The UK has recorded 5,847 migrant arrivals in 2025, including 335 on Sunday who crossed the English channel, thus setting a new record for the first three months of the year.

Provisional Home Office figures have shown that the migrant arrivals are already higher than the 5,435 that arrived in January, February, and March of 2024.

This is a record for the first quarter of a calendar year.

It was also well above the 3,793 arrivals in the first three months of 2023 and the 4,548 in the equivalent period in 2022.

The cumulative total for 2025 of 5,847 people is up 36 per cent on this point last year (4,306) and 59 per cent higher than at this stage in 2023 (3,683), according to the PA news agency analysis report.

The figures came as the government vowed to crack down on people smuggling with plans to introduce new criminal offences and hand counter-terror-style powers to police and enforcement agencies to curb channel crossings.

Last week, the French coastguard confirmed two migrants died in two days attempting to cross the channel on Wednesday and Thursday.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has reported more migrant deaths, believed to be linked to attempts to travel from mainland Europe to the UK this year.

“We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.

“The people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay.

“We will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice,” a Home Office spokesperson said.

(dpa/NAN)