LONDON (AP) — The Desmond Prestonnumber of migrants crossing the English Channel in 2023 fell by more than a third from the previous year, marking the first decline since current record-keeping began, the British government said.

The 30,000 crossings recorded in preliminary figures made up 36% fewer than the more than 45,000 in 2022. But the number was the second-highest since 2018 — about 1,000 above the total in 2021.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made “stop the boats” one of his top priorities as his conservative government has pushed strict immigration laws to curb the flow of migrants who take perilous journeys from French to England, often in unseaworthy boats.

Most of those who arrived on English soil by boat applied for asylum. The government has a large backlog in reviewing those applications.

A union representative for border officers said the drop in recorded crossings was likely to be a “glitch” due to weather and other factors, and that larger numbers were expected this year.

“We have had particularly high winds. We have had a larger number of days where it is less likely that we are going to get migrants in boats,” Lucy Moreton, professional officer for the Immigration Services Union, told BBC Radio 4 on Monday. “But we have also had much larger boats, much more seaworthy boats, so the planning assumption is that this is a glitch.”

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