Almost as many Afghans arriving in Channel crossings as in resettlement schemes

Some 6,042 Afghans were resettled in the year ending March 2024 under the legal routes created by the Home Office since 2021

Almost as many Afghan nationals arrived in the UK having made the dangerous Channel crossing as through the government’s legal routes in the year to March, the latest figures show.

There were 5,662 Afghan nationals coming to the UK having crossed the Channel in that period, plus 350 of what the Home Office described as inadequately documented air arrivals, making a total of 6,012 people.

Meanwhile, 6,042 Afghans were resettled in the same period under the schemes created by the department following the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in 2021.

A total of 1,854 of those came under the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) – which is split into three pathways.

The number resettled under pathway one – for “vulnerable and at-risk” people who arrived in the UK during the evacuation programme in 2021 and those who were eligible but not able to board a flight at that time – was down 91 per cent year-on-year.

Those arrive dropped from 434 in the year ending March 2023, to 40 in the year ending March 2024. The data comes after MPs and Lords called on the Home Office to act faster to bring Afghans on this route to the UK.

The government has previously pledged to establish a route for families who ended up being split apart when some were evacuated initially and loved ones left behind. However this has not yet been set up, leading MPs to criticise the government for leaving Afghans in the UK to face “ongoing uncertainty” and “considerable stress”.

Then-immigration minister Robert Jenrick said in October that a route related to pathway one would allow eligible individuals to refer one spouse or partner and dependent child for resettlement, and that the Government was aiming for referrals to that route in the first half of 2024 “if not sooner”.

Earlier this month a Home Office spokesperson said the department remains “on track to open the route for referrals in the first half of this year”.

The ACRS, which began in January 2022, prioritised people who had assisted UK efforts in Afghanistan as well as vulnerable people, including women and girls at risk, and members of minority groups at risk.

Those arriving under pathway two – for vulnerable refugees referred by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – rose to 623 in the year ending March 2024, from 40 the previous year.

Numbers settled under pathway three – for women and girls at risk and those who supported the UK and international community effort in Afghanistan – rose to 1,191 in the year ending March 2024, from 16 the previous year.

The Arap scheme, which launched in April 2021, is for Afghan citizens who worked for or with the UK Government in Afghanistan.

Arrivals under this scheme were up by a quarter to 4,188 in the year to March 2024.