Since June 2022, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has prosecuted over a thousand individuals in search of asylum within the UK for the offence of ‘unlawful arrival’, which was launched by the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. This text supplies a brief replace of the place as of July 2026, together with on how the newly launched offence of ‘endangering life at sea’ has been used since its introduction in January 2026.
Additional element and testimonies relating to the criminalisation of these in search of sanctuary within the UK could be present in two reviews documenting this pattern: No Such Factor as Justice Right here (February 2024), and I Informed Them the Fact (Could 2025).
How many individuals, and who, are being prosecuted?
The offence of ‘unlawful arrival’ was launched within the 2022 Act in response to circumstances during which individuals steering dinghies throughout the Channel had been acquitted of ‘unlawful entry’ (and facilitation of that entry) on account of the excellence between ‘entry’ and ‘arrival’ within the context of asylum claims.
From 28 June 2022, individuals arriving within the UK with out authorisation started to be arrested for ‘unlawful arrival’ (part 24(D1) of the Immigration Act 1971, as amended by the 2022 Act). As of 30 January 2026, 1,099 individuals have been convicted of this offence. Knowledge for the primary half of 2026 is anticipated in August.
The breadth of the offence of unlawful arrival supplies the state with the de facto energy to arrest anybody arriving with out authorisation that it needs to focus on. Nonetheless, not everybody arriving irregularly is prosecuted; it’s subsequently vital to have a look at who is chosen for prosecution in apply.
Simply over half of these prosecuted for ‘unlawful arrival’ throughout this era arrived on a ‘small boat’ (628 individuals). Others have been chosen after arriving in lorries, automobiles, by airplane, or by yacht.
Round half of these chosen for prosecution after arriving by small boat had been recognized as steering small boats throughout the Channel (332 individuals). A few of these persons are additionally charged with the extra critical offence of facilitation (part 25 of the Immigration Act 1971) along with unlawful arrival; nevertheless, most often the facilitation cost is dropped following a ‘not responsible’ plea given the upper evidential threshold and lack of proof that ‘pilots’ had been concerned in organising the crossings. Regardless of this, the Residence Workplace and Nationwide Crime Company proceed to solid boat pilots because the ‘evil individuals smugglers’ behind Channel crossings of their press releases and social media posts.
We’ve got noticed that most individuals steer boats throughout the Channel in return for a diminished fare they might not in any other case afford. Some are compelled to steer the boat by smugglers, typically at gunpoint. Others took turns to steer to keep away from exhaustion or took over when the unique pilot grew to become drained or sick. Freedom of data requests present sure nationalities – notably Sudanese and South Sudanese – are over-represented amongst these prosecuted.
The opposite foremost purpose why persons are chosen for prosecution having arrived by small boat is having a ‘earlier immigration historical past’ within the UK. It is a broad class, extending even to those that have merely beforehand utilized for a visa, however who had by no means been bodily current within the UK.
We’ve got additionally recognized a small variety of circumstances the place the person prosecuted was neither a pilot nor did they’ve a ‘earlier immigration historical past’, however which additional spotlight the politically motivated, and sometimes arbitrary, nature of those prosecutions.
These examples embody two males who had been convicted in September 2023, the place the irritating issue was that they’d been recognized making an attempt to guard the dinghy from police destruction on the seashores in Calais. Final 12 months, in March 2025, a Palestinian man was charged after his social media posts resulted in him being the goal of a marketing campaign by right-wing media and the Shadow Residence Secretary Chris Philp, who wrote to the Residence Workplace calling for his quick deportation. We’ve got additionally begun to determine individuals charged with unlawful arrival when arrested in-country for different offences, if they’d arrived on a small boat in earlier years.
Arrival and prosecution
The overwhelming majority, if not all, of these charged and convicted after arriving within the UK on a small boat have made asylum claims within the UK. These prosecuted additionally embody victims of trafficking, torture, and at the least 31 age-disputed youngsters.
Most of these prosecuted are arrested from Manston within the hours following their arrival within the UK and declare asylum, and are then taken to a Kent police station. They often seem earlier than the Folkestone or Margate magistrates’ courtroom round 48 hours after their arrival within the UK. Current freedom of data information confirms, nevertheless, that some persons are arrested a lot in a while, typically over a 12 months after crossing, and their circumstances are handled in courts and prisons outdoors Kent, making it tougher for assist organisations to determine them.
The overwhelming majority of defendants who’re tried for unlawful arrival within the magistrates’ courtroom plead responsible. Responsible pleas are usually suggested by felony solicitors as casual sentencing remarks from Recorder Choose James, who sits in Canterbury, have positioned the start line for sentences to be given by judges in pilot circumstances with out aggravating components as 12 months. Pleading responsible early within the proceedings usually ends in a sentencing discount meaning avoiding this 12-month threshold, which can be the edge for potential exclusion from refugee standing. In apply, most prosecutions for unlawful arrival of boat pilots have resulted in sentences of eight or 9 months, with these with a ‘earlier immigration historical past’ often receiving 12 months or larger.
You will need to notice, nevertheless, that these jail sentences are decrease than the earlier and present governments had hoped for, probably because of the reality they’ve been unable to efficiently prosecute many small boat pilots with the extra critical offence of facilitation. That is because of the basic lack of proof that these people had any involvement in organising the journeys.
New offences for 2026
The Border Safety, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025, which acquired Royal Assent in December 2025, launched a number of new offences, together with criminalising the provision or dealing with of things or info suspected to be used in organised immigration crime. The CPS has confirmed that such info ‘can embody climate reviews or tide instances to determine a beneficial time to launch’; the essential info required to enhance the security of a crossing.
We’re notably involved about the usage of the brand new offence of endangering life at sea which got here into power with these different offences on 5 January 2026. The offence can solely be charged as an attachment to unlawful arrival and was launched to extend the sentences of these recognized as steering small boats. As with unlawful arrival, the CPS steerage on the usage of ‘endangerment’ is deliberately very broad, they usually have declined to supply a set record of these acts that may represent the offence.
The CPS has, nevertheless, begun routinely charging pilots with this new offence.
In June 2026, Mohammed Tajik from Afghanistan and Alnour Ali from Sudan grew to become the primary individuals to be sentenced for endangering life, receiving 27 months and two years respectively. Each had been recognized as steering a small boat for a part of their crossings, had sought asylum on arrival, and had pleaded responsible. The prosecution cited the overcrowding of each dinghies and the defendants’ supposed recklessness, whereas accepting that neither had any prior involvement in organising the journeys.
Mohammed, it appears, was charged as a result of he let go of the tiller as a Border Drive boat approached. It’s unclear why Alnour was charged in any respect, past a Nationwide Crime Company press launch wrongly accusing him of accountability for 4 deaths in French shallow waters earlier that day, a connection the prosecution and choose accepted at sentencing had by no means been established.
At sentencing, Choose James acknowledged he was ‘unaware of any empirical proof or analysis’ that prosecutions deter Channel crossings. He nonetheless deviated from the steerage offered by the Courtroom of Attraction in R v Ginar [2023] EWCA Crim 1121, by sentencing with the intention to discourage and setting a place to begin of three years imprisonment.
The proof relating to deterrence in reality factors the opposite manner: it’s authorities insurance policies which are growing danger to life within the Channel. Analysis by the College of Bristol and Border Forensics has proven how British-funded border safety measures have made crossings extra harmful. Confiscating motors has left fewer working dinghies and fuelled overcrowding, whereas violent British-funded French policing ways have brought about panics, crushes, and drownings in shallow waters.
The introduction of this new felony offence, and its larger sentencing, marks a regarding escalation within the imprisonment of refugees for the way they arrive within the UK and the scapegoating of these in search of sanctuary slightly than trying on the harms produced by border insurance policies themselves.
That is particularly regarding provided that these focused for prosecution are sometimes probably the most susceptible. By the use of instance, the primary particular person to be charged below the brand new offence of endangering life at sea on the primary day of its implementation was subsequently discovered by the Nationwide Age Evaluation Board to be solely 16 years outdated. Shockingly, the CPS has continued with the prosecution however this discovering.
Organisations engaged on this difficulty
There’s a small group of organisations working laborious on this difficulty:
- Captain Help UK supplies direct materials and social assist to individuals imprisoned for immigration-related offences.
- Refugee Authorized Help supplies post-release casework assist and might help with asylum lodging and authorized illustration for individuals convicted of immigration offences.
- People for Rights Community specialises in casework for age-disputed youngsters charged with these offences.
We’re at all times joyful to listen to from individuals who have been charged with or convicted of offences who would really like our assist or from attorneys with concepts for additional authorized challenges which could possibly be introduced to those prosecutions.
This text was co-authored with Emily Soothill and Francesca Parkes.
