The head of the UN refugee agency has made a sensational claim that the Channel migration crisis is not as bad as many are making it out to be.
Filippo Grandi said the arrival of around 40,000 small boats in the UK in 2024 was equivalent to daily arrivals in some countries around the world.
This comes after a French border chief expressed similar sentiments.
Some 41,000 migrants have crossed the Channel this year, leading to claims that efforts to stop small boats are failing.
Mr. Grandy claimed politicians were partly to blame for the public’s negative attitudes towards migrants.
He said, “There is nothing that creates a hostile environment [much like] a badly organised welcome, and unfortunately, we have seen that.”
In the UK, the arrival of small boats and the challenges associated with managing these individuals, along with certain decisions made by the government that it is now attempting to rectify, have contributed to a misconception that this situation results in chaos.
Mr Grandy said the 36,816 people who crossed the Channel last year were equivalent to the “daily arrival” of refugees in countries like Chad.
He said that immigration to Western countries needed to be “better managed,” and this included deporting people who did not qualify for asylum.
When this lack of action occurs, people claim there is no leadership amidst the chaos, deeming it dangerous and advocating for those who say, ‘Withdraw, build walls, don’t save people in the ocean.’
Xavier Delrieu, head of the office fighting migrant smuggling, said the number of small boats in Britain was “not very large.”
He said, “There were 636 successful crossings in 2025 compared to 633 last year. This is not massive. On the other hand, the number of migrants who managed to cross is 39,000, whereas in 2024 we were at 36,000 because there are many more migrants per boat, an average of 62 in 2025 against 53 last year.
Despite 200 days of favourable weather, police pressure on the beaches has prevented 58% of crossings to date.
“If one day we get to 80%, it will become much less profitable for these networks.”
Mr Delrieu also told local newspaper Lavoix du Nord: “The phenomenon of taxi boats spoils these good results a little, which is why we must block maximum traffic to prevent it from harming us. If we could, we would be more efficient.” Asked whether the England-France border was too weak, he said, “We can’t let all migrants go to England either.
“In 2018, small boats did not exist; it was the Iranians who created this practice.
“In 2020, the situation evolved due to the health crisis.” The networks could no longer go through the trucks and they came back to the small boat; they saw that it was profitable, with a success rate of up to 70% in the beginning.
“The Kurds took over this area because they were at the forefront of this crime; it gave them an opportunity to make a huge profit quickly and they kept at it.”
