Indian nationals overtake Albanians to become second largest Channel migrants group
Indians have overtaken Albanians to become the second biggest contingent crossing the Channel in small boats so far this year, according to Home Office data.
Immigration experts believe Indians seeking to live and work in the UK illegally are targeting Channel crossings because it is now seen as an established route into Britain for economic migrants.
In the first three months of this year, 675 Indian migrants were detected crossing the English Channel in small boats, second only to 909 Afghans, who agencies say are primarily asylum seekers fleeing the Taliban.
That is almost the same as the total 683 Indians who crossed the Channel during the whole of last year, and 10 times the rate at the beginning of 2022.
By contrast, the number of Albanians fell to just 29 between January and the end of March, a decline attributed to their traditional tail-off over winter and the Government’s introduction of fast-track deportations. Last year, Albanians were the biggest nationality with 12,301 crossing the Channel.
“The small boat crossing has become an established route into the UK and is pretty reliable compared with lorries which are more expensive. I think you will see more people coming from countries that are not previous refugee nations,” said an immigration source.
It is believed Serbia’s visa-free travel rules for Indians have provided a gateway into Europe. Until the end of last year, all Indian passport holders were able to enter Serbia without a visa for up to 30 days. The cost of a small boat journey has also fallen to an average of £3,500 – although some have been touted more cheaply.
Earlier this year, The Telegraph interviewed two Indian nationals – Lovepreet Singh, 25, and his friend Hardeep Singh, 17 – who had crossed from Serbia, Germany, Slovakia, Italy and Switzerland before spending three days in Dunkirk.
“The idea of crossing the Channel on one of those boats scares me. I can’t swim. But what are our options?” said Lovepreet. “We don’t speak French and want to live and work in England. Staying in this freezing cold camp is not an option so we’ll take our chances.
“I have paid around £16,000 pounds to get this far and £2,200 for a boat crossing. We arrived two days ago and we’re waiting for a call from a trafficker so we can leave.”
‘Seasonal trend’ anticipated
India has been added to the list of “safe” countries to which migrants who enter the UK can be returned under the proposed Illegal Migration Bill. Tony Smith, former director general of Border Force, said that as economic migrants, “I would have thought we should be able to process them quite quickly.”
After Indians, the next biggest group was Iran, at 524, followed by Iraq (345), Syria (286) and Eritrea (232).
Some 5,546 migrants have so far crossed this year with Saturday seeing a new daily record for the year of 497 migrants crossing the Channel in 11 boats.
Ministers are braced for a fresh surge of Albanian migrants to attempt to cross the Channel in small boats this summer based on the “seasonal trend” seen in previous years via other illegal routes such as in the back of lorries or arriving on airliners without visas.
