London: According to Home Office figures made public on Tuesday, 5,049 immigrants have entered the UK this year after travelling across the English Channel.
Three boats carrying 113 migrants were spotted on Monday, which indicates an average of 38 migrants per boat, according to The Independent.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is committed to taking action against migrants who cross the channel illegally in small boats as one of his five top priorities while in office.
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Sunak did, however, acknowledge last week that his radical policy proposals "won't happen overnight" and that he would not be able to commit to having them finished by the time of the subsequent general election.
According to Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, the statistics "show the full scale of the Tory failure to get any grip on channel crossings."
"Instead of any kind of serious plan, all they have to offer is rhetoric and gimmicks," she continued. That Rishi Sunak is breaking his promise to stop the boats this year is not shocking.
Nearly 45,000 migrants have crossed the channel to the UK since the government agreed to send asylum seekers to Rwanda more than a year ago.
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The Home Office's permanent secretary, Matthew Rycroft, acknowledged in November that Rwanda had already received £140 million ($174 million) from Britain as part of the agreement, but he questioned the value of the strategy.
The official spokesman for the prime minister told The Independent: "While we are confident that some of the already introduced elements — stepping up the partnership with the French government to increase intercepts in the channel — are having an impact, we know that this will be an incremental approach."
In regards to the effects of the government's policy change announcement, the spokesman added that it was "too early to draw conclusions at this stage" "given that we know the impact the weather can have on weekly, even daily, crossings."
It will be the culmination of all the various policies we are introducing, he continued, which will have the lasting effect the public desires.
A group of asylum seekers were given permission by London's High Court in January to file an appeal against a decision that the United Kingdom's migration policy to Rwanda is legal.
Sunak stated on Thursday that he anticipates a legal battle over the "novel, untested," and "ambitious" Illegal Migration Bill that is currently being considered by the legislature.
He also stated that there "may well be" an interim judgement from the European Court of Human Rights against the policy, as there was with the Rwandan programme.
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According to The Independent, Braintree District Council declared on Wednesday that it had won an injunction hearing at the High Court and that the Home Office had agreed to delay moving any migrants to the Wethersfield site until after that time.