Police in Britain will be able to require illegal migrants to remove their coats and allow mouth searches at British ports so officers can look for mobile phones or SIM cards and gather intelligence on their journey, the government said on Monday.

“Using invasive powers to search through the clothing - and even inside the mouths - of desperate and traumatised people when they have just survived a terrifying journey across the Channel is a dystopian act of brutality,” said Sile Reynolds, Head of Asylum Advocacy at Freedom from Torture