More people have been detected crossing the English Channel so far this year than in the whole of 2021. That is despite the Government announcing plans to send migrants to Rwanda in a bid to deter people coming over.
More than 30,000 people have made the crossing in 2022, Government figures show. Some 667 people were detected on Wednesday alone, taking the total for 2022 to 30,515.
For 2021 as a whole, 28,561 crossings were recorded. The number of people reaching the UK in small boats from France through busy shipping lanes has increased steadily over the years.
How do the Channel crossing figures break down?
Some 5,475 crossings have been detected in September so far, including 1,160 on September 4. That was just below the 1,295 on August 22, highest daily total on record.
Some 667 people were detected on Wednesday, September 21. That daily figure is higher than the total for the whole of 2018, when 299 people made the crossing.
The annual total for 2019 was 1,843, and 8,466 in 2020, official figures show. However, even the 2022 numbers of small boat arrivals are a fraction of the number of people going to mainland Europe in the hope of a new life.
What is the Rwanda plan?
It is more than five months since the then home secretary, Priti Patel, announced plans to send migrants to Rwanda to try to deter people from crossing the Channel. Since then, 25,247 people have arrived in the UK after making the journey.
On April 14, Ms Patel signed what she described as a “world-first” agreement with Rwanda, under which the East African country would receive migrants deemed by the UK to have arrived “illegally”, and were therefore inadmissible under new immigration rules. However the first deportation flight, due to take off on June 14, was grounded amid legal challenges.
Several asylum seekers, the Public and Commercial Services Union and charities Care4Calais, Detention Action and Asylum Aid, are embroiled in court cases with the Home Office as they challenge the legality of the policy.
