UK and France Agree to Increase Joint Immigration Enforcement Efforts

On November 14, 2022, the governments of the United Kingdom and France announced the agreement of a new migration enforcement deal to stop illicit crossings of the English channel. Under the terms of the agreement, the UK agreed to pay France 72.2 million Euros throughout the rest of 2022 and 2023 and in exchange, France will increase its deployment of migration enforcement patrols on its northern coastline by 40 percent, among other provisions. This new agreement is a continuation of a previous migration enforcement agreement between the two countries that saw the UK pay France 62.7 million Euros.

While members of the new Rishi Sunak government supported this move, many other Members of Parliament (MP), unions, and refugee rights organizations lambasted the plan. They argue that it does not go far enough nor does it address the root causes of the growing migration crisis. Many of these criticisms surround the fact that this new agreement does not mandate the detention of smugglers nor the establishment of maritime patrols. The dissatisfaction with this new agreement, the third one implemented in four years with France, corresponds to negative public opinion regarding controlling the UK’s borders. For example, most of the UK’s citizens believe the country does not control its borders and that leaving Brexit has only worsened the situation. These pessimistic attitudes have found sympathetic figures in the highest level of the UK government, leading to an increase in anti-immigrant and immigration-restrictionist policies and legislation. 

Migration policy and enforcement have been a contentious issue between Paris and London for years, especially under the leadership of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, with the UK accusing France of not doing enough to stop illegal immigration to the south of England. However, under Sunak’s leadership, the UK is aiming to mend their frayed relations through, in part, hosting a bilateral summit in 2023 focusing on issues such as climate change, energy, Ukraine, and illegal migration.  

Over the past few months, illegal migration has been top of mind for numerous politicians of the ruling Conservative Party. In October, Home Secretary Suella Braverman complained of an “invasion” of illegal immigrants entering the UK, saying, “let’s stop pretending they are all refugees in distress; the whole country knows that is not true.” These comments followed the firebombing of a Home Office migrant reception center in Dover in the south of England and criticism over the UK government’s handling of conditions at migrant reception centers that include the lack of available housing, overcrowding, and unsanitary conditions leading to the spread of disease. These concerns and actions all stem from the increasing numbers of unauthorized migrants that have recently reached the UK’s shores.  

Migrant crossings of the English Channel continue to reach all-time highs, with record spikes over the past few years. 8,500 migrants crossed the Channel in 2020, 28,000 in 2021, and more than 40,000 through 2022. These high numbers have led the UK government to enact drastic,  highly criticized measures, none more so than its proposed plan to house asylum seekers in Rwanda. While the plan is currently stuck in legal arbitration, it would allow the UK government to send asylum seekers intercepted in the UK to Rwanda so that they could apply for asylum there. There have been numerous concerns regarding this plan, including the externalization of European borders, leading migration enforcement to start further away from the destination country. This is a dangerous precedent that will have negative repercussions for migrants and their ability to seek refuge in safe countries.

Unfortunately, the UK’s plans to increase immigration enforcement are part of a widening continent-spanning change at the behest of newly elected right-wing governments to make it harder to migrate to Europe. One of these new right-wing governments that have made its anti-immigrant sentiments clear is Italy under the leadership of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Italy got into a highly publicized diplomatic spat with France over the treatment of the migrant rescue ship Ocean Viking, which Italy had refused to allow dock in Rome or any other Italian port. The crisis ended after more than two weeks when France allowed the ship to unload its 230 migrants in Toulon. Italy was also one of four nations that put forth a statement criticizing the EU’s plan to jointly address asylum-seekers arriving on the continent, as well as the operations of migrant rescue ships in the Mediterranean Sea.

As a result of the UK intercepting a growing number of unauthorized immigrants, the country needs to revise its migration policy.  The migrant situation is only worsening, and the UK’s current plan of paying foreign countries to fix the problem (since 2018, it has sent France 200 million Euros) is not working. Recent UK policies have been mostly reactive (i.e., addressing the migrant crisis only when it arrives at its borders or increasing enforcement around the English channel), but these actions are too late. To fully address the migration crisis, the UK must work with sending countries to tackle the root causes of migration— poverty, violence, climate change, or a combination of these and other factors. Only through being proactive and attacking this problem head-on will it be solved. While this approach is a long-term one, involving the investment of billions of Euros and interactions with multiple countries, it is the only one that will provide the UK relief and migrants the opportunity for a better future.   

Author: Joshua Rodriguez

Managing Editor: Sebastian Reyes

Web Editor: Anusha Tamhane