By Michael Nwankpa

The UK needs to move away from its current overtly security-focused approach to migration in favour of a more sensible and humane one.

In the last year, there has been a sharp increase in the number of people trying to cross the English Channel on small boats. According to Home Office data, over 25,000 people have crossed the Channel in boats this year. In 2020, around 5,000 people crossed the Channel by this means. The deadliest of these crossings happened on 24 November 2021, with 27 people, including a pregnant woman and three children, losing their lives at sea. Efforts to stem irregular immigration and prevent the dangerous journey across the English Channel have been mired in diplomatic squabbles between the UK and France, with the UK paying France up to £55 million to clamp down on small-boat Channel crossings. The dominant official narrative in the UK holds criminal networks responsible. According to this account, people smugglers and criminal gangs are benefitting financially from people’s misery and suffering. Therefore, disrupting and apprehending the criminal networks is considered the most appropriate way to curtail the irregular flow of migration across the English Channel.

The criminal networks facilitating these dangerous journeys should be disrupted and apprehended, but we must not undercut the overall benefits of migration in the process. One such benefit is plugging the acute labour shortage in key industries in the UK that Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic have created. To achieve this, the UK would need to adopt a sensible and strategic open-border policy. At the moment, the general attitude towards migration, judging by the proposed immigration bill, is a far cry from such a policy.

Rather, the Home Office seeks greater enforcement powers backed by legislation through the flagship Nationality and Borders Bill. The new enforcement powers sought include the authority to force boats back towards France by being able to board, divert and detain boats carrying irregular immigrants. The new law also makes it a criminal offence for someone to deliberately enter the UK illegally, punishable by up to four years in prison. Evidently, the problem is viewed through a criminal lens rather than adopting a much more holistic approach that would likely involve addressing the conditions that push people to take these perilous journeys. The Home Office’s approach also provides little insight into what is driving the surge in irregular immigration and why people are willing to risk their lives by embarking on such dangerous journeys to reach the UK.

Read more >>>https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/humane-and-sensible-approach-immigration-crisis