Updated 28 June 2022: Freemovement: Briefing: the real state of the UK asylum system
Page contents
- Number of asylum claims
- Delays
- Decisions
- Age disputes
- Detention
- Removals and returns
- Resettlement
- Conclusion
The United Kingdom’s asylum system has been described by the current Home Secretary as “broken”. There is some truth in that statement. In many ways, the asylum system is now in a parlous state. What the Home Secretary does not say is that it was she who broke it.
[…] The picture the data presents is of a system that has been overwhelmed. Not by new arrivals but by mismanagement. The people arriving to claim asylum are overwhelmingly refugees and they will, eventually, build new lives for themselves in this country. But they must endure bureaucratic purgatory first, seemingly to cleanse them of the supposed sin of irregular arrival. Waiting times for a decision run to years, during which time these refugees are forbidden from work, and forced to endure destitution-level support and temporary accommodation. As well as being bad for the refugees, it is causes an unnecessary charge on the public purse. And then, at the end of the process, despite all the tough posturing by the Home Secretary, almost no-one is removed anyway.
Read more here: https://freemovement.org.uk/briefing-the-sorry-state-of-the-uk-asylum-system/
30 November 2020: The backlog of asylum cases has reached alarming new heights, with over 46,000 people now waiting more than six months for an initial decision on their asylum application. The figures as of 30 September 2020, which were released today, show a 19% increase from three months earlier and a 76% rise since September 2019. he Home Office has used the backlog as a pretext to accommodate asylum seekers in converted military barracks in Wales and Kent. But the backlog is not an unforeseeable pandemic-induced crisis: it had been rising for several years, at a faster rate than the increase in asylum applications over the same period. Applications did rise by around a third between 2017 and 2019, but the backlog doubled.
The pandemic has made a bad situation worse.
Asylum applications have fallen 8% in the past 12 months, but social distancing and other constraints on Home Office activity have reduced the rate at which it processes asylum claims. The number of asylum decisions (grants plus refusals) has crashed in the past six months, from over 8,000 a quarter to around 3,500. The department is turning to commercial contractors to pitch in with interviews. Medical professionals have been sounding the alarm about conditions at the Penally and Napier asylum camps. What these figures show is that, if the camps are not closed and more suitable accommodation found, inmates residents can expect to languish there for months or even years on end. Today’s statistics also confirm that no refugees have been resettled in the UK since March.
Read more: Freemovement, https://is.gd/Zoaqo1