More Channel migrants have come from Vietnam this year than any other country, ... trends now
More Channel migrants have come from Vietnam this year than any other country - with ministers blaming the surge for driving a record number of arrivals.
A total of 534 migrants in 10 boats reached Britain on Sunday, taking the total number this year to 6,265 – 28 per cent higher than by this time in 2023 and seven per cent up on 2022.
The number of Vietnamese people making the perilous journey more than doubled last year from 505 in 2022 to 1,323, and the increase has continued this year to make them the biggest cohort of Channel migrants. Last year it was Afghans.
Rishi Sunak's spokesman yesterday gave the 'increasing number of Vietnamese' as one reason why the government's Safety of Rwanda Bill needed to be passed by Parliament to 'save the lives of those being exploited by people-smuggling gangs'.
'It's an unacceptable number of people who continue to cross the Channel and that demonstrates exactly why we must pass this Bill and get flights off the ground as soon as possible and provide the important deterrent that the Bill will provide,' he said.
Vietnam was the most common source country for Channel migrants this year. Pictured are migrants landing at Dover on Sunday after arriving by small boat
A migrant boat in the Channel on Sunday (bottom right) alongside two Border Force clippers and a P&O ferry in the background
Vietnamese migrants are often trafficked by gangs to work in nail bars, cannabis farms and the sex trade.
This has meant crime bosses have tended to use lorries instead of small boats - where passengers are more likely to be detained by Border Force - but tighter security has made the cross-Channel route increasingly common.
The death of 39 Vietnamese migrants in a refrigerated lorry trailer in Essex in 2019 may have also persuaded more people to take the sea route.
Mimi Vu, a trafficking and modern slavery expert in Vietnam, said some people pay as much as £20,000 to trafficking gangs.
She told the Telegraph that the interest on these payments could be as much as 1,000 per cent - allowing gangsters to keep them in a state of servitude as they repay the eyewatering bill.
Home Secretary James Cleverly spoke to his Vietnamese counterpart yesterday as officials seek to conclude a new agreement to curb the number of people leaving Vietnam for the UK.
The Southeast Asian country will be one of those targeted for a Home Office scheme that will see local influencers paid to dissuade their compatriots from entering Britain illegally.
Vietnam has a booming economy but poverty rates remain high in poorer regions, and it is from these areas that most illegal migrants come from.
Downing Street has admitted the number of Channel crossings this year was 'unacceptable' and said it showed the need for the new Safety of Rwanda Bill – which has been held up by Government defeats in the House of Lords – to deter more people from making the crossing.
The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'It's an unacceptable number of people
