Overview

• A record 1,194 migrants crossed the English Channel in one day, bringing the total for 2025 to 14,811, a 42 percent increase on this time last year.
• French authorities rescued just 184 migrants on the busiest crossing day, marking an interception rate below 40 percent despite the UK’s £480 million deal to bolster patrols.
• Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told MPs the French cabinet has agreed that shallow-water interception rules must change and urged Paris to implement new tactics without delay.
• Overcrowding on dinghies has surged, with 33 boats carrying more than 80 migrants intercepted by April, up from one in the same period last year and twice as many favourable weather days compared with 2024.
• Ministers have pledged to expand enforcement powers in the pending Border Security Bill to target smuggling gangs even as critics fault the government for scrapping the Rwanda deportation scheme.