What happens when you land in Britain on a small boat?

The white cliffs of Dover represent the end of a long, dangerous route for tens of thousands of people who travel in small boats across the English Channel.

But while they might have reached their destination, their journey does not end at the Kent coast.

Almost all arrivals will begin the process of claiming asylum, which can take months. At the end of December 2024, just under a third of cases had been waiting for more than a year for an initial decision.

The latest figures show asylum claims reached a record level last year. 125,000 people were awaiting a decision.

So what happens while they wait?

Children who arrive in Dover on small boats without any family members, known as Unaccompanied Child Asylum Seekers (UASCs), will first become Kent County Council's (KCC) responsibility, because that is the county they have arrived in.

In recent years, KCC said it has struggled to cope with the number of children it has to look after.

The National Transfer Scheme was designed to ease the pressure.

It sees other councils around the country take a share of UASCs, equivalent to 0.1% of their population of children.

But the leader of Kent County Council said at times it has become "extremely difficult" to transfer unaccompanied minors to other authorities.

The Home Office is responsible for housing adults and families and in recent years it has had to find extra accommodation to make room for growing numbers.

This includes sites like Napier Barracks, a former military barracks in Folkestone, Kent, and hotels.

But the use of hotels is lower now than it was two years ago.

At the end of December 2024, 38,079 people were living in asylum hotels in the UK.

That is lower than the peak in September 2023, when 56,042 people were in hotels.

Asylum seekers are accommodated all over the country.

The latest Home Office figures from December show the North West had the highest number of asylum seekers receiving Home Office support, followed by London and the West Midlands.

These people face a number of restrictions while they live here, as Dr Ben Brindle from the Migration Observatory explains:

"Most aren't allowed to work, the only people who can are those who have been waiting for a more than a year for their claims to be processed.

"Asylum seekers can't claim benefits either and that's because they are given an allowance of about £50 plus housing costs if needed."

Not all applications are successful. In 2024, 53% of initial asylum claims were rejected. That's higher than 2023, when 33% of claims were rejected.

Those who are granted asylum are given refugee status for five years.

They will have 56 days to move out of their Home Office-funded accommodation, their allowance will stop and they can get a job.

But it's unlikely they'll be able to become a British citizen as the government has recently toughened up rules making it almost impossible for people who have entered the UK illegally via a dangerous route to claim citizenship.

Border Security and Asylum Minister, Angela Eagle, said the government was left a "broken asylum system" and "inherited a huge backlog of asylum claims."

Responding to the latest asylum statistics, she said "asylum decision-making collapsed by 70% in the last few months before the election.

"We've now increased asylum claims in the last three months of [2024]... by 52% so we're beginning to get some order to the system but it will take time to make certain that we can get a grip and start making the system work again."

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp described the figures as "no surprise," saying there was "no deterrent".

Philp added that the blame for the numbers "lies firmly at Labour's feet, who have been slow to act to tackle the crisis unfolding on our border".

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