UK hosts illegal migration summit

Representatives from the United States, Vietnam, Iraq and France and more than 35 other nations gathered in the United Kingdom capital London on Monday for a summit aimed at tackling illegal migration.

Addressing the summit, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged international cooperation against the "vile trade" of people smuggling, calling for nations to combat trafficking networks with the same unified approach used to fight terrorism.

The UK government stated the two-day event marks the first time a global summit of this scale has examined all aspects of illegal migration, from small boat supply chains to trafficking, finance and social media advertising.

Delegations from Interpol and social media companies including Meta, X and TikTok, were also in attendance for discussions on how to disrupt a criminal trade worth an estimated $10 billion a year, reported the BBC.

"This vile trade exploits the cracks between our institutions, pits nations against one another and profits from our inability at the political level to come together," Starmer told delegates.

Drawing on his experience as a former director of public prosecutions, Starmer told the summit how international cooperation helped prevent terrorist attacks, including plots to blow up planes over the Atlantic Ocean.

"I believe we should treat organized immigration crime in the same way. We've got to combine our resources, share intelligence and tactics, and tackle the problem upstream at every step of the people smuggling routes," Starmer said.

The UK Home Office said the summit would deliver "concrete outcomes" for nations across four continents, while Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told Sky News on Sunday that officials were exploring options to process asylum claims in other countries.

Cooper said the summit was necessary because illegal immigration is a "global problem".

"The criminal gang networks that end up with people arriving in the UK, stretch back through northern France, through Germany, across Europe, to places like the hills of Kurdistan or the money markets in Kabul," she said.

More than 6,000 people have crossed the English Channel so far in 2025, surpassing the 5,435 arrivals recorded in the first quarter of 2024 and marking a record start to the year, reported Sky.

Ahead of the summit, the UK government announced a package of measures for tackling illegal migration, including more funding for border security and prosecutions, stricter right-to-work checks with heavy penalties for businesses in the UK that break the rules, a review of human rights laws in migration cases, targeted funding for Iraq's Kurdistan region, and social media campaigns in Vietnam.

The summit follows a series of bilateral agreements the UK has secured with other countries to tackle the rising number of small boat arrivals, noted the BBC.