Over 1,000 people crossed the Channel in small boats in just two days last week for the first time this year.
A total of 686 migrants made the journey in 13 boats on Friday – the highest daily tally in 2023 so far – followed by a further 384 on Saturday.
Six months after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak declared that passing new legislation to remove illegal arrivals was one of his five key priorities, the Government is still grappling with record numbers.
Net migration – the number of people opting to stay in the UK long-term minus those leaving the country – reached an all-time high of 606,000 in 2022. More people than ever, 45,755, were detected as having arrived by small boat.
This year, transparency data from the Home Office show how many of them arrived each day. Check Express.co.uk’s table below.
Channel crossings typically pick up in May when weather conditions improve, according to Migration Watch UK, with the peak usually coming in late summer.
Only on a handful of days over the past few years have daily illegal arrivals exceeded 1,000. The current daily record is 1,295 on August 22, 2022.
Only slightly fewer people have crossed so far in 2023 compared to the same period last year – 12,503 people making the journey versus 12,747 in 2022.
Crossings, however, are becoming ever more dangerous as smugglers pack more people onto their RHIBs and dinghies.
Last year, there was an average of 41 people per small boat – in 2023 this has increased to 45. Back in 2018, the figure was seven.
There were 3,860 deportations in 2022, 46 percent less than the 7,198 in 2019, prior to the pandemic. The number of people entering immigration detention in the year to March 2023 also fell 20 percent to 20,416 on the previous year.
On Tuesday, Government ministers will attempt to force the Illegal Migration Bill through the House by overturning 15 of the amendments made by the Lords, and conceding ground on five others.
Over the weekend, former Home Secretary Lord Clarke declared Suella Braverman’s “extraordinary” Rwanda scheme was the only way to “stop the boats”, according to The Telegraph.
The alarming arrivals figures also come just days after immigration minister Robert Jenrick ordered murals depicting Disney characters at an asylum centre for unaccompanied children in Kent be painted over because they were thought to be too welcoming, the i newspaper reported.
