Migrant crossings: 60% of people are from Albania says expert

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GB News Home and Security Editor Mark White described the astronomical increases in Albanian migrants attempting to cross the Channel in light of what looks already to be a potentially record-breaking year for migrant crossings. Roughly 23,500 people have crossed into the UK this year in small boats, just 5,000 less than last year with four months in hand, and Albinians have made up roughly 6,000 of those, Mr White claimed. It comes as home secretary Priti Patel signed a deal with the Albanian government to step-up police activity and fast-track removals to stop the mass migration. 

Mr White said: “I would describe this as a crisis within a crisis. We are already dealing with a small boat crisis. Within that, now, are the growing numbers of Albanians, very significant indeed, to the point where the home secretary has signed an emergency agreement with Albania to try to rapidly remove those who have no right to be here. 

“To give you an illustration of the volume that is coming here, 23,500 people have arrived by small boat this year. Now, that compares to 28,500 in the whole of last year. 

“Of those currently, roughly 6,000 for the year so far have been Albanians. 

“Now, to give you an idea of just how much the number of Albanians on these boats has grown, in 2020 there were just 50 Albanians who were detected in small boats.” 

The number of Albanians arriving in the UK on migrant boats crossing the Channel has increased “substantially” over the last few months, the Home Office said.

They claimed that some 2,165 were recorded as arriving between January and June 2022, compared with just 23 detected in the same period the previous year, according to a report published on Thursday.

In response, home secretary Priti Patel has struck a deal with the Albanian government to step-up police activity and fast-track removals in a bid to tackle crossings.

“The number of Albanians arriving on small boats has increased substantially over the last quarter. Prior to this point, Albanians were not commonly detected on small boats”, the findings said.

In the first half of this year, over half (51 percent) of small boat arrivals were from just three nationalities – Albanian (18 percent), Afghan (18 percent) and Iranian (15 percent).

Albanian police could be brought to the UK to observe migrant arrivals and pass on intelligence as part of the agreement between Ms Patel and Bledi Cuci, Albania’s minister for interior affairs.

The pair have also pledged to speed up removals of Albanians with no right to be in the UK from next week.

Fewer than 1,000 Albanian offenders have been deported from the UK since a removals agreement was signed last year.

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The Home Office said Albania is a “safe and prosperous country” and many nationals “are travelling through multiple countries to make the journey to the UK” before making “spurious asylum claims when they arrive”.

Since January 2018, Iranian (28 percent) and Iraqi (20 percent) nationals have represented nearly half of all small boat arrivals, according to the Home Office report.

Iranians represented the majority of small boat arrivals in 2018 (80 percent) and 2019 (66 percent), but since 2020 a “greater mix of nationalities have been detected making the crossing”, with “Albanian and Afghan nationals becoming notably more common in 2022”.

The number of Afghans arriving on small boats has increased since the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul last year.

There were 2,066 arrivals between January and June 2022, compared to just 247 in January to June 2021. There were 1,437 Afghan arrivals in the whole of 2021, 494 in 2020, 69 in 2019 and 3 in 2018, the figures showed.

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