The number of illegal migrants coming to the United Kingdom from across the English Channel has decreased by 20% in the first five months of the year compared with 2022, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Monday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th June, 2023) The number of illegal migrants coming to the United Kingdom from across the English Channel has decreased by 20% in the first five months of the year compared with 2022, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Monday.
In December, Sunak unveiled a five-point Illegal Migration plan called to curb illegal migrant entries to the UK, specifically through the English Channel. The bill was submitted to the parliament in March, survived the vote in the lower house in April and is currently passing through the upper house.
"Our plan is starting to work," Sunak said in a televised appearance in the town of Dover in Kent County. "In the five months since I launched the plan, crossings are now down 20% compared to last year."�
Sunak added that the progress was "not replicated across the Channel," since the number of illegal migrants entering the rest of Europe, by contrast, had increased by 30%.
Earlier this year, the UK government made immigration agreements with a number of countries, including Rwanda, Albania and France, and banned foreign students from bringing family members to the UK as part of the new plan to reduce migration. In addition, the UK authorities took measures to cut illegal migration to the country by housing asylum seekers in barges docked off the British coast instead of hotels.
In August 2022, over 13,500 people crossed the English Channel to enter the UK illegally, which is an all-time monthly high since the beginning of the migration crisis in 2019. The total number of migrants who entered the UK in 2022 was over 44,000. British media reported that the country was spending about 7 million Pounds ($8.7 million) per day to house migrants in hotels.
