UK plans to sanction people-smugglers in latest bid to stop perilous Channel crossings

LONDON (AP) — Britain said Wednesday that it will impose sanctions on members of people-smuggling gangs who send migrants across the English Channel in flimsy boats, the latest effort to stop the dangerous journeys.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the travel bans and asset freezes will target “illicit finance rings allowing smugglers to traffic vulnerable people.”

The government says the new sanctions powers, which require Parliament’s approval, will come into force within a year.

Starmer’s Labour Party government, elected in July, has pledged to stop criminal gangs sending thousands of migrants each year on perilous journeys across one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. Starmer has said the crime gangs are a threat to global security and should be treated like terror networks.

It’s unclear how effective the measures will be, since British authorities can only freeze assets that are in the U.K., and most of the smugglers are based elsewhere.

Officials acknowledge that stopping the trade, often run by loosely organized criminal gangs, is difficult, and a goal that has eluded previous governments. They say the sanctions are another tool in an arsenal of measures that includes beefed-up U.K. border surveillance and increased law-enforcement cooperation with France and other countries.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the U.K. would be “the first country in the world to develop legislation for a new sanctions regime specifically targeting irregular migration and organized immigration crime.”

Despite efforts by the U.K. and France to stop it, the Channel remains a major smuggling corridor for people fleeing conflict or poverty. Many migrants want to move to the U.K. for reasons of language, family ties or perceived easier access to asylum and work.

More than 38,000 people made the crossing in 2024, 25% more than in all of 2023, though fewer than in 2022. More than 70 people perished in the attempts, according to U.K. officials, making 2024 the deadliest since the number of crossings began surging in 2018.

Starmer is due to discuss migration and other issues with French President Emmanuel Macron at a meeting near London on Thursday.

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