As Starmer and Macron talk small boats, how many migrants cross the Channel – and how many are stopped?
MIrgration on small boats on the British channel will reach the highest levels this year and break records even before the summer summit starts.
More than 21,000 immigrants passed the channel from France this year – 55 percent increase in 2024 – that is, Sir Keir Starmer is on the way to control England for small boats.
Last year, he proved to be the most deadly for channel migration, 73 migrants died of passing, but the situation seems to be even worse.
The Labor Party promised that this week would fight migration in the manifesto of small boats, in the front and center for the visit of the French President Emmanuel Macron this week.
During a three -day state visit, Sir Keir hopes to conclude the long -awaited “one, an exit” agreement, but it is unlikely to do this because of opposition from other EU countries and President Macron in France.
The Prime Minister and the French counterpart are also expected to discuss the increasing implementation of the French Border Police. Last month, French officials photographed and accompanied human smugglers while riding migrants to boats going to England. French police can typically intervene to intervene in the boats in shallow waters.
Defense Secretary John Healey saw the lack of action as a “really big problem, and described the scene as“ very shocking ..
Last week, the BBC caught the images of the French police using a knife to cut a small boat carrying immigrants in shallow waters.
“Although it is not pleasant to see”, the pressure to prevent people from passing to England was “the action we support”, heidi Alexander, Secretary of Transportation, said.
Facts on Migration of Small Boats
This year, 21,117 immigrants came to England in small boats so far, the Ministry of Interior and the Border Forces Fair figures. This is an increase of 55 percent in the same period when the numbers were 13,574 people.
For this reason, it is not surprising that Sir Keir demanded a more strict immigration implementation agreement with France after promising the border security efforts.
So far, 330 boats came illegally to the coast of England carrying immigrants.
And on average, the number of immigrants per boat is increasing, analysis Independent explains.
The boats carry 58 immigrants this year, 48 per boat in 2023 and 53 last year.
Since the most common forms of the ship contain boats, skiing and hard -bodied swelling boats, these overloaded boats increase the risk of alabolation.
How many people are already prevented by French authorities?
In general, French authorities are not allowed to intervene in the waters due to the risk of drowning unless they believe that there is an urgent threat to the lives of immigrants.
There are some speculations that France can announce that the police will allow the police to intervene up to 300 meters from the shore (980FT).
The data obtained from the French authorities show that important interventions have already taken place.
Only since May 2024, when the Ministry of the Interior began to publish this data, French authorities prevented more than 33,000 immigrants from crossing the channel to England.
This includes 21,317 people who were prevented from passing in May -December last year and 12,321 so far in 2025.
French authorities also prevented 1,158 “incident”, such as the arrest of small boats or smugglers that were not allowed to leave during this period.
On average, the French authorities prevented about 2,300 people from crossing the UK on small boats each month, which increased the prevention rate to 41.5 percent; Or 4 out of 10 people.
How do smugglers reach England?
Although small boat immigrants reach the shores of England, their journey begins long before.
There are various ways that people take to travel from Europe and eventually to leave the French waters.
At least some of the individual’s journey contains human smugglers – whether they enter Europe, or when they reach France.
However, these transitions can be fatal.
Last year, 73 people died of trying to pass the channel on small boats.
According to the Migration Observatory, this was more than six years.
The most deadly event was recorded in 2021, when a boat killed 27 people.
Nine people died trying to cross the channel this year.
How many people pass in small boats Taking asylum?
The majority of people coming to England on small boats Request asylum.
In fact, according to the immigration observation analysis, this constitutes 1 out of 3 of all the asylum practices in 2024.
All of these immigrants are not given asylum and the result is significantly changing compared to the origin country.
In general, 68 percent of small boat migratory applicants, which are higher than the average asylum rate than the Migration Observatory, are granted asylum.
This is approximately 47,000 asylum examples since 2018.
The most likely small boats to be sheltered in this period are immigrant groups Syria (97 percent), Eritrea (93 percent), Yemen (87 percent), Afghanistan (78 percent) and Iran (71 percent).
However, from countries such as Albania or Vietnam – other small boats in recent years, other groups of immigrants, respectively, 2 percent and 24 percent to a much lower asylum grant ratio, respectively.
In addition, the UK receives fewer asylum seekers from France and the EU as a whole.
The French Ministry of Interior has made 157,947 asylum applications in 2024 compared to 108,138 people in England.
There were about one million (996,815) asylum seekers in the EU last year.
