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

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.

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.”