Undocumented Migrants: English Channel

(asked on 29th January 2020) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate her Department has made of the number of (a) accompanied and (b) unaccompanied child migrants who have illegally crossed the English channel from France and who have subsequently been granted asylum in the UK in each year since 2015.


Answered by
Victoria Atkins Portrait
Victoria Atkins
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
This question was answered on 5th February 2020
  1. Information regarding migrants crossing the English Channel was provided to the Home Affairs Select Committee on 5 March 2019 which gave the number of migrants detected entering the UK by small boats from January 2018 to February 2019 as 428.


On 22 July 2019 the then Home Secretary Sajid Javid provided an additional figure to Home Affairs Select Committee that up to 21 July 2019 725 migrants had crossed the English Channel.

The Home Office does not routinely publish breakdowns of asylum claims by method of arrival or type of claim.

In its quarterly Immigration Statistics, published on 28 November 2019 the Home Office published data regarding the number of asylum applications made. The total number of adults claiming asylum since 2015 to year ending September 2019 is given as 136,995

  1. Information regarding migrants crossing the English Channel was provided to the Home Affairs Select Committee on 5 March 2019 which gave the number of migrants detected entering the UK by small boats from January 2018 to February 2019 as 428.


On 22 July 2019 the then Home Secretary Sajid Javid provided an additional figure to Home Affairs Select Committee that up to 21 July 2019 725 migrants had crossed the English Channel.

The Home Office does not routinely publish breakdowns of asylum claims by method of arrival or type of claim.

In its quarterly Immigration Statistics, published on 28 November 2019 the Home Office published data regarding the number of asylum application made. The total number of unaccompanied minors claiming asylum since 2015 to year ending September 2019 is given as 15,554. The total number of accompanied minors claiming asylum since 2015 to year ending September 2019 is given as 16,886.

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