BRITAIN effectively pushed its borders across the Channel on yesterday, stationing officials in French ports to check the paperwork of all UK-bound travellers as part of a crackdown on illegal immigrants.

British immigration officers will operate at the ports of Calais and Dunkirk and will block passengers hoping to travel across the English Channel if they fail to provide the proper paperwork, Home Office Minister Beverley Hughes said.

Prime Minister Tony Blair last year met his target of halving the number of people seeking asylum in the UK after the number topped 100,000 in 2002 ? the highest in Europe.

But he is under continued pressure from critics and the opposition Conservative party to keep the numbers down.

Asylum is expected to be one of the key issues in the next general election, expected in 2005. ?We are making it more and more difficult for illegal immigrants to get into Britain?, Hughes said.

Britain has worked more closely on asylum with France since it closed the Sangatte refugee camp in Calais in 2002. At one point the camp was receiving 400 refugees a day, many bent on reaching Britain.

The move to place officials at French ports is part of a wider government strategy to cut asylum seeker numbers that includes tighter border controls and cracking down on arrivals who destroy their paperwork.

Home Secretary David Blunkett offered amnesty to 15,000 families of asylum seekers last year, saying their cases would take years to resolve and they were draining taxpayers? money through state benefits.

Jason HOPPS