Criminalised for checking the weather: New offences come into force for people crossing the Channel

Guest post by Vicky Taylor. Vicky recently completed her PhD at the Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford, where her research focused on the criminalisation of asylum seeking in the UK. She is now a trainee solicitor at Bhatt Murphy. 

A suite of new immigration-related criminal offences came into force in the UK today. These offences were brought quietly into legislation in early December through the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act (BSAIA 2025), despite the UNHCR’s concern that they will target migrants, including refugees and asylum seekers. Building on the foundations set by the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, the new rules expand the state’s powers to criminalise and imprison people making unauthorised journeys to the UK.  

The changes (listed in full below) make it an offence to look up the weather or tide times for the purposes of making a crossing, as well as to refuse assistance in French waters. The criminal investigations will be supported by new powers to seize and search people’s phones upon arrival, also brought into force today, notably without any of the necessary safeguards to ensure searches are fair and legal.  

New data shows that Channel crossings rose again last year, with 41,472 people arriving in 2025 - the highest since 2022. The numbers demonstrate that, despite a years-long campaign to criminalise migrants and ‘stop the boats’, these hostile policies fail to deter people from making the journey. Instead, they represent desperate attempts by successive governments to communicate ‘control’ at the expense of the fundamental rights of people on the move.  

The latest in a line of hostile legislation 

The BSAI Act is the latest in an annual trend of restrictive immigration legislation implemented by the Conservatives, and now Labour, since 2022. These legislative changes progress a longer trend of the criminalisation of migrants in the UK, but mark, in particular, a deliberate attack on people arriving to the UK on inflatable dinghies.  

In 2022, the Nationality and Borders Act (NABA 2022) promised to bring an end to Channel crossings. It attempted to restrict the scope and entitlements of asylum in the UK, including through raising the evidentiary standards for refugee recognition; restricting appeal rights; removing the legislative barriers for outsourcing asylum processing, and expanding the Home Office’s powers to declare asylum claims inadmissible based on transit through safe countries. 

The NABA 2022 also introduced a new criminal offence of ‘illegal arrival’ with a maximum sentence of 4 years imprisonment. Importantly, this new offence was not added to the list of offences for which people can benefit from a ‘refugee defence’ (listed in Section 31 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, which provides a defence for refugees charged with certain offences committed in the course of seeking asylum). As such, the NABA 2022 ensured that everyone arriving without authorisation was committing a criminal offence, including presumptive refugees. In effect, it criminalised asylum seeking in the UK.  

As a result, over 600 people have been arrested, charged, and convicted of ‘illegal arrival’ after arriving on a ‘small boat’ since 28 June 2022.  This is much lower than the total number of people crossing the Channel, with most targeted for having their ‘hand on the tiller’, or for having a ‘previous immigration history’ in the UK.  

Most, if not all, of those convicted had ongoing asylum claims, despite protections built into the Refugee Convention prohibiting states from penalising presumptive refugees. At least 30 children were convicted of ‘illegal arrival’ as adults, with many spending time in adult prison. Victims of modern slavery, trafficking, and torture have also been routinely convicted. A similar number have been convicted for arriving via other routes, including in lorries, cars, and planes. 

As numbers crossing the Channel continued to rise in the year following the NABA 2022, the Illegal Migration Act 2023 (IMA 2023) was rushed through Parliament. Going further than previous legislation, the IMA 2023 ensured that those deemed inadmissible would never have their claims assessed in the UK, could never be granted any form of leave to remain or become British citizens, while also creating a duty on the Home Secretary to remove them.  

This mandatory duty was criticised for effectively creating what the UNHCR termed “an asylum ban – extinguishing the right to seek refugee protection in the UK for those who arrive irregularly.” 

Meanwhile, the UK was trying to make it possible to remove asylum seekers to a third country for both processing and protection. In June 2023, the Court of Appeal found that Rwanda – the only country the UK had managed to agree a third country partnership with – was not a ‘safe third country’ for asylum seekers sent from the UK. Frustrated, the government responded with the Safety of Rwanda Act 2024 (SoRA 2024), which declared that courts must find Rwanda to be ‘safe’, fundamentally challenging the rule of law. 

Labour brought an end to the ‘Rwanda Plan’, but anti-migration rhetoric, practices, and legislation continued apace. Last year, Labour operationalised its ‘one in one out’ deal with France to trade asylum seekers. In the words of Statewatch, “people in exile are no longer seen as subjects of rights, with their vulnerability and uniqueness, but as interchangeable units in a political game.” 

The New Border Security Act and criminal offences 

In December, the BSAIA 2025 received Royal Assent. While the Act fully repealed the SoRA 2024, as well as elements of the IMA 2023, it left some key aspects of the latter act untouched. Notably, the inadmissibility elements of the IMA 2023 remain, as well as the criminal offences within the NABA 2022.  

The BSAIA 2025 introduced ‘counter-terror style powers’ in the form of new criminal offences designed ‘to deter and penalise those involved in organised crime, […] to pursue, disrupt and arrest those responsible’. The following offences are now in force: 

1. New offences of ‘supplying articles for use in immigration crime’: ‘handling articles for use in immigration crime’ hold a maximum sentence of 14 years imprisonment, while the new offence of ‘collecting information for use in immigration crime’ is punishable with up to five years in prison. Concerningly, these offences are moulded on counter-terrorism laws as they expand liability to preparatory activities. They introduce thresholds of suspicion that are ‘exceptional and unusual in criminal law’, and use broad terms that enable anyone arriving on a dinghy to be prosecuted. Despite the UNHCR’s concern that these offences are not compliant with the Smuggling Protocol – which enables prosecutions only for those who seek to obtain financial or material gain from the organisation of migration – no safeguards have been included to prevent the criminalisation of people on the move themselves. Indeed, the CPS has confirmed that simply looking up the weather or tide times, to ensure safer passage, could result in prosecution.  
2. The new offence of ‘endangering life at sea’, where endangerment is defined as an act that causes or creates risk of death, or serious physical or psychological injury, to another person. This offence can only be committed by someone also charged with ‘illegal arrival’, explicitly targeting people on the move, and includes no requirement that the harm was intentional. It is a notably broad offence, intended to increase the sentences of those convicted of ‘illegal arrival’. The Home Office has also clarified that this offence has extraterritorial jurisdiction, meaning it can cover incidents outside of the UK, including those who refuse rescue in French waters.
3. According to the Home Office, a new offence of advertising illegal small boat crossings online will come into force in the next few months, with a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment.  

In a press release issued last week, the Home Office said these offences will “disrupt the running of these criminal business models and sends out a clear message to those involved that they risk imprisonment”. In other words, they argue that these offences will make life more difficult for smugglers, thereby preventing people from crossing the Channel in ‘small boats’.  

This logic is, however, deeply flawed. As David Suber has argued, counter-smuggling measures in the UK and elsewhere are often based on fundamental misconceptions and miscalculations, both about the organisation of journeys as well as migrant decision-making. These misconceptions are intentional and used to justify increasingly hostile measures against a broad range of people involved in supporting those on the move, as well as migrants themselves. Blaming ‘smugglers’ is convenient. It obscure states’ own responsibility for the dangerous conditions created by securitised borders. Instead, the evil image of the ‘smuggler’ enables the state to argue that its measures are not just crucial to protect the British public, but also migrants themselves.  

Yet another failed ‘deterrent’ 

Hundreds of people have been charged with ‘facilitation’ related offences every year across Europe, including migrants and those acting in solidarity with them. These prosecutions have not prevented irregular migration to and through Europe, but instead have increased the risk to life at borders. 

Criminalising the handling of boat motors, for instance, may lead to a shortage of motors in Calais – but there’s no evidence that this will deter people from making crossings, or lead to safer outcomes for those on the move. Intensified policing efforts across Europe resulted in fewer motors reaching the beaches in Northern France last year, and a reduction in the supply of usable dinghies. However, rather than deterring people from crossing, the reduced supply forced more people into a smaller number of crafts, increasing incidences of people being crushed or falling overboard. 

Similarly, it is not clear how making it a criminal offence to gather vital safety information – including about the weather and tides – will reduce the threat to life or deter people from crossing. Evidence from around the world shows that counter-smuggling efforts increase demand for smugglers by making journeys much more difficult for people to navigate alone (see, for instance Luigi Achilli’s analysis of smuggling in the Mediterranean). In the case of this new criminal offence, preventing people from accessing information in order to make decisions about their journeys may well increase the need for a paid facilitator, rather than reducing it.  

It is clear that these offences will not deter people from making dangerous journeys across the Channel. Instead, our already overflowing prisons will be filled with people whose only ‘crime’ is to seek safety in the UK. People continue to cross not because the current ‘deterrents’ are not harsh enough, but because they have few other options to reach safety. 

As the offences come into force, we must continue to pay close attention to how prosecutors apply these broad new powers. Organisations working on the ground to support those criminalised rely on information and funding in order to identify people who have been criminalised and to monitor how the state applies legislation. Among the many tireless groups and organisations in need of our continued support are Captain Support, Humans for Rights Network, and Refugee Legal Support.