Total number of illegals up 70,000 a year, report claims

THE number of illegal immigrants here is soaring by 70,000 a year, a campaign group warns.

Migration Watch UK said its analysis points to a gross annual addition of nearly 105,000, made up of 83,600 visa overstayers, 12,850 people detected arriving illicitly and 8,500 failed asylum seekers who do not leave.

Taking into account an average of 35,000 departures a year, this gives net growth of nearly 70,000.

Migration Watch chairman Lord Green of Deddington said: “The scale of illegal immigration is a scandal that has gone on for too long. It undermines public acceptance of

genuine refugees and is damaging to community relations generally.”

The group’s report recommends a £100million boost to immigration enforcement, a “major increase” in the size of the detention estate and the introduction of ID cards.

Migration Watch acknowledged that its figure is a “rough estimate” that “depends upon a range of assumptions”. In 2005, a Home Office assessment estimated the unauthorised migrant population here in 2001 at 430,000.

Last year, a former immigration enforcement chief claimed the figure was likely to top a million.

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said: “We do not recognise the estimate provided by Migration Watch UK. By its very nature, it is not possible to estimate with any confidence the size of the illegal population.”