15,000 Small Boats Immigrants Stopped From Crossing Channel This Year

The figures for 2023 were revealed by Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick and equate to less than half of the total number of those stopped last year.

French police pass a deflated dinghy on the beach in Wimereux near Calais, France, on Nov. 18, 2021. Gareth Fuller/PA

French authorities have stopped 15,000 immigrants from crossing the English Channel this year, it’s been revealed.

Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick said the small boat crossings were prevented in France by joint collaboration with British counterparts.

The figure—for the first eight months of the year—is less than half of the total number for 2022, when nearly 33,000 immigrants were unable to cross the Channel illegally.

The numbers were revealed on Monday in answer to a written question from Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns on the prevention of small boats “by intercepting them mid-journey”.

Responding, Mr. Jenrick said: “Our joint work with France saw nearly 33,000 crossings prevented in 2022, 40% more than in 2021, and so far in 2023 a further 15,000 migrants have failed to reach our shores on small boats.

“Alongside this, since July 2020, the UK-France Joint Intelligence Cell (JIC) and French law enforcement partners have dismantled 82 organised crime groups linked to small boats.

“In 2022 alone, the JIC and French law enforcement partners secured the arrest of around 400 people smugglers.”

Multi-Million Deal

The minister’s figures differ slightly from those previously published by the government (pdf).

The UK–France Joint Leaders’ Declaration—issued in March 2023—states that France prevented 1,381 small boat crossings, carrying 33,788 people, in 2022.

This equated to 42.4 percent of attempts to cross and 55 percent of small boats being intercepted by the French authorities that year, it said.

Mr. Jenrick said earlier this year that “at least” 59 organised crime groups connected to Channel crossings had been dismantled, and over 500 arrests made, since the foundation of the UK–French Joint Intelligence Cell.

In a £476 million deal struck with French President Macron this year, the UK said it would pay to boost the number of French officers patrolling beaches from 200 to 500 in 12 months.

The multi-million pound, three-year deal will also see new infrastructure and surveillance equipment, including more drones, helicopters and aircraft, to enable faster detections of attempted crossings.

Speaking last month, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the arrangement was one of the reasons behind a 23 per cent decrease in the number of migrants crossing the Channel compared with the same period last year.

Mr. Sunak said Britain was leading the way on the matter, contrasting the drop with a 30 percent increase in illegal migrants entering the rest of Europe, although the UK figures do not take into account those who arrived by routes other than the Channel.

The UK had already committed more than £232 million to the French government between 2014 and the end of the financial year 2022/2023.

French police officers direct a migrant in the remains of the makeshift migrant camp known as "the jungle" near Calais, northern France, Oct. 27, 2016. AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti

Stop The Boats

Mr. Sunak has made stopping the boats crossing the Channel one of his top five priorities ahead of a likely general election next year.

Since entering Downing Street, provisional figures suggest at least 31,000 asylum seekers have crossed the Channel, while almost 24,000 have arrived in 2023.

Last week, official Home Office accounts revealed that the government is spending “around £8 million” per day on hotels to house illegal immigrants—£2 million more than previously reported.

Labour’s home affairs spokeswoman Yvette Cooper said the bill for hotels was “astronomical” and accused the Tories of failing to grip the issue of unlawful migration.

The department’s annual report and accounts for 2022-2023 said the small boats crisis was placing an “unsustainable pressure on our asylum system and accommodation services,” costing taxpayers more than £3 billion a year.

The Illegal Migration Act, passed by government in July, is designed to give powers to deport asylum seekers arriving via unauthorised routes either back to their home country or to Rwanda.

The £140 million deal to send migrants to the East African nation, however, is held up in the courts, with a deportation flight yet to leave the runway.