Pictures show French police slashing a migrant dinghy with a knife – as more asylum seekers were brought ashore at Dover.
An officer punctured the inflatable with a knife after it was abandoned on a beach at Gravelines, northern France following a failed crossing attempt.
A crowd of young men who had been hoping to travel in the boat can be seen walking away as other officers dragged its outboard motor back to shore.
Nearly 40 miles away, a group of migrants landed in Dover on a Border Force cutter in the first small-boat crossing for nearly a week.
They are the first to make the crossing since September 15, when 55 people arrived in one boat.
Other migrant dinghies were also believed to be in the Channel today, with French lifeboat and navy vessels appearing to be tracking one as far west as Normandy.
Earlier this month a dinghy had to be met by lifeboats from the Isle of Wight, having set off from the Cherbourg area, triggering angry protests in Portsmouth.
A French officer punctures an inflatable vessel with a knife after it was abandoned on a beach at Gravelines, northern France, following a failed crossing attempt
Some of the young men who had been hoping to travel in the boat could be seen walking away
Another officer dragged the migrant dinghy's outboard motor back to shore
It is thought to have made one of the longest journeys of any small boat – landings as far west as Hampshire are rare.
Officials said at the time they believed it was a one-off rather than a sign of new tactics.
But a senior French interior ministry source told the Daily Mail at the time: 'The geographical focus of the people smugglers is definitely changing.
'They are finding it much harder to get boats launched in the Pas-de-Calais, and so are moving west, across to Normandy.
'We expect far more of the mega-dinghies to appear here in the coming weeks and months.'
Some 17,480 migrants have arrived after crossing the Channel by boat so far this year, including 5,011 since Andy Burnham became Prime Minister.
Labour scrapped the previous Tory government's Rwanda asylum deal as one of its first acts in office.
Instead, it said it would tackle the crisis by investing in law enforcement operations against people traffickers.
Nearly 40 miles away, a group of migrants landed in Dover on a Border Force cutter in the first small-boat crossing for nearly a week
A £660million, three-year deal with the French government has seen the number of anti-migrant beach patrol officers increased to more than 1,000.
Sir Keir Starmer's government also signed a 'one in, one out' deal with France that was designed to deter crossings.
Earlier this month, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood told MPs more than 1,400 migrants have been deported to France so far.
With the cost of each deportation rising to £56,000 a head, this suggests British taxpayers have forked out a £78million bill so far – not including the cost of accepting more than 1,100 asylum seekers into the UK as part of reciprocal terms of the deal.
Previous figures had put the cost of each return at less than £50,000.
The deal, which is due to expire next month, had handled 'relatively small' numbers of migrants and it had been 'operationally difficult to scale up very large numbers of removals every week into the French system,' Ms Mahmood said.
She also confirmed to the Commons home affairs committee that only a 'small number' of failed asylum seeker families have accepted Labour's offer of up to £40,000 to leave Britain voluntarily under a separate scheme.
The Dover arrivals were the first to make the crossing since September 15, when 55 people arrived in one boat
Labour unveiled the offer of £10,000 a head for up to four members of a failed asylum seeker family in March.
Officials argued that it would be cheaper than the average £158,000 cost of keeping them in taxpayer-funded accommodation.
The Home Secretary acknowledged for the first time that families were calculating whether to accept the deal or remain able to access free public services in Britain.