Irregular border crossings into the European Union dropped by 31 per cent in the first quarter of 2025 to 33,600. The figures, released by Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, appear to show that the EU is getting a grip on illegal immigration.
The gangs in charge of the people-smuggling trade are becoming ever more sophisticated and cunning
But figures can be misleading. The biggest fall in irregular entries was the Western Balkan route, down 64 per cent on the same period in 2024. This is largely attributable to the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the Schengen Zone on 1 January this year. As a result, more border police have been deployed and evidently they’ve been successful in controlling the frontiers. Frontex also said that there was a ‘significant’ drop in migrants crossing the Central Mediterranean in March. That was because of the storms that swept Italy in the second half of the month.
On 13 March, Frontex released figures stating that in the first two months of 2025 the Central Mediterranean route had experienced a 48 per cent rise on a similar period in 2024, with nearly 7,000 migrants crossing. The majority of that number came from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Syria.
The Western African route into Spanish territory dropped by 18 per cent in the first quarter of this year, although it remains the busiest passage into Europe. In January and February, 7,200 migrants arrived in the Canary Islands, most coming from Mali, Senegal, and Guinea. Hundreds more made the journey in the first week of April, attracted by Spain’s pro-migrant Socialist government.
This is not to decry the hard work performed by police and border force personnel in Spain, France and elsewhere in Europe. Last month a two-year investigation involving Spanish and French police resulted in the dismantling of what was described as a ‘well-oiled international organisation’ with hubs in both countries. Nineteen people smugglers were arrested and it is believed they had facilitated the arrival in Europe of a vast number of migrants from the Middle East, North and sub-Saharan Africa.
This is the challenge facing the authorities: the gangs in charge of the booming people-smuggling trade are becoming ever more sophisticated and cunning. InfoMigrants, a European information service about migrants, stated last month that the gangs ‘increasingly use high-speed boats to evade authorities, with crossings costing between €5,000 (£4,300) and €8,000 (£6,900) per person’.
It’s likely, therefore, that the true number of irregular entries into Europe this year is higher than Frontex’s figures as they refer only to the detected entries. How many migrants have been landed undetected by the authorities?
The determination of the gangs is matched by that of the migrants desperate to come to Europe and, more often than not, Britain. So far this year, more than 8,000 have succeeded in crossing the Channel – despite the fact that the police have broken up ten smuggling networks in the first three months of 2025; they dismantled 22 networks in 2024.
French police have noticed the emergence of a new phenomenon in recent months: gangs that are ‘100 per cent African’, but who operate with the blessing of the Albanian and Iraq-Kurdish smugglers, who for years have dominated the trade in illegal immigration.
As I wrote in 2023, the political upheaval in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Niger, would likely have repercussions for Europe’s migrant crisis. The overthrow that year of president Mohamed Bazoum in a military coup deprived the EU of a partner, and consequently Niger has once more become a thriving migrant hub.
A report last week in Le Figaro described how the police and gendarmes on the French coast are now struggling to contain the migrants. One senior officer said: ‘Coming from war-torn countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq, some of them have military experience…we are faced with professionalised, structured networks which, since the end of 2023, have been encouraging migrants to engage in violence that we have never seen before.’Sometimes, added the officer, the violence is accompanied by shouts of ‘Allahu akbar’.
Frontex are doing the best job they can, but those they face are well-organised, battle-hardened and determined. And as the summer approaches, they’ll soon have the weather on their side.