Catch up TV

Episode 18 May 2026

Over the past two years, tens of thousands of migrants have crossed the English Channel in small boats from northern France, despite repeated promises by successive governments to stop the trade. This undercover BBC investigation reveals how people smuggling gangs are operating in plain sight inside a migrant camp in Dunkirk. It exposes a highly organised criminal marketplace driven by fierce competition between rival groups, who enforce control over the settlements through fear, violence and intimidation. \n\nThe film examines efforts by UK authorities to disrupt and dismantle the criminal networks profiting from the crossings, and questions whether those measures are keeping pace with the scale and sophistication of the operation. \n\nBBC investigative reporter Josie Hannett also travels to Crowborough, where opposition to a new asylum seeker accommodation site has turned the town into a flashpoint in the national immigration debate. She asks whether current government policy is likely to deter future arrivals, or whether the UK is preparing for a future that will require many more such sites across the south east

Source: BBC 1