More Than Half of Asylum Claims in UK Are Not Made by Small Boat Arrivals

Analysis of government figures shows over 50 percent of asylum applicants who entered the UK illegally came via other routes, including air and lorry.

Migrants arrive in the UK in an undated file photo. PA

More than half of those who claimed asylum in the UK over the last year did not arrive by small boat, figures show.

According to Home Office statistics, of the 97,390 illegal immigrants who made an asylum claim, 54 percent entered the country via air, concealed in lorries, or by other means.

The figures, which cover the 12 months from June 2022, also include those detected already living illegally in Britain who evaded border controls, as well as those who arrived on a legal visa before making an asylum claim.

Government datasets show that of the some 97,000 people first listed in the asylum system this year, almost 20,000 were children—or “dependents”—and were subsequently placed on a parent’s claim.

This amounted to a total of 78,768 asylum applications in the year ending June 2023—a 19 percent increase from the year before.

The Home Office said while the increase “partially reflects” over 40,400 people arriving via small boat, those arriving via the English Channel made up 46 percent of the UK’s total asylum applications for that period.

Pakistan Arrivals

Analysis of the Home Office’s latest irregular migration tables, shows that Albania was the most common nationality applying for asylum in the year ending June 2023.

Of the 11,790 asylum applications from Albanian nationals, 27 percent did not arrive via small boat.

Of the 9,964 asylum applications made in the same period by Afghan nationals—which have almost doubled in the last year—23 percent arrived in Britain via other routes.

The third most common nationality to claim asylum in the UK was Iranian nationals, with 7,776 applications in the year ending June 2023.

Figures show that 58 percent of those were recorded as small boat arrivals, while 42 percent were detected via “other routes.”

The nationality with the highest rate of making illegal entry to the UK and claiming asylum by air or other means was Pakistani.

That involved just under 3,000 asylum applications of which 94 percent were recorded as having arrived in the UK via means not recorded as small boat crossings.

Applications from Indian nationals increased from 1,883 applications in the year ending June 2022 to 4,403 applications in the year ending June 2023, making India the fourth most common nationality applying for asylum in the UK in the year ending June 2023.

Just 33 percent of Indian nationals who made a claim arrived after crossing the Channel.

A migrant arrives in England after being intercepted in the English Channel by the UK Border Force. In 2021, the number of boat migrants tripled to 28,000 from 2020, on Jan. 18, 2022. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Shipping Containers

Although the immigrant nationality figures did not give an individual breakdown of the types of alternative routes used, separate detection tables outlined how, over the same period, 8,000 people were found to have entered the UK illegally via air, concealment in vehicle, or shipping containers or having evaded border controls.

Of those over 4,800 were detected by officials “intentionally” attempting to arrive in the UK via air routes “either without adequate documentation or using fraudulent documentation.”

Almost 3,000 detections were of individuals “outside of the controlled environment of a port, who when encountered are believed by authorities to have evaded border controls to enter the UK irregularly, up to 72 hours before being detected.”

The Home Office said this included detections at the ports serviced by the juxtaposed controls including Dover, Cheriton/Longport, and St. Pancras.

A total of 276 were found attempting to “enter the UK irregularly” at ports, which includes immigrants concealed in lorries and shipping containers.

Interestingly, the total figure of those using these “other routes” since reporting began in 2018, until June this year, is still outstripped by small boat arrivals.

Over 96,341 people were listed as being detected via small boats over the last four-and-a-half years, compared to a combined “other routes” total of 56,778.

However, there’s a higher chance that many of those arriving via alternative routes including ports have gone undetected.

Police escort the truck that was found to contain a large number of dead bodies as they move it from an industrial estate in Thurrock, south England, on Oct. 23, 2019. Alastair Grant/AP

Small Boats Surge

Britain’s surge in small boat arrivals from 2019 has previously been put down to increased controls at European ports where immigrants were regularly concealed within lorries or shipping containers.

A report by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration in 2019 previously found that strengthening security at and around the ports in northern France may have made unaided clandestine entry harder. The number of “lorry drop” migrants encountered in the UK also increased with “casual disregard for the risks to the migrants’ health and welfare.”

On Oct. 23, 2019, the bodies of 39 Vietnamese migrants were found in the trailer of an articulated refrigerator lorry in Grays, Essex.

The victims included 28 men, eight women, and three children varying between the ages of 15 and 44.

They had paid a fee of £10,000, rising to £13,000, for what was promised as a VIP route to Europe and the hope of better-paid work.

The migrants travelled from Paris to Bierne, a town in northern France, where they were then seen being taken by taxis to a shed on an isolated farm.

They later clambered into a lorry, which was seen on CCTV footage making its way across France towards the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, where it was loaded onto a ferry bound for Purfleet-on-Thames, Essex.

Temperatures rose to 38.5 degrees C (101 degrees F) in the container, by which point oxygen levels had slumped and the air was too toxic for human life.

They suffocated to death, dying from asphyxia and carbon monoxide poisoning.

Ten people have so far been convicted of crimes related to the incident in the UK and a further 19 have been jailed in Belgium.