UK Sees Record Illegal Channel Crossings Under New Minister
11th November 2025
More migrants have crossed the Channel illegally during Shabana Mahmood’s short tenure as home secretary than under any other home secretary since 2022—despite Labour’s promises to crack down on border crossings.
Mahmood has overseen 10,000 crossings in just 66 days, outdoing her Labour predecessor, Yvette Cooper, by just over a week.
The last time this record was beaten (in an impressive 43 days!) was when Conservative Suella Braverman was home secretary in 2022, which is ironic given all of her (questionable) talk about the importance of getting a grip on mass—legal and illegal—migration.
The Mail described Mahmood’s effort as “grim,” noting that under her watch, 2,000 migrants crossed the Channel from France—a safe country—in just four days. Over the same period, deportations of foreign criminals have been minimal, despite ministers proving late last month that they could remove more migrants if they really wanted to.
A government source also told the paper that the record was “unfortunate,” which is somewhat of an understatement.