Rishi Sunak<\/a>\u2019s deal with Emmanuel Macron, sources said.<\/p>\nAnd Paris has vowed to use a new maritime vessel \u2013 as well as 20 officers \u2013 to intercept more migrant taxi boats in the water. The French claimed they have stopped six of the vessels in the past two months.<\/p>\n
A new unit of 50 specialist riot officers will also be deployed to the beaches amid fears over a surge in violence on the French coast.<\/p>\n
This is despite France\u2019s Compagnies R\u00e9publicaines de S\u00e9curit\u00e9 (CRS), which specialises in crowd control and maintaining public order, regularly being deployed to the beaches and standing by as migrants dash into the water.<\/p>\n
![\"Migrants](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/at-sea-england-an-inflatable-small-boat-carrying-migrants-crosses-the-channel-after-leaving-6916539..jpeg\" "\\"Migrants")
<\/p>\n
More than 7,400 migrants have crossed the Channel this year (Image: Getty)<\/p>\n
The shocking allegations will also prompt fears there still no deterrent to those hoping to cross.<\/p>\n
A staggering 96,002 asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Eritrea have arrived in small boats between 2018 and 2025.<\/p>\n
But only 495 – 0.5% – have been sent back to these countries in seven years.<\/p>\n
New figures, obtained for the first time by the Daily Express, also reveal more small boat migrants have been returned to Ireland, 57, than Syria, 55 and Afghanistan, 16.<\/p>\n
And the same number have been sent back to Somalia and Tunisia as the United States of America \u2013 all 3.<\/p>\n
Just 108 of the 30,269 Iranians who arrived by dinghy have been deported to Iran and six to Eritrea between 2018 and 2025. Migration Observatory analysis shows 19,154 Eritreans have been detected leaving France.<\/p>\n
And 365 of the 19,157 Iraqis have been removed.<\/p>\n
Only seven of the 12,633 Sudanese migrants to have crossed the Channel have left.<\/p>\n
The Home Office figures \u2013 obtained through Freedom of Information requests \u2013 also revealed 381 people have been booted out to Turkey between 2018 and 2025.<\/p>\n
Another 116 have been sent to Germany, and 51 to Italy.<\/p>\n
In total, immigration officials have returned small boat migrants to 67 countries.<\/p>\n
This includes the United States of America, Dominica, Portugal, Spain, Croatia, Poland, Spain and Switzerland.<\/p>\n
Some 41 countries have taken fewer than 10 small boat migrants back.<\/p>\n
Only three Somalias to have crossed the Channel by dinghy have been returned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Migrants are being shown how to cross the Channel (Image: Getty) The French are showing migrants \u201cwhere to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":955257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2947,2946,2000,299,36,807,528,155431,60422],"class_list":{"0":"post-955256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-channel-migrants","9":"tag-english-channel-migrant-crossings","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-keir-starmer","14":"tag-labour-party","15":"tag-migrant-crossings","16":"tag-shabana-mahmood"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116562789296946779","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=955256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/955257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=955256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=955256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Migrants](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/at-sea-england-a-french-warship-escorts-an-inflatable-small-boat-carrying-migrants-across-the-691653.jpeg\" "\\"Migrants")
<\/p>\n