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Lam Nguyen

Aidan Jones

Riots by far-right mobs whipped up by misinformation and festering anger at immigration are sweeping across the United Kingdom, bringing fresh jeopardy to the Vietnamese and other Asian migrants trying to reach the country in their thousands each year.
Between 2018 and 2023, more than 3,500 Vietnamese people arrived undocumented on “small boats” across the channel separating France from southern England, according to UK Home Office data, putting Vietnam in the top 10 countries of illegal arrivals by sea.
Afghans, Iranians, Turks and Iraqis lead the number of boat arrivals.
All of their journeys are laced with risk. From long treacherous travel through Europe, dangerous boat crossings in dinghies from France – or hidden in lorries – to sham marriages to British citizens and exploitation on arrival in low-paid, or unpaid, work in nail bars and farms.
Once there, hostility is on the rise, including the threat of deportation by immigration authorities in a country where “small boats” have become shorthand by right-wing politicians and media for a nation being “overrun” by migrants through open borders.

Vietnamese agents moving people from poor parts of the Southeast Asian country to the UK have told This Week in Asia that it is no longer worth it, or are warning their customers of the extreme risks ahead if they are determined to make the journey.
“At this time you should not go to the UK. It’s a waste of money,” one agent said, requesting anonymity given the illegality of his business.
“I just helped someone return to Vietnam from there. I am no longer taking people to the UK. If they can’t make it and I still take their money, I will lose my credibility.”
The anti-immigrant riots across the UK in recent days led by far-right mobs were sparked by misinformation across social media, with some posts falsely naming the killer of three young girls in a stabbing spree last Monday in Southport as a Muslim illegal migrant to the UK who arrived by boat.
The claim was swiftly debunked by the UK’s Home Office, but that has failed to douse the violence as mobs attacked police stations, torched cars and targeted asylum seeker accommodation throughout the weekend.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned “far-right thuggery” after violent mobs in the northern town of Rotherham attempted to set fire to a hotel housing asylum seekers, warning those who had taken part in riots would “regret” their actions.

Big risks with small boats
His weeks-old Labour government has inherited the issue of “small boat” arrivals.
It swiftly scrapped an expensive and much-pilloried scheme under the preceding Conservative administration to deport irregular migrants to Rwanda.
But the new Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has already turned to get-tough messaging on illegal migration.
Vietnamese arrivals are specifically in the firing line, with car washes, nail bars and beauty salons where many Vietnamese migrants work on low pay facing raids in a summer crackdown.
Speaking to The Sun newspaper in mid-July, Cooper said a new border security command would also go after the “criminal gangs to stop the supply chains, stop boats arriving to smash these smuggler gangs … who are making hundreds of millions of pounds of profit”.
Forty-six “foreign criminals and immigration offenders” were deported to East Timor and Vietnam on July 25, the Home Office said, in the first returns to Vietnam since 2022.
The charter flight took off on the same day a gang of British people smugglers was jailed after trying to hide two Vietnamese migrants in a hidden compartment of its camper van.
A deal was penned between Westminster and Hanoi to increase cooperation to smash people smuggling to the UK.

But Vietnamese TikTok remained awash with images of Vietnamese migrants in France pulling dinghies along muddy sands in attempts to cross the channel, or purported undocumented migrants dragging luggage through sodden parts of England once they arrived.
Vietnamese migrants and agents told This Week in Asia that the route to the UK, many aiming for work in nail salons, starts with legitimate arrivals by plane in Hungary, Poland or Austria. Some stay and secure documents – legally or otherwise – to work in Eastern Europe. But those with family or community networks offering jobs in the UK push on with a 10-hour bus journey to the French coast.
“They wait in a group of about a dozen in a hostel for about a week, before starting the journey to England,” said one migrant in Europe who gave his name as Trung, from Ha Tinh province.
The risks multiply as the police and border forces ply the coasts, while crossing is extremely dangerous – the bodies of 39 Vietnamese were found suffocated in a lorry in English county Essex in 2019 – and the price tag of around €5,000 (US$5,470) means taking on loans for uncertain promises of riches ahead.
“If the police crack down on the nail salon, the people working there will be affected, not the people at home,” Trung added. “People in Vietnam are still coming. Because they are clueless about the struggles in the UK.”


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UK anti-immigrant riots ramp up risks for undocumented Vietnamese seeking better pay

Fireworks are thrown towards police during an anti-immigration demonstration in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England, on Sunday. Photo: dpa

Travellers and freight container lorries arrive at the Port of Dover ferry terminal on the southeast coast of England on July 31. Hostility is on the rise over fears that Britain is being “overrun” by migrants through open borders. Photo: AFP

British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper (left) looks at flower tributes left at the scene of a stabbing attack on Hart Street in Southport, Britain, on July 30. Photo: EPA-EFE

A screenshot of a video on Vietnamese TikTok of undocumented migrants dragging luggage through an area of England. Photo: TikTok

UK’s Starmer condemns attack on asylum seeker hotel as far-right violence spreads

Protestors throw a garbage bin on fire outside a hotel in Rotherham, Britain. Photo: Reuters

The violence is the worst in England in more than a decade. Photo: Reuters

Scenes outside the hotel in Rotherham. Photo: Reuters

A car burns during an anti-immigration protest in Middlesbrough, England. Photo: PA via AP

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Protestors remonstrate with police during the ‘Enough is Enough’ demonstration outside the entrance to 10 Downing Street in London on Wednesday, held in reaction the government’s response to the fatal stabbings of children in Southport. Photo: AFP

People assemble at the start of the ‘Enough is Enough’ protest in Whitehall, London on Wednesday. Photo: PA Wire / dpa

Police clash with protesters in Whitehall, London on Wednesday. Photo: PA via AP

Police stand guard outside the Southport Islamic Society Mosque in Southport, northwest England, on Wednesday a day after clashes following a deadly knife attack. Photo: AFP

The three girls who died in the attack, from left, Elsie Dot Stancombe, Bebe King and Alice Dasilva Aguiar. Photo: Merseyside Police / Handout via Reuters

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Instagram/ @taylorswift

Taylor Swift’s message on Instagram following a deadly stabbing in the UK. Photo: Instagram@taylorswift

Emergency services work near the scene of a knife attack where two children died and nine were injured. Photo: dpa

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British forensics officers work on the truck, which was found to contain the bodies of 39 people, at an industrial estate east of London on October 23, 2019. Photo: AFP

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Defendants are seen during a trial in Ha Tinh province against those involved in the deaths of 39 migrants found in a refrigerated truck in Britain last year. Photo: AFP

FILE PHOTO: Tran Thi Hien, mother of Anna Bui Thi Nhung, one of 39 Vietnamese people found dead in a truck near London last year, cries while following an ambulance carrying her daughter's coffin during the funeral ceremony at her village in Nghe An province, Vietnam November 30, 2019. REUTERS/Kham/File Photo

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Vietnam among top 10 countries of illegal arrivals by sea, putting its nationals in firing line as UK gets tough on unauthorised migrants


Vietnam among top 10 countries of illegal arrivals by sea, putting its nationals in firing line as UK gets tough on unauthorised migrants.


UK anti-immigrant riots ramp up risks for undocumented Vietnamese seeking better pay

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}Vietnam among top 10 countries of illegal arrivals by sea, putting its nationals in firing line as UK gets tough on unauthorised migrants

Vietnam among top 10 countries of illegal arrivals by sea, putting its nationals in firing line as UK gets tough on unauthorised migrants