Skip to main content

Undocumented Migrants

Question for Home Office

UIN 221669, tabled on 14 February 2019

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer 12 February 2019 to Question number 217557 on undocumented migrants, what estimate he has made of the number of migrants entering the UK illegally in each year since 2010.

Answered on

19 February 2019

Border Force do not routinely publish this level of data on clandestines, as this could compromise immigration controls and impact on national security.

I refer the Rt. Hon member for Dover to the answer of 12 February which states:

The Home Office works closely with partners in the UK and overseas to strike people smuggling at source – identifying and dismantling the organ-ised crime groups that facilitate illegal immigration. Additionally, the UK works abroad to reduce factors that may push or force people to attempt such journeys - through creating jobs, tackling modern slavery, providing education and delivering life-saving humanitarian assistance in response to conflicts and natural disasters.

In November a new UK-France Coordination and Information Centre opened in Calais to strengthen our joint efforts to tackle all kinds of crimi-nality at the border. Border Force is working alongside Police Aux Fron-tieres as part of a 24/7 operation to help prevent illegal attempts to cross the shared border and exchange intelligence between UK and French agencies to combat cross-border criminality.

Despite our successes in preventing attempts to enter the UK illegally, we are not complacent. We will continue to work closely with our French coun-terparts to maintain border security and keep legitimate passengers and trade moving.

At juxtaposed controls and ports around the country, Border Force officers use some of the most advanced detection technology available to find and stop migrants attempting to reach the UK illegally.

We have also invested tens of millions of pounds in new infrastructure to enhance border security, with all freight vehicles entering the UK screened for people being smuggled into the UK using a range of techniques, which include using carbon dioxide detectors and motion sensors as well as sniff-er dogs to detect clandestine on board lorries.

We have taken steps to address the possibility that there may be a dis-placement of clandestine migrant activity towards smaller and less fre-quented ports, as enhanced controls at the juxtaposed ports have become increasingly effective.

Answered by

Home Office