Hundreds of people, including age-disputed children, have been charged and convicted of ‘illegal arrival’ in the UK by small boat
A new report from Border Criminologies and the Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford – produced in collaboration with Humans for Rights Network, Captain Support UK, and Refugee Legal Support – documents the ongoing criminalisation of people seeking asylum in the UK.
You can download the 26-page report here.
The report covers the period from February 2024 to April 2025. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the use of criminal offences introduced by the Conservative government's Nationality and Borders Act (NABA) 2022 to prosecute individuals arriving in the UK via small boats, and it details how this practice has continued under the Labour government.
Drawing on the collective work of a network of UK-based organisations operating between October 2022 and April 2025, the report builds on the findings of the February 2024 report "No such thing as justice here": The criminalisation of people arriving to the UK on 'small boats'. The two reports should be read together for a fuller picture.
For their new report, the authors combine casework data from Humans for Rights Network, Captain Support UK, and Refugee Legal Support with court observations, Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, and qualitative interviews. Eight people with lived experience of being imprisoned after arriving in the UK by small boat were interviewed, including one child who was detained in an adult prison.
According to the report, at least 556 people were charged with 'illegal arrival' after arriving in the UK by small boat between the introduction of new offences under the Nationality and Borders Act on 28 June 2022 and the end of 2024, with 455 people convicted. In many cases, prosecutions targeted individuals identified as having steered (or piloted) the dinghy, including children with unresolved age disputes. The report notes that most of those prosecuted had active asylum claims and many were also victims of trafficking, torture, or modern slavery.
Since coming to power in July 2024, the Labour government has continued the practice of arresting and prosecuting people for 'illegal arrival'. In the first quarter of 2025, 14 people were charged, including 8 accused of piloting, and 36 were convicted. The Government's recent Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill also seeks to expand the range of criminal offences used against both smugglers and asylum seekers, with report saying the Bill represents a further step in the criminalisation of seeking asylum.
Section 1 of the report provides a detailed update on the ongoing criminalisation of asylum seekers for 'illegal arrival' and 'facilitating arrival' since February 2024. It examines how individuals are selected for prosecution, and traces the process from arrival and arrest through to appearances at magistrates' courts in Kent, sentencing, and eventual imprisonment.
The authors highlight: "In our collective casework experience, most people arrested for 'illegal arrival' from a 'small boat' did not know this could happen to them, and had no knowledge that, for example, steering the dinghy could result in their arrest. None of the eight people interviewed for this report knew they would be put in prison. Given this lack of knowledge, this clearly undermines the previous government's argument that 'illegal arrival' would act as a 'deterrent'."
Section 2 of the report focuses specifically on the prosecution of children whose ages are disputed. It documents at least 29 such cases to date, with 28 involving children arrested after arriving in the UK by small boat. The majority of these children (22 out of 29) are from Sudan or South Sudan. As the authors stress, the figures are likely an undercount due to systemic failures in data transparency across institutions including the Home Office, CPS, prisons, and the Ministry of Justice.
Many of the age-disputed children prosecuted for 'illegal arrival' were treated as adults throughout the criminal process. Since their previous report in February 2024, the authors identified two more children who had been convicted and imprisoned in adult facilities. While the Home Office made several changes to policies and guidance around age assessments after February 2024, the report says these remain insufficient, as children continue to be imprisoned in adult prisons in 2025.
The report challenges government claims that prosecutions for 'illegal arrival' or 'facilitation' act as a deterrent, noting there is no evidence to support this justification. Most people crossing the Channel are either unaware of the offences or undeterred by them, as is the case in other border contexts worldwide.
Rather than targeting those who profit from people smuggling, prosecutions continue to fall disproportionately on the most vulnerable. As the authors stress: "The government's narrative that only the 'most egregious' immigration offenders will be prosecuted is false. One of the ongoing key findings from our research is that people with ongoing asylum claims, and victims of trafficking, continue to be prosecuted for how they arrive."
In concluding, the report calls for an immediate end to the practice of criminalising people for how they enter the UK to seek asylum.