Migrants‘ Journey Through the English Channel into the U.K.
By: Hunter Han
Migrants attempt to cross the English Channel into the U.K. every day, for many different reasons, declared a “major incident in December 2018. The migrants include lots of children , some traveling alone.
The English Channel is a stretch of water separating England from France. The migrants’ reasons for crossing the English Channel include the prospect of escaping war and prosecution, or hoping to make money, which is illegal. Whatever the situation, entering the U.K. via boat is illegal.
Most migrants claim asylum to receive a refugee status so that they can legally live and work in the U.K. To receive this status, authorities must decide that the migrant can’t return to the country they came from. A child with family is treated differently than a child traveling alone. A child with his or her family is considered for asylum as a dependent, meaning they are part of their adult(s)’(s) application for refugee status. Families usually can stay together in their place of temporary stay.
Simultaneous to their temporary stay, children may receive an education. Unaccompanied children, people under the age of 18 with no parent or guardian with them over 18 years old, are given extra protection and priority by law. This means that safety and welfare are prioritized. They also should be provided shelter, often in the form of a residential care or foster home, and they may receive both education and healthcare temporarily. They are supported in asylum.
That’s what happens after they cross the channel. Many cross the channel in crossings organized by criminal gangs. These criminal gangs don’t do it out of sympathy – they do it for the money. The crossings are often made in small boats or dinghies, neither of which is designed for sea travel. It is relatively dangerous to cross the English Channel in these conditions. The boats are often overloaded with people.
To add to that, the English Channel has some of the busiest shipping lines and large boats that could pose a considerable threat if they pass near one of those small boats. Migrants pay the criminal gangs a huge sum of money, but in return, the gangs don’t usually offer protective and emergency gear, like life jackets, and when they do, what they provide is unreliable. Even before the voyage, people were living in tents, without toilets, and bathing in dirty rivers.
Despite these dangers, many cross in the summer, when waters are calmer and warmer, even though it is cold year-round. To give a scale of how many people attempt this dangerous journey, since the year 2028, roughly 25 thousand children have travelled to the U.K. as migrants, and IN 2024, around 37 thousand people crossed into the U.K. via the channel. This is only the tip of the iceberg of the vast wave of immigrants, though. Roughly 108 thousand people out of 984 thousand people arrived into the U.K. looking for asylum, meaning most people arrived legally. 4,104 unaccompanied children arrived in total.
There have been mixed reactions to the immigrants. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Labour political party believe this immigration issue is a crisis. Keir Starmer claims to have been working with French President Emmanuel Macron to stop this “crisis.” In a 2024 campaign, they pledged to reduce the number of crossings, but the number has instead increased.
For this, the Conservative Party’s leader, Kemi Badenoch, said that the Labour party “can’t be trusted,” but the Conservative Party didn’t do so well themselves when they were in power. They were criticized for their methods to handle this issue. Meanwhile, Liberal Democrats are more moderate, in between forcing out the migrants and welcoming them in, focusing on fair effective, simple, and clear immigration rules.
Then we have the opposites, Reform U.K. and the Green Party. The less accepting party, Reform UK, wants to stop illegal immigration for once and for all, and claims that they will not tolerate any amount of illegal immigrants except zero. On the other hand, the Green party will treat all migrants as potential citizens, meaning they will be more welcoming and less strict.
Although the number of people illegally immigrating into the U.K. via the English Channel is large, it is still important to consider the fact that many children under the age of 18 are traveling alone. The circumstances of their immigration created mixed responses, ranging from rejection to acceptance.
Resources :
“Why are children coming to the UK in small boats?” BBC News, 11 July 2025, https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/articles/c99472jl49mo
“English Channel Migrant Boat Crossings,” House of Lords, https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/LLN-2019-0029/LLN-2019-0029.pdf#:~:text=In%20December%202018%2C%20there%20was%20an%20increase%20in,measures%20to%20cross%20the%20channel%20on%20small%20boats.