UK to deny citizenship to migrants arriving in boats, vehicles in tougher crackdown

On Wednesday, the British government announced that it was strengthening immigration laws to make it nearly hard for unauthorised migrants who come in tiny boats to obtain citizenship in the future.

According to the new guidelines, citizenship will typically be denied to migrants who arrive by sea or who are concealed in the back of cars.

According to a Home Office spokeswoman, "this guidance further strengthens measures to make it clear that anyone who enters the UK illegally, including small boat arrivals, faces having their British citizenship application refused."

Following Nigel Farage's anti-immigration Reform UK party's historic victory of about four million votes in the most recent general election, Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour government is facing pressure to curtail migration.

However, the rule modification has been questioned by some Labour MPs.

“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 naturalising as British citizens, effective immediately”.

It called the updated guidance “incredibly spiteful and damaging to integration”.

The announcement comes after MPs this week debated the government’s new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, designed to give law enforcement officials “counter-terror style powers” to break up gangs bringing irregular migrants across the Channel.

Legal and undocumented immigration — both currently running at historically high levels — was a major political issue at the July 2024 poll that brought Starmer to power.

When he took office, he promptly abandoned the idea of his Conservative predecessor, Rishi Sunak, to deport newcomers to Rwanda in order to discourage unauthorised migration to the UK.

Rather, he promised to "smash the gangs" in order to reduce the numbers.

According to preliminary data from the interior ministry, 36,816 individuals were found in the Channel between England and France in 2024, a 25% rise over the 29,437 who entered in 2023.