Migrants Crossing the English Channel to the U.K. Increased Sixfold in 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/03/world/europe/migrant-boats-uk.html

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LONDON — The number of migrants arriving in Britain in small boats crossing the English Channel rose more than sixfold over the past year, according to estimates from the BBC and other news organizations, even as the government moved to step up enforcement.

At least 1,892 people arrived by small boats crossing the Channel in 2019, according to research by the BBC. That remains a small fraction of the number crossing the Mediterranean to continental Europe — more than 100,000 last year, according to the United Nations, down from more than a million in 2015.

But it contrasts with the government’s official figure of 297 for Channel crossings in 2018.

Security experts and rights groups said the rise reflected the closing of migrant camps in Calais and Dunkirk, in France. From those busy ports, migrants could stow away on trucks, generally a less risky option than crossing in often unseaworthy small vessels.

The authorities have also sought to crack down on smuggling by truck and shipping container, prompting migrants to seek alternative routes like the dangerous Channel crossing.

The BBC said its estimate was based on police reports, government statements and news accounts. At least two other British news outlets reported similar estimates this week.

The British government has also noted a sharp rise in boat arrivals in 2019, though the Home Office, the government department responsible for migration, would not confirm the news outlets’ estimates.

The Home Office said in a statement that it was committed to making the crossings an “infrequent phenomenon” and would continue to work with French authorities on enforcement.

The French authority responsible for patrolling the Channel has reported near-daily rescues of migrant boats crossing from France to Britain.

Forty-nine people were rescued from boats bound for Britain on Dec. 26, according to local reports. On Dec. 29, the French authorities rescued one boat in distress carrying 20 people, including a pregnant woman; another boat with 11 on board was intercepted later in the day.

Britain operates a joint patrol with France. In December 2018, Sajid Javid, the minister then in charge of the British Home Office, declared the rise in boat arrivals that month a “major incident” and met with his French counterpart.

Mr. Javid and Christophe Castaner, the interior minister of France, agreed in January to step up patrols and invest 6 million pounds, about $8 million, in drones, surveillance equipment and other measures.

The vast majority of migrants who arrive in Britain are neither deported nor returned to France; most go through the asylum application process in Britain.

Natalie Elphicke, a newly elected Conservative member of Parliament representing Dover and Deal, on the part of England’s coastline closest to France, called for all migrants who arrive by small boat to be returned to France.

“The best way to end these dangerous crossings is to ensure that anyone found in the English Channel is returned to the safety of France,” she wrote on Twitter.

Tony Eastaugh, the director for crime and enforcement at the Home Office, said the government has deployed three vessels in the English Channel, funded patrols on French beaches, and invested in detection equipment.

“Compared to where we were even a few months ago, the cooperation we are seeing with French authorities is paying dividends,” Mr. Eastaugh said in a statement. He noted that 100 people smugglers had been convicted in 2019.

David Wood, a former director general of British immigration enforcement, said the criminal groups behind the smuggling had turned to alternative routes as the authorities cracked down on smuggling by truck and shipping container. In October, a container truck with the bodies of 39 migrants was discovered in southeast England.

“It’s gotten far more difficult over the last couple of years to get into the backs of the lorries, which was the traditional way to get into the U.K.,” he said. “So diversification is happening.”

Those attempting the crossing pay smugglers between £6,000 and £10,000, Mr. Wood said. He said stepped-up patrols had done little to disrupt the criminal groups.

“The organized criminals know they can put a vessel out into the Channel from France or Belgium and they will be intercepted in all probability and then they are taken to the U.K.,” he said.

Rights groups say the rise in Channel crossings is worrying. Many criticized calls to return migrants to France, pointing out that international law did not require asylum seekers to claim asylum in the first safe country they entered.

“The fact that people who have already faced unimaginable hardship in their homes — war, conflict, persecution, violence — are boarding flimsy boats to cross one of the world’s most dangerous shipping lanes in winter is an incredibly clear expression of their utter desperation and hopelessness,” Lisa Doyle, the director of advocacy at the Refugee Council, said in a statement.

Bridget Chapman, a spokeswoman for the Kent Refugee Action Network, a group that works with unaccompanied child refugees and asylum seekers in the part of England where most migrant boats arrive, said the Home Office’s emphasis on turning back arrivals was “extremely irresponsible.”

“If they were serious about stopping this trade, they virtually could stop it overnight by offering people with strong asylum claims safe and legal passage,” Ms. Chapman said. “Why are we forcing them into the hands of people traffickers?”