David Cameron has pressed European leaders to deport more economic migrants and pay more aid to countries neighbouring war-ravaged Syria to help ease the migration crisis.
A Downing Street spokesperson said the Conservative PM agreed "EU countries should do more to return migrants who don't have a genuine claim for asylum to their countries of origin".
Dave Smith from the Boaz Trust, a Christian organisation helping asylum seekers, said it was a political move by Mr Cameron "to keep the numbers down".
It was said to "perpetuate the myth that there is a pull factor" to the UK, Mr Smith told Premier.
He said: "Most of the people who come across the Mediterranean in those rickety boats are either Syrian or Eritrean and they're definitely not economic migrants.
"They're fleeing either war in the case of Syria or extreme persecution in the case of Eritrea."
Ahead of an emergency Brussels summit of European Union leaders, the Prime Minister welcomed French president Francois Hollande to Prime Minister's country home Chequers, where the pair agreed on areas to push for more action.
The Downing Street statement added: "They discussed how a big part of the answer to the refugee crisis must be a solution to the situation in Syria and they agreed on the need to inject momentum into the political process there.
"They expressed their shared concern about the threat that Isil [Islamic State] poses to our national security and agreed that we should keep working together as part of the coalition to defeat Isil and to counter this terrorist threat."
Meanwhile European Union leaders have been called to an emergency summit to seek long-term responses to the continent's migrant crisis.
Topics include increasing assistance to EU member nations that are receiving the brunt of the migrant influx and greater co-operation with non-EU countries in the Balkans and Turkey, which is now home to almost 2 million refugees.
The 28-nation EU has agreed to relocate 120,000 asylum seekers to ease the strain on Greece and Italy.
But the decision has exposed divisions within the group, with four countries - the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary - voting against it.
Even after the EU plan was adopted, Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka denounced it as a bad decision, and his Slovakian counterpart hinted that his government might not enforce it.
Dave Smith speaking to Premier's Antony Bushfield: