The United Kingdom (UK) said on Wednesday that it will tighten immigration regulations to make it nearly hard for unlawful migrants arriving on small boats to subsequently obtain citizenship.
Migrants arriving by sea or hiding in the back of vehicles will most likely be denied citizenship under new guidelines.
“This guidance further strengthens measures to make it clear that anyone who enters the UK illegally, including small boat arrivals, faces having a British citizenship application refused,” a Home Office spokesperson said.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government is under pressure to curb migration after Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party garnered around four million votes during the last general election—an unparalleled haul for a far-right party.
Some Labour MPs, however, have questioned the rule change.
“If we give someone refugee status, it can’t be right to then refuse them a route to become a British citizen,” wrote lawmaker Stella Creasy on X, adding that the policy would leave them “forever second class.”
Free Movement, an immigration law blog, said the changes had the potential to “block a large number of refugees from naturalizing as British citizens, effective immediately.”.
The amended guidance was deemed “incredibly spiteful and damaging to integration” by it.
The announcement comes as MPs this week debated the government’s proposed Border Security, Asylum, and Immigration Bill, which aims to empower law enforcement officers with “counter-terror style powers” to break up gangs transporting irregular migrants across the Channel.
Legal and undocumented immigration—both presently running at historically high levels—was a prominent political issue at the July 2024 poll that propelled Starmer to power.
When he took office, he quickly reversed his Conservative predecessor Rishi Sunak’s intention to dissuade unauthorized migration to the UK by deporting new entrants to Rwanda.
Instead, he promised to “smash the gangs” and reduce the numbers down.
According to preliminary estimates from the interior ministry, 36,816 persons were discovered in the Channel between England and France in 2024, a 25% rise from 29,437 who entered the previous year.
