In 2023, more than 1,000 Indians risked their lives to reach the U.K. by crossing the English Channel from Europe in inflatable small boats, searching for jobs and seeking asylum. The number of Indians who took this dangerous journey has surged in recent years. In 2023, the number more than doubled from the previous year. The share of illegal migrants from India aged 18-29 has shot up in recent years; they formed close to 60% of the total number of illegal Indian migrants in 2023. In parallel, the number of Indians applying for asylum in the U.K. has also surged in recent years, crossing the 5,000-mark for the first time in 2023. Notably, the number of Indians crossing into the U.S. illegally has also surged recently, with close to 1 lakh people doing so in 2023.
The U.K. has been grappling with the problem of a sudden surge in the inflow of illegal migrants in recent years. There has been a notable rise in the number of asylum-seekers arriving in the U.K. by small boats from the European mainland. Through most of 2021 and 2022, daily crossings of the perilous English Channel by thousands of migrants were recorded. Although the number of these crossings decreased in 2023 compared with the previous two years, the incidence of such events remained substantially higher than what was observed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. This trend continues in 2024, with over 2,000 people crossing into the U.K. until February 27 this year.
Chart 1 | The chart shows the number of Indians who arrived in small boats between 2018 and 2023.
