IT’S bigger than any prison in the UK, meant to hold up to 1,600 people but currently has 3,000 with the “catastrophic overcrowding” having led to fights and an outbreak of diphtheria.

One source described the situation in the migrant detention centre at Manston in Kent as a “tinder-box”. Riot police are said to be on standby should it deteriorate further.

The dire conditions are proof our asylum system is not just under immense strain but broken.

The centre was designed to hold people for up to 24 hours but some have been there for more than a month because the Home Office cannot find readily-available accommodation for the numbers crossing the Channel.

Remarkably, officials supposedly considered, but rejected, erecting tents in London parks to help accommodate the rising number of migrants.

Earlier this week, David Neal, the independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, told MPs, after visiting Manston on Monday, that he was left “speechless” by the wretched conditions.

He said the lack of officers was “alarming” and the risks of fire, disorder and disease meant the situation was “really dangerous”.

The Refugee Council has called for “urgent” action and is seeking a meeting with UK Government ministers to seek ways to fix the problem. Robert Jenrick, the Immigration Minister, is expected to visit Manston in the coming days.

Lucy Moreton from the ISU border force union said: “The migrants aren’t being kept in humane conditions…They’re bored, they’re frustrated and, understandably, they scrap among themselves and with us.

“It’s not their fault they’re in that situation. In fairness, it’s not Border Force or immigration enforcement’s fault. There’s no housing upstream so we can’t move them on.”

Labour’s Diana Johnson, who chairs the Commons Home Affairs Committee, said the whole immigration and asylum system was in crisis with the processing centre “gummed up” as people could simply not move through the system quickly.

Shockingly, the average length of time it takes for an initial decision on a migrant’s case is 480 days; that’s 16 months. Of the 28,526 people who made the crossing last year, only 4% had their claims processed, the vast majority of which, 85%, were successful.

More shockingly, Moreton said, when appeals were taken into account, cases could take anywhere between five and eight years to be resolved. No wonder Britain’s broken system is a “huge” pull-factor.

The number of asylum claims waiting to be processed is now almost 118,000, the highest number for 20 years.

So far this year, 38,000 people have crossed the Channel compared to 28,500 in 2021. On Thursday, 308 people arrived in nine boats, taking the number who have made the journey this month alone to more than 5,400.

Once in the system and beyond Manston, those waiting for their claims to be processed usually stay in hotels, costing the taxpayer £7m a day or £2.5bn a year.

It now transpires of the UK’s £7m annual international aid, administered directly by Whitehall, some £4bn, is being spent at home dealing with accommodating asylum-seekers, meaning less money is being spent abroad.

Of course, the Government’s deeply controversial masterplan is flying asylum-seekers, who have used illegal routes, to Rwanda. But the scheme hasn’t got off the ground because of legal challenges. Indeed, this week, the Spanish airline contracted to fly people to Kigali pulled out of the scheme because of the ongoing controversy.

Amber Rudd, the ex-Home Secretary, has denounced the Government’s scheme as “brutal” and “impractical,” saying it was “extraordinary” for Suella Braverman, the new Home Secretary, to say her “dream” and “obsession” was to see a migrant-filled plane take off for east Africa.

While the judicial reviews are due to be heard at the High Court next month, it might not be the end of the legal wrangling. If the asylum claimants lose, chances are they will appeal to the UK Supreme Court and then, possibly, to the European Court of Human Rights.

It should be noted, taking into account appeals, 59% of asylum applications submitted between 2017 and 2019 were successful by May 2021, up from 44% at the initial decision.

It should also be noted, in the year ending September 2021 the UK received 44,190 asylum applications; in the same period, Germany received 127,730, the highest EU number, followed by France with 96,510.

But while many if not most of those now crossing the Channel will be genuine refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere, some will not be.

The rise in the number of Albanians, overwhelmingly young men, is causing alarm among officials.

In 2020, the number of recorded Albanians crossing the Channel was 50, in 2021 it increased to 800. This year, it is 12,000; 2% of all Albanian men aged between 20 and 40 in the southern European country.

Dan O’Mahoney, the Border Force’s “clandestine Channel threat commander,” told MPs this week the “exponential rise” in Albanian migrants was due to criminal gangs in northern France contacting their Albanian counterparts across the water, engaged in the drugs trade, human trafficking, guns and prostitution.

Jenrick told MPs talks were due soon with the government in Tirana and Emmanuel Macron’s administration to find ways to ease the “serious” situation with one option being a “bespoke route” to speed up Albanian asylum cases.

In his first phonecall with the French President as PM this week, Rishi Sunak made clear the two leaders had to render illegal Channel crossings “completely unviable” for people traffickers.

Greater cross-Channel co-operation, more resources and more easily accessible legal asylum routes are clearly needed to tackle the vile cross-Channel trade.

UK-French co-operation has resulted in 55 serious organised criminal gangs behind Channel crossings being dismantled. More than 500 people have been arrested but the number of prosecutions is unknown.

Nadhim Zahawi, the Tory Chairman, said there were “no easy answers” to the Channel migrant crisis, which is clearly true. Yet answers must be found to meet people’s growing concerns, otherwise more extreme voices will be listened to and that will be a danger to us all.