For the first time, people who arrive on a small boat will be detained and returned to France, with an asylum seeker being sent to the UK in exchange.
Reports have suggested just 50 migrants a week will be sent back to France, a small fraction of the numbers crossing – 21,117 so far this year.
But was he correct?
Small boats crossings were considered rare before 2018, when 297 people arrived in the UK.
Crossings leapt to 28,526 people the following year, reaching a peak of 45,755 in 2022, before falling to 29,437 in 2023.
Speaking at today’s press conference, Macron said UK voters were “sold a lie” with Brexit and told it would “make it possible to fight more effectively against illegal immigration”.
People trying to board a small boat in Gravelines, France last week (Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty)Earlier this month, Dr Peter Walsh, a senior researcher and lecturer at the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory, suggested that the lack of a returns agreement could be contributing to the rise in numbers.
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The UK has reportedly requested use of the EU database, but has been rejected.
“When people have claimed asylum in an EU country and have been refused, they understand that if they can get to the UK…we won’t know whether that individual has claimed asylum in another country, because we don’t have access to the EU data which would tell us they have already entered.
Global conflict and a lack of legal routes
While there is evidence to suggest that Brexit may have created added incentives for asylum seekers to aim for the UK, there are a number of underlying factors that also explain the rise in Channel crossings over recent years.
More conflicts are currently taking place across the world than at any time since 1945 – 59 wars in more than 35 countries.
Millions also fled Syria throughout the 14-year civil war which ended with the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime last year.
Migrants’ tents at a camp on the outskirts of the city of Calais (Photo: Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP/Getty)
In 2024, 99 per cent of those crossing the Channel sought asylum, meaning they requested refuge in the UK on the grounds of persecution or threat in their own country.
The UK does have some routes for other kinds of refugee resettlement in the UK – separate from the asylum process. Most are nationality specific – for Afghans, Ukrainians and Hong Kongers – while some are run by the UN, but people cannot apply for these.
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Those who do not have access to a passport, either because they never had one or because it was lost or abandoned during the rush to flee their home, also cannot travel to the UK safely to seek asylum, the organisation said.
Migrants have been driven towards attempting to cross on small boats by crackdowns on other unauthorised routes.
Organisations such as the UK’s Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, the UN Refugee Agency, and the Institute for Public Policy Research, have argued that these measures led to more people crossing in small boats.
This year has been disproportionately warm, with two heatwaves already sweeping the UK and a “unprecedented season of warmth” this spring, according to the Met Office.
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