âť“WHAT HAPPENED: Nearly 800 migrants crossed the English Channel in small boats over the weekend following a 28-day pause in crossings.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Migrants attempting to reach England via small boats, the French Maritime Prefect, and Britain’s Home Office, roughly equivalent to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
đź“ŤWHEN & WHERE: December 2025, in the English Channel.
đź’¬KEY QUOTE: “The number of small boat crossings are shameful and the British people deserve better,” a Home Office spokesman admitted.
🎯IMPACT: Over 40,000 migrants have crossed the Channel this year.
Nearly 800 migrants crossed the English Channel in small boats over the weekend, ending a weather-related 28-day pause in arrivals that had been the longest since 2018. Government figures show that 11 boats carrying more than 700 people reached England on December 13, followed by another vessel on December 14. This brought the total number of small boat crossings so far in 2025 to 40,081, compared with 45,755 recorded in the peak year of 2022.
French maritime authorities said several boats departed on Saturday, with a number of dangerous incidents reported at sea. The French Maritime Prefect claimed that, “Given the structural fragility of systematically overloaded boats, the choice is made not to force migrants to embark on the [French] state’s rescue [vessels], to avoid endangering their lives in the event of a shipwreck.” However, once in British territorial waters, boat migrants are generally brought aboard British vessels and transported the rest of the way to England without incident, bolstering suspicions that the French have little interest in stopping them. Media reports suggest that French authorities have even provided life jackets to migrants preparing to make the crossing at times.
A British Home Office spokesman condemned the continued arrivals, admitting that the “number of small boat crossings are shameful and the British people deserve better,” while claiming that Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party government “is taking action.”
“We have removed almost 50,000 people who were here illegally, and our historic deal with the French means those who arrive on small boats are now being sent back,” the spokesman claimed—although most of these 50,000 removals were voluntary and very few were boat migrants, and the French “one-in, one-out” returns deal is failing.
Pressure on the British asylum system continues to grow. The backlog of asylum appeals has nearly doubled over the past year, reaching 69,670 by September, despite the previous Conservative (Tory) Party government’s to clear it by rubber-stamping thousands of claims with minimal vetting.
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