No, the U.K. migration figures have not hit four-year low in September 2024

What's the claim?

A screenshot of an article headlined "Migrant Channel Crossings Fall to Lowest in Four Years Boosting Home Secretary Yvette Cooper" is circulating on social media. The viral screenshot claims the report shows the Labour government's strong action to strengthen Britain's border security, citing the lowest migration figures in September 2024. 

A Facebook user shared the screenshot and wrote, "Well done, Labour, for tackling smuggling gangs. Numbers are the lowest since 2020." Archived versions of similar posts can be viewed here and here.

The claim is also widely circulating on X (formerly Twitter). An archived version of the post can be found here.

Screenshot of claims made online. (Source: Facebook/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, the claim is misleading. We found that the headline is taken from an article published by The Sun, which compares the migration numbers specifically for September from 2022 to 2024. In addition, we found that the lowest figures for migrants' arrival to the U.K. were recorded in February 2022, not September 2024.  

What did we find?

We found that the claim originates from a report by The Sun, whose data is misinterpreted in the viral screenshot. While the headline suggests that migrant channel crossings have fallen to their lowest in four years, the report actually focuses solely on migrant arrival numbers for the month of September from 2020. It reports that 4,190 migrants were recorded in September 2024; the lowest was 1,946 migrants arriving in September 2020. However, The Sun article did not report any annual data in the article.

Logically Facts compared the data shared by The Sun and the official data published by the Home Office (archived here) under the "Small boat activity in the English Channel" section. The time series data for the September months from 2020 to 2024 shows that the migrant arrivals for September 2024 were 4,192; 4,729 in September 2023; 7,964 in September 2022; 4,602 in September 2021; and 1,946 in September 2020. 

While the September 2024 figures are a recent low compared to 2022, 2023, and 2021, they don't represent the annual arrival count over four years.

Further, Logically Facts also analyzed monthly data for each year to determine the months with the lowest migrant arrivals. In January 2021, just 224 arrivals were recorded, and in February 2022, 143 arrivals were recorded. For 2023, March had the fewest arrivals, with 840, while in 2024, February saw the lowest monthly total, with 920 arrivals. Therefore, it confirms that February 2022 had the lowest number of migrant arrivals in the last four years, with just 143 migrants arriving in the country, not September 2024, as claimed in the viral post.

We also compared the migrant arrivals for the first nine months (January to September) of each year since 2020, which showed 25,244 arrivals recorded for 2024, 24,786 in the same period in 2023, and 33,029 arrivals in 2022. Arrivals for 2021 during this period reached 17,084, while 2020 saw the lowest number, with 7,020 arrivals from January to September.

Therefore, it confirms that nine months of data for January to September show 2021 as having the lowest figures, and monthly data shows February 2022 as having the lowest figure for migrants' arrival. 

The verdict

The screenshot of The Sun article, which shows only a headline with limited information, is cropped and shared out of context to claim that September 2024 recorded a four-year low in migrant arrival figures. In fact, the article referred only to September data on migrant arrivals through channel crossings from 2020 to 2024, not annual data.