Ninety asylum-seekers crossed Channel on Christmas Day, government says

Ninety asylum-seekers made the journey across the Channel on Christmas Day, according to the government, just days after four people died and dozens were rescued from a dinghy sinking in freezing waters.

Those who braved the 20-mile journey across the busy shipping lane on Sunday did so in just two small boats, according to provisional figures published daily by the Ministry of Defence.

The ministry confirmed that the 90 people who arrived were taken to the Western Jet Foil processing centre in Dover.

Despite the government’s increasingly hardline and inflammatory rhetoric, more than 40,000 people have crossed the Channel in small boats in 2022 – far more than the 28,561 people who did so the previous year.

Increasing numbers of people began to make the dangerous journey after increased security and surveillance – as well as coronavirus travel restrictions – made it far more difficult to enter the UK by stowing away in vehicles.

Campaigners have accused the government of having “blood on their hands” for their refusal to open safe and legal routes for people to claim asylum in the UK, outside of specific existing schemes for those living in places such as Ukraine and Hong Kong.

But even in the wake of the recent loss of life in the Channel, which aid groups lamented were “wholly unnecessary and preventable”, home secretary Suella Braverman said: “We will extend safe and legal routes once we have dealt with the appalling people smuggling gangs risking people’s lives.”

Four people died – among them a teenager – and a further 39 people were rescued on 14 December, after a group of fishermen heard people “screaming for help”. Skipper Raymond told Sky News: “It was like something out of a second World War movie, there were people in the water everywhere, screaming.”

An inquest heard last week that the dinghies carrying them had been “wholly unsuitable to make the crossing”. The victims remain unidentified but it is “possible” two of them were Afghans, while the others were Senegalese, said Kent coroner Katrina Hepburn, who recorded a provisional cause of death from drowning.

Nearly everyone who crosses the Channel in a small boat applies for asylum in the UK, and of the 16,400 initial decisions made on asylum applications in the year to September, 77 per cent were granted refugee status, humanitarian protection or alternative forms of leave – the highest grant rate since 1990.

However, the number of claims processed by the Home Office has fallen in recent years, and thousands are being left in limbo in hotel accommodation as a result of the backlog crisis, at a daily cost of £5.5m – with MPs told in October that just 4 per cent of claims by 2021 boat arrivals had been processed.

The number of people waiting more than three years for a decision has more than quadrupled in just 18 months, with 33,746 adults waiting more than a year, according to Home Office data.

Ms Braverman has faced criticism around overcrowding and disease outbreaks at migrant processing centres, and Home Office emails released under Freedom of Information laws suggest that hundreds of people were illegally detained at the Manston processing facility because of overcrowding.

In a bid to reduce the government’s expenditure on hotels for those caught up in the Home Office backlog, Rishi Sunak pledged last week that his government “will shortly bring forward a range of alternative sites such as disused holiday parks, former student halls and surplus military sites”.

A government spokesperson said: “The global migration crisis is causing an unprecedented strain on our asylum system.

“Nobody should put their lives at risk by taking dangerous and illegal journeys. We will go further to tackle the gangs driving this, using every tool at our disposal to deter illegal migration and disrupt the business model of people smugglers.”