitting in the system, housed in expensive taxpayer-funded hotels as they have been under previous administrations.
“And ultimately, we need to act upstream to secure our borders and smash the gangs and that is why the Home Secretary set out immediate action already this weekend to launch the recruitment process for the new border security commander and stand up the new Border Security Command.
“As well as, as I say resource up a new returns and enforcement unit that will bring together both its Foreign Office expertise and 1,000 additional staff to ensure that failed asylum seekers and others with no right to be here are removed.”
Ms Cooper said setting up the border security unit was Labour’s first priority on migration as she faced questions on the future of the Bibby Stockholm barge, which is being used to house asylum seekers in Portland, Dorset.
She did not confirm whether the Government would abandon use of the barge but, while visiting police officers in Lewisham, told reporters: “We need to clear the Conservatives’ asylum backlog, but the first priority has to be to get the stronger border security in place, and that is why our first step is setting up the new border security command.”
Recruitment of a border security commander, who will report directly to the Home Secretary, has begun with the new recruit expected to take up their post in the coming weeks, the Home Office said.
The commander will be a “leader used to working in complex and challenging environments, for example at senior levels of policing, intelligence or the military” and will bring together the work of the National Crime Agency (NCA), intelligence agencies, police, immigration enforcement and Border Force, the department said.
New laws will be brought in to introduce counter terror-style powers and measures to fight organised immigration crime, officials added.
Ms Cooper has also ordered an investigation into the latest routes, methods and tactics used by people smuggling gangs across Europe to inform a “major law enforcement drive” over the coming months.
Over the weekend Sir Keir Starmer said the stalled multi-million pound plan to send migrants to Rwanda is “dead and buried” as he confirmed the deportation policy is to be scrapped.
The Prime Minister said he was “not prepared to continue with gimmicks” as Labour announced plans to free the last two migrants who were detained ahead of anticipated flights.
As she met police officers in Lewisham on Monday, Ms Cooper branded the policy a “con”, telling reporters she was now auditing the entire scheme and the amount of money spent on it.
Meanwhile, questions remain over whether Labour will restore rights to migrants making the journey to allow them to claim asylum again.
While nothing has been confirmed so far, officials hinted at the prospect of this being a possibility.
