Asylum claims near 20-year peak at 37,562
Migrant Channel crossings drive increase with 25,700 so far this year, three times the total for whole of 2020
ASYLUM claims are at their highest in nearly two decades amid a surge in Channel crossings.
Home Office figures show that 37,562 applications were made in the UK in the year to September, up 18 per cent on the previous year and the most since 2004.
Cases awaiting decisions have also hit a high not seen since 2010, with 67,547 awaiting a decision.
A spike in small boats carrying migrants has driven the increase with nearly all who reach the UK claiming asylum. More than 25,700 people have crossed so far this year, three times the total for the whole of 2020. The top five nationalities for asylum applications were: Iran (6,002), Eritrea (4,412), Albania (4,010), Iraq (3,042) and Syria (2,303).
The weather has been less stormy than usual this autumn, meaning crossings have continued past the summer.
Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, said there have been so many attempting to cross this year because France is “overwhelmed” by people who have taken advantage of passport-free travel across European borders to reach the UK.
The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford said the increase in crossings was a “key factor in pushing up the number of asylum applications in the third quarter of 2021”.
The report comes after at least 27 people died this week after their dinghy capsized near Calais en route to the UK.
Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, urged France to step up efforts to stem the flow after the deaths on Wednesday, while Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said France would not allow the Channel to become a “cemetery”.
The Government said: “A significant proportion of asylum claims in the last year should have been made in a first safe country, rather than people risking their lives making dangerous crossings, facilitated by people smugglers. Wednesday’s tragedy serves as the starkest possible reminder of the dangers of this.”
They added that the Nationality and Borders Bill, which aims to deter illegal entry into the UK and support those in genuine need of asylum, will help “break the business model of criminal trafficking networks”.
Alp Mehmet, the chairman of Migration Watch UK, said the number of applications could be far higher than the figures suggest. “When family and dependants are added, the total number is likely to be closer to 50,000,” he said.
“Asylum alone has added the population of a major town – requiring housing, NHS access, schools and leading to more congestion. That is the reality of high levels of immigration of which asylum is a part.”
The number of applications made this year exceeds the 36,546 made at the peak of the European migration crisis between 2015 and 2016.
It is the highest since 2004, when 39,746 applied as 10 countries including Poland, Slovakia and Hungary joined the EU, boosting migration to the UK, particularly from Eastern Europe.
In 2015, more than a million migrants and refugees crossed into Europe, prompting division in the EU over how to resettle the arrivals. The majority arrived by sea, but some travelled by land through Turkey and Albania.
Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Eritrea and Yemen are some of the countries most commonly travelled from by migrants coming to the UK.
An analysis by the Refugee Council found that between January and September 2021, 6,598 people’s cases were reviewed to determine whether they were inadmissible into the UK because they had passed through a safe country.
However, only 48 of those were served with inadmissibility decisions, highlighting the difficulty in proving that migrants have bypassed safe countries on their way to the UK.
More than 4,500 migrants who reached the UK this year have been flagged as having potentially “inadmissible” asylum claims but have not been deported by the Home Office.
Last week, Ms Patel vowed to clamp down by holding migrants in purposebuilt reception centres similar to those being built for asylum seekers in Greece. They will have to obey strict rules or risk losing their right to claim asylum. The system came under scrutiny as it emerged that the man who detonated a bomb in Liverpool two weeks ago had not been deported despite having his asylum claim rejected.
Asylum seekers are getting tattoos of crucifixes and Jesus to “prove” they have converted to Christianity and cannot be returned to the Middle East.
Separate data yesterday showed net migration to the UK at its lowest in almost 30 years. Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that it fell from 249,000 in 2011 to 34,000 in 2020, the lowest figure since 1993.
‘Asylum alone has added the population of a major town – requiring housing, NHS access and schools’