The first thing to note is that these are not "migrants" in the traditional sense of people who have decided to leave their home in search of work for which they could apply for visas and travel to the UK via conventional methods. Sky News says that
98% of people arriving by boat across the channel claim asylum. These are asylum seekers.
Asylum seekers can claim asylum in any country they choose. They are not obligated to do so in the first country they reach after fleeing their home, though many do. According to the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Turkey has the highest number of refugees in the world due to its border with Syria, hosting 3.7 million people. Next is Columbia with 1.7 million displaced people due to the situation in Venezuela. 73% of refugees and displaced people are hosted in neighbouring counties and 85% are hosted in developing countries. In other words the impression that the UK gives about being inundated with refugees and being the intended destination for many is false. According to
Home Office figures published in March of this year there are currently 64,000 people in the UK receiving asylum support and the asylum system costs £1 billion (which I make to be about £15,625 per person if I've got the right billion, though I'm unclear if this includes the legal costs of their applications and appeals). It's also worth noting that asylum seekers in the UK are
prohibited from working out of fears this would "create a pull factor for illegal immigration like never before".
The number of asylum applications the UK has received over the last 2 years has declined significantly. Using the UNHCR's
Refugee Data Finder you can plot the number of applications received over the last 21 years. They have been consistent for the last 15 years or so prior to the decline in 2020. They're also consistently and significantly fewer than France receives.
- Asylum applications.jpg (30 KiB) Viewed 1968 times
So the first thing to note is that we are not, despite the claims of the right-wing press, being overwhelmed with migrants, refugees or asylum seekers. Western Europe (apart from Germany which has made concerted efforts to welcome refugees) has experienced very little of the refugee crisis. France receives far more asylum seekers than the UK - people are not simply 'passing through' France to reach the hallowed shores of England. The vast majority of refugees entering France do so with the intention of staying in France.
And while the number of people crossing by boat has increased, they still make up only a fraction of asylum seekers.
Migration Observatory notes that in 2020 the Home Office said that around 8,500 people arrived by crossing the channel in small boats, constituting just under a quarter of asylum claims that year. The Home Office also said that 62% of claims were made by those who entered the UK "illegally", leaving 38% having entered legally. Migration Observatory said,
It is not clear how the remaining 38% arrived in the UK, but this may include people who arrived on a visa not designed for claiming asylum, or people who were already in the UK when conditions in their country of origin deteriorated.
Why Cross By Boat?
As to your question about why we are seeing more crossings by boat. As Disco has so succinctly put it, the legal routes for asylum seekers have been cut off.
To claim asylum you must physically be in the country in which you wish to claim asylum. To claim asylum in an island nation that means crossing a body of water, either by plane or by boat. There is no "asylum seeker" visa that someone can apply for in order to enter the UK - they must apply after they reach our shores. There are resettlement schemes available to bring eligible people from specific conflict zones to the UK and these schemes can be applied for while in the home country. However, the numbers of people brought to the UK under these schemes are tiny. Plus they were
closed in March 2020 due to the pandemic. I think they were restarted at the end of 2020 but haven't confirmed that yet.
To use conventional methods of transport requires possession of paperwork required for crossing borders: passports and visas. These are nearly impossible to get if you are trying to flee a conflict zone. According to the
Civil Liberties Union for Europe there's an EU directive that sanctions airlines if they transport passengers who don't have valid travel documents. There's a caveat in this directive that says travel in line with the 1951 Geneva Convention is still permitted so they shouldn't prevent refugees from seeking asylum, but,
The directive leaves airline personnel to decide who is a potential asylum seeker. Imagine that. Airline staff, with no relevant experience, have 45 seconds to take a decision on who is and who is not a refugee, while embassies can take months. Carriers are threatened with fines if they allow entry to an undocumented migrant, but there are no penalties for denying entry to an asylum seeker. Thus, airline companies refuse permission to board the plane to people who don’t have valid documents. They have nothing to gain but much to lose.
So if you can't fly, you're left with boat. Commercial ferries are out for the same reasons as airlines. So you're left with either chartering a vessel yourself or trying to sneak onto a vessel. We know that trucks were a popular method of accessing ferries from Calais but countermeasures have made these much less attractive to asylum seekers. From
Euronews,
Claire Millot, from the Salam migrant welfare NGO, told Euronews that a decade ago, it would usually take three weeks for a migrant to successfully cross the English Channel stashed away on a lorry.
To curb such crossings, dogs were deployed, followed by carbon dioxide detectors which flag whether someone is breathing even if they are well hidden. Now, lorries are randomly put through scanners and the average crossing time is counted in terms of months instead of weeks.
So as lorries have become increasingly risky, refugees turn to another option - chartering boats. A lot of the boats being used are dinghys which are cheap to buy and easy to steal. According to
this sailing site, in good weather you can cross the channel in 4 hours, but it can take significantly longer. They also point out,
The most important thing to keep in mind is that the English Channel is an extremely busy sea area with lots and lots of ships and ferries coming and going throughout the year. This means that it is not advisable to use a small sailboat. But if you have to use a small sailboat, you have to make sure that you do not get closer to the ships and ferries.
This
live shipping map shows just how busy it is, particularly between Dover and Calais. It is a highly risky endeavour to do without experience and proper safety equipment. So why are people bothering at all? Why risk your life when you could stay in France?
Why Come to the UK At All?
According to Migration Observatory,
In 2002, the Home Office published a report on the decision-making of asylum-seekers in general (and so not Channel migrants in particular). The research was based on 65 interviews, and there is no way of knowing how representative this sample is. The report found that seven main factors led to migrants seeking asylum in the UK:
- The desire to reach a safe place, with the UK being viewed as safe, though not necessarily more safe than other countries;
- The ability to pay for long distance travel;
- The selection of the UK by the agent (such as a smuggler), with the migrants not being given a choice;
- The presence of friends or relatives in the UK;
- The belief that the UK is a tolerant and democratic country;
- Previous links between their origin country and the UK, including colonial links;
- The ability to speak English or a desire to learn it.
Importantly, the researchers found little evidence that the respondents had a detailed knowledge of UK asylum procedures, benefit entitlements, or the availability of work in the UK. There was even less evidence that the respondents had a comparative knowledge of how these conditions varied between different European destination countries.
A more recent
peer-reviewed study from 2018, found similar reasons,
Preferred destinations are rarely identified solely, or even primarily, on the basis of migration policies devised by different governments with the explicit aim of reducing the number of arrivals. Rather they reflect the “coming together” of a wide range of factors, including access to protection and family reunification, the availability/accuracy of information, the overall economic environment and social networks. Moreover perceptions of migration policies may be more significant than their content as the implications are often not known or misunderstood.
As
Care 4 Calais puts it,
Imagine being in Afghanistan, where everything is foreign to you – the language, the customs, the food. Then imagine having to consider staying there because you have lost your home, your family and your job. If you had a brother, or a cousin nearby who could help you navigate this foreign place, wouldn’t you do anything to get to them?
ETA another heading