656 people landed on Saturday, the highest number in a single day so far in 2025, beating the second highest number of arrivals from March 2, when 592 arrived.
A record number of illegal immigrants have crossed the English Channel in the first four months of this year, according to provisional Home Office figures.
This figure is already higher than the 7,567 who landed in the first full four months of 2024. It is also 35 percent higher than in the first four months of 2023, when 5,946 arrived, and 13 percent higher than January, February, March, and April 2022 combined, when 6,691 landed.
Some 656 people landed on Saturday in 11 boats, the highest number in a single day so far in 2025, beating the second highest number of arrivals from March 2, when 592 arrived in 11 vessels.
A total of 159,202 arrived since Jan. 1, 2018 when current record keeping for this specific kind of illegal entry began.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.
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“The people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay and we will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.
Tackling Illegal Immigration at Source
The figures follow Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s remarks that organised illegal immigration must be tackled at every stage of the journey, from the countries of origin to Britain’s high streets.
At the opening of the Organised Immigration Crime Summit on March 31, Starmer announced that an additional £30 million will go to Border Security Command to disrupt people smuggling networks, as well as a further £3 million to the Crown Prosecution Service to increase capacity to prosecute smugglers.
The Organised Immigration Crime Summit brought together representatives from over 40 countries, including transit and destination countries like France and origin nations like Vietnam and Iraq, to agree new action on tackling illegal immigration.
The prime minister had outlined some operations involving collaboration with European partners which were already working to disrupt smuggler routes. In particular, a recent joint operation involving British, French, and German law enforcement dismantled one Iraqi smuggling network, resulting in multiple arrests and the seizure of equipment used to make the cross-Channel journey, such as engines and boats.
Starmer said: “We’ve got to combine resources. Share intelligence and tactics. Tackle the problem upstream at every step of the people smuggling journey, from North Africa and the Middle East to the high streets of our biggest cities.”
‘Boats Keep Coming’
In response to the record-breaking boat migration figures, shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: “This news underlines what we all knew—Keir Starmer has lost control of our borders.
“This is a national disgrace. Labour clearly never had a plan to stop small boat crossings. Keir Starmer’s pledge to smash the gangs lies in tatters, he’s betrayed Britain and lost control of our borders. The gangs are laughing, the boats keep coming, and taxpayers are left to foot the bill.”
Philp added that these crossings “are not only illegal, they are unnecessary, as France is a safe country.”
A view of small boats and outboard motors used by people to cross the English Channel from France at a warehouse facility in Dover, Kent, England, April 14, 2025. Gareth Fuller/PA Wire
The Conservative Party has also previously criticised the current Labour government for scrapping its plans to send asylum seekers who arrived illegally in the country to Rwanda, which they said would act as a deterrent to illegal immigration.
In December, the Home Office said that the previous Conservative government had spent £715 million on the Rwanda scheme.
Figures for migrants crossing the English Channel. PA Wire
Cooper said: “The result of that massive commitment of time and money was that 84,000 people crossed the channel from the day the deal was signed to the day it was scrapped.
“That so-called deterrent did not result in a single deportation or stop a single boat from crossing the channel. For the British taxpayer, it was a grotesque waste of money.”
PA Media contributed to this report.