LONDON: Some 1,194 migrants arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel in small boats on Saturday, a record for this year according to AFP counting from government data.
It brings the overall number of migrant crossings this year to 14,808, an unprecedented figure despite several measures in place by the French and UK governments to curb the crossings.
French coastal authorities said they also rescued nearly 200 migrants between late Friday and late Saturday.
The latest crossings, which UK Defense Secretary John Healey described as “shocking,” fall short of the all-time record of 1,300 migrants arriving on small boats in a day in September 2022.
But they will still prove a headache for UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has been at pains to toughen his rhetoric on irregular immigration amid pressure from the far right to slash migrant numbers.
“We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security,” the Home Office said in a statement on the latest arrivals.
Starmer unveiled tough new immigration policies this month that include doubling the length of time before migrants can qualify for settlement in the country and new powers to deport foreign criminals.
The raft of measures was widely seen as an attempt to win back support from voters and fend off threats from the increasingly popular hard-right Reform party.
Separate legislation to tackle irregular immigration, called the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, is currently going through parliament.
But Saturday’s crossings will be a fresh blow.
The overall figure of 14,808 crossings is the highest for the first five months of the year since records began in 2018, when the route into the UK first became popular.
It also surpassed the record for the number of crossings in the first six months of the year — which stood at around 12,900 in the first six months of 2024.
On Saturday, a total 184 people were picked up in four different rescue operations on the French coast, the maritime prefecture for France’s Channel and northern region said in a statement.
In one instance, the motor died on a boat carrying 61 people. In another, nine people on a boat called for assistance.
According to an AFP tally of official figures, 15 people have died so far this year trying to cross the Channel, one of the busiest areas in the world for shipping.
“Pretty shocking, those scenes yesterday,” Healey told Sky News in an interview Sunday.
“We saw the smugglers launching elsewhere and coming around like a taxi to pick them up,” he said, adding that “Britain’s lost control of its borders.”
France this year agreed to allow its police patrols to intercept migrants in shallow waters, but they cannot stop a boat once it is on its way.
“We’ve got the agreement (with the French) that they will change the way they work,” Healey said.
“Our concentration now is to push them to get that into operation.”
Healey also told the BBC: “What we now need is to work more closely with the French to persuade them to put that into operation so they can intervene in the water, in the shallow waters, which they don’t at the moment.”
More than 1,100 migrants crossed Channel on Saturday: UK govt data
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More than 1,100 migrants crossed Channel on Saturday: UK govt data
- “We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security,” the Home Office said in a statement on the latest arrivals
Minneapolis mayor demands transparent investigation into ICE shooting as protests spread
- Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, said on Thursday that Minnesota authorities had no “jurisdiction” over the investigation
- Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said he could not be sure the government’s account was grounded in fact until an independent investigation took place
MINNEAPOLIS: Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Friday demanded the federal government permit state authorities to take part in the investigation into a US immigration officer’s fatal shooting of a 37-year-old woman in her car, an incident that has sparked nationwide protests.
Frey, a Democrat, accused the Republican Trump administration of trying to predetermine the investigation’s outcome after the state’s lead investigative agency, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said the FBI had reversed its initial cooperation and blocked the BCA’s access to scene evidence, witness interviews and other material.
“This is a time to follow the law,” Frey said. “This is not a time to hide from the facts.” He added that despite the lack of aid from federal authorities, state or local prosecutions of the officer were still “potential.”
Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, said on Thursday that Minnesota authorities had no “jurisdiction” over the investigation. Frey’s comments underscored the extent to which President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in mostly Democratic-run cities — despite the opposition of their mayors — has severely frayed the trust between local and federal officials. Trump administration officials have defended Wednesday’s shooting as self-defense and accused the woman, Renee Good, a US citizen and mother of three, of deliberately aiming her car at the officer in an act of “domestic terrorism” — a narrative belied by video evidence and described by Frey as “garbage.” In Portland, Oregon, on Thursday afternoon, a US Border Patrol agent shot and wounded a man and woman in their car after an attempted vehicle stop. As in Minnesota, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the driver “weaponized” the car in an effort to run over the agent, who fired in self-defense.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, echoing Frey, said he could not be sure the government’s account was grounded in fact until an independent investigation took place.
“There was a time when we could take them at their word,” Wilson, a Democrat, said of federal officials. “That time is long past.”
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield told CNN on Friday morning that there is cooperation between federal and state investigators so far but that it was too early to draw any conclusions.
STATES ACCUSE FEDS OF SOWING CHAOS
In both cases, Democratic mayors and governors have called on the Trump administration to pull federal officers out, arguing that their presence is sowing chaos and needlessly creating tensions on the streets.
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot Good was one of more than 2,000 federal personnel whom the Trump administration has ordered deployed to Minneapolis in what DHS described as the “largest operation” in its history.
He was identified as Jonathan Ross, based on comments by federal officials that the officer had previously been dragged by a migrant’s car during an attempted arrest last summer, suffering serious lacerations. The details matched those reflected in the court records of a case in Bloomington, Minnesota, in June 2025, in which a man was eventually convicted of assaulting Ross.
DHS has declined to confirm the officer’s name.
Bystander videos of the shooting appear to show Good turning her wheels away from the officer as she drives forward, while he fires three shots while jumping backward from the front of the car. The final two shots appear to be aimed through the driver’s side window, after the car’s front bumper has already passed by the officer’s legs.
Since the killing, Trump administration officials have doubled down on the government’s version of events. Trump said on social media that the car “ran over” the officer, while Vice President JD Vance on Thursday accused Good of “attacking” agents and praised the officer for his actions.
The two shootings have drawn thousands of protesters in Minneapolis, Portland and other US cities. In Minnesota, Democratic Governor Tim Walz has put the state’s National Guard on alert. While the Minnesota operation is part of Trump’s broader immigration crackdown, the president has for months aimed political attacks at the state, particularly its large Somali-American community. Trump has called Somali immigrants “garbage,” railed against a sprawling welfare-fraud scandal and ridiculed Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2024. Walz announced earlier this week that he would not run for a third term, citing the time necessary to address the fraud scandal.
