Rising cost of benefits for asylum claimants
1. The number of people in asylum-related accommodation has tripled in the past decade – from 21,000 in 2012 to 64,000 in the year to September 2021. The government has projected the number could rise to as high as 80,000 by Spring 2022 – an estimate that far outstrips the previous expected figure of 70,000 by 2029 (revealed just […]
Resettlement of Afghan citizens to the UK
Summary 1. The planned resettlement to the UK of between 20,000 and 30,000 Afghan citizens is a major event, comparable in scale to 20,000-30,000 Ugandan Asians taken in by Britain in 1972. (Syrian refugee resettlement since 2011 has been on a similar scale). Estimates of the cost of the Afghan resettlement ranges up to £2.5 billion over […]
An Asylum System Overwhelmed and Abused
Summary 1. The asylum system is being overwhelmed following a rapid rise in the number of claims (most of which have been submitted by ‘clandestine’ entrants), as well as by growing costs, falling productivity, disintegrating enforcement, ballooning backlogs and significant (and, according to the government, “increas[ing]”) abuse. We estimate that, should Channel crossings be able to […]
What happens to those crossing the Channel illegally?
1. Illegal Channel crossings in small boats are becoming more frequent. So far, 2020 has seen well over 4,000 detected arrivals in contrast to just under 1,900 in 2019. There was a record of 235 people detected arriving in a day in August 2020 (see our Channel Tracking Station).[1] In the Channel 2. In most cases, […]
Route to UK citizenship for up to three million people from Hong Kong
Summary 1. China’s Parliament – the National People’s Congress – has approved a proposal to impose a new National Security law for Hong Kong. In response, the UK government said, on 29 May, that if China ‘continued down this path’, it would offer 350,000 British National (Overseas) – BNO – passport holders in the territory a ‘pathway […]
The History of Immigration to the UK
1. From the first millennium until the Second World War, episodes of immigration were quite small and usually demographically insignificant. Britain is certainly not “a nation of immigrants” as some claim and immigration on the recent and current scale is a new phenomenon. 2. We can measure historic immigration by looking at Census records. The […]
Asylum
1. An “asylum seeker” is a person who has claimed asylum under the 1951 United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees (hereinafter referred to as “the Convention”) on the ground that if he or she is returned to his country of origin he or she has a well-founded fear of persecution on account of […]
Glossary of the Main Legal Words and Expressions used in the Context of Asylum and Immigration
December 2018 Revision It is hoped that users of the Migration Watch website may find this glossary of assistance in reading other papers on the website or other relevant material. The definitions are not intended to be exhaustive or to carry the same authority as a legal practitioner’s work of reference, but simply to be […]
MW435 : Immigration System, Asylum & Policy | Migration Watch UK
EU Migration 1. European Union citizens currently have the right to live and work in other EU countries – a right first established by the Treaty of Rome in the 1950s. (For a short history of the EU see here) EU citizens can now reside legally in the UK as a job-seeker, a worker, a […]
The distinction between asylum seekers and refugees
Revised version August 2017 This paper was originally published in January 2006. In view of the considerable interest which is shown by the frequency of its consultation, it has now been revised and brought up to date. Material relating to migrant flows in 2016 on page 2 has been added by Dr Benedict Greening, Migration […]