Illegal Border Crossings in 2018
In 2018, the number of illegal border-crossings at Europe’s external borders − at an estimated 150,000 − was at its lowest in five years. This drop was caused mainly by the Central Mediterranean route to Italy seeing the lowest number of irregular entries since 2012. However, the number of migrants taking the Western and Eastern Mediterranean routes increased in 2018, with the Western Mediterranean route now being the most active migratory route into Europe.