In July to September this year, the number of appeals received by the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) increased by 123%, to 30,000, compared
The quarterly immigration system statistics covering the period to September 2025 have been published. As highlighted in the title of the post, I have looked
In this briefing we will take a look at what is really going on with the main features of the contemporary asylum system: arrivals, the
The quarterly immigration and asylum statistics covering the period April to June 2025 have been published by the Home Office. A couple of notable points
The latest quarterly immigration and asylum statistics have been published, covering the period January to March 2025. The asylum backlog is down, but that is
This week marked ten years since the Modern Slavery Act 2015 came into force. The trafficking statistics for October to December 2024 have been published,
As anticipated in my article published in September 2024, the Home Office immigration statistics published on 27 February 2025 demonstrated a huge fall in the
The latest quarterly immigration and asylum statistics have been published and nothing in them felt like much of a surprise really. We know that the
The statistics for the period July to September 2024 have been published today, showing a very large drop in health and care worker visas, a
The quarterly trafficking statistics for July to September 2024 have been published, with a few records set including for the number of referrals and number
The latest quarterly statistics show little movement on the asylum backlog, which was to be expected given the Home Office was not making many decisions
The latest modern slavery statistics show that the record low grant rate noted in the previous update have continued in the period April to June
The Home Office has published statistics for the period January to March 2024 showing a marked drop in the grant rate for asylum cases, tens
The latest modern slavery statistics have been published and show that the ‘immigration enforcement competent authority’ had made its lowest percentage of positive conclusive grounds
The Home Office has published its latest “ad hoc” statistics release, showing a dramatic increase in the number of Vietnamese people coming to the UK
The latest immigration and asylum statistics have been published today. We have highlighted some of the interesting data below on asylum, EU Settlement Scheme, fee
In December 2022 the Prime Minister pledged to clear the ‘legacy’ backlog (claims made before 28 June 2022 when certain provisions of the Nationality and
It has been a bumper day for statistics, as the Office for National Statistics and the Home Office have published their latest quarterly figures covering
As anticipated, the latest published trafficking statistics covering July to September 2023 show a substantial reversal in the number of refusals at reasonable grounds stage,
Last year 1,334 people came to the UK and claimed asylum based on their sexual orientation, amounting to 2% of all asylum claims. A lot
The Ukraine Scheme homelessness statistics released each month provide an update on the long-term consequences of additional schemes for people with Ukraine Scheme visas. Monitoring
The latest quarterly immigration statistics were published today. Most of the media focus is on net migration and the Office of National Statistics ONS report.
The latest quarterly immigration statistics are out. I’m focussing here on what the figures reveal about the system, including the backlog, arrivals, resettlement, grant rate,
On 3 November 2022, the latest quarterly release of statistics on modern slavery claims was published, covering 1 July to 30 September this year. During
The EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) opened in 2018 and had issued almost 6.5 million decisions by the end of June 2022. The sheer scale of
At least 464 people have been stripped of their British citizenship since the law allowing it was relaxed 15 years ago, Free Movement analysis shows.
The backlog of asylum cases has passed 70,000 despite a fall in the annual number of applications. Almost 71,000 asylum seekers, including dependants, were awaiting
Copy: Refugee Week 2020Infogram This week is Refugee Week. From 14-20 June 2021, the UK celebrates the contribution of refugees and promotes better understanding of
We’ve seen a constant drip of leaks about the UK’s “broken” asylum system and how the upcoming Borders Bill or Sovereign Borders Bill or New
Migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats are overwhelmingly genuine refugees, senior Home Office officials have confirmed. Evidence presented to the Home Affairs committee
Data about the operation of Rule 35 of the Detention Centre Rules brought into the public domain by a Freedom of Information request lays bare
With statistical assistance and input by George Symes. A person whose immigration application to the Home Office has been refused sometimes has a right of
The EU Settlement Scheme promised convenience and efficiency for those required to secure their immigration status in the UK after Brexit. Yet statistics retrieved from
There is no way of telling how many EU citizens will be left living illegally in the UK because of Brexit, a new report has
The Home Office has been concealing important data about the EU Settlement Scheme, an independent inspection report suggests. While the department refuses to release the
In a review of Amelia Gentleman’s book The Windrush Betrayal, David Goodhart of the Policy Exchange think tank said this: Over … [the] period [2004-2018]
The Home Office released a new set of EU Settlement Scheme statistics in early October. While this update again showed a rise in applications to
A few weeks ago I analysed EU Settlement Scheme stats released in August. I argued that the Scheme is not working as well as the Government
An important Office for National Statistics (ONS) report released this week provides revised figures for EU and non-EU net migration since 2009. Here’s my take
Over 900,000 people have applied for EU settled status so far. By the end of June 2019, the Home Office had processed 806,000 applications, granting
In July to September this year, the number of appeals received by the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) increased by 123%, to 30,000, compared to the same period last year. Disposals (the number of concluded appeals) increased by 50% to 15,000 and the tribunal’s total open caseload increased by...
The quarterly immigration system statistics covering the period to September 2025 have been published. As highlighted in the title of the post, I have looked at quite a few of the areas in light of last week’s proposals and I am particularly concerned as to whether even the Home Office...
In this briefing we will take a look at what is really going on with the main features of the contemporary asylum system: arrivals, the backlog, detention, removal and resettlement. The focus is on what caused the backlog and what consequences will flow from the large number of decisions being...
The quarterly immigration and asylum statistics covering the period April to June 2025 have been published by the Home Office. A couple of notable points on the asylum front is the increase in Palestinians arriving in the UK across the Channel and some fairly suspicious silence from the Home Office...
The latest quarterly immigration and asylum statistics have been published, covering the period January to March 2025. The asylum backlog is down, but that is fairly meaningless given how atrocious decision making is at the moment, those cases are now the First-tier Tribunal’s problem. Syrians seeking asylum in the UK...
This week marked ten years since the Modern Slavery Act 2015 came into force. The trafficking statistics for October to December 2024 have been published, meaning we now have a full year of data for 2024. In the statistics before these, for July to September 2024, I noted that positive...
As anticipated in my article published in September 2024, the Home Office immigration statistics published on 27 February 2025 demonstrated a huge fall in the grant rate for Afghan asylum claims in the last three months of 2024. This follows the change in the Home Office policy position in its...
The latest quarterly immigration and asylum statistics have been published and nothing in them felt like much of a surprise really. We know that the asylum grant rate has been dropping, the number of health and care visas dropping, student numbers dropping and we have seen these trends continue in...
The statistics for the period July to September 2024 have been published today, showing a very large drop in health and care worker visas, a lesser but still significant drop in students, a fall in the asylum grant rate that doesn’t seem likely to achieve much beyond creating further chaos...
The quarterly trafficking statistics for July to September 2024 have been published, with a few records set including for the number of referrals and number of conclusive grounds decisions. The impact of the latter on delays is still difficult to tell because of the reorganisation of cases within the decision...
The latest quarterly statistics show little movement on the asylum backlog, which was to be expected given the Home Office was not making many decisions due to the Illegal Migration Act. Following restrictions to the ability of people to bring their immediate family to the UK with them, we have...
The latest modern slavery statistics show that the record low grant rate noted in the previous update have continued in the period April to June 2024, with positive decisions made by the immigration enforcement competent authority at around 20% for both stages of the trafficking identification process. Background: how does...
The Home Office has published statistics for the period January to March 2024 showing a marked drop in the grant rate for asylum cases, tens of thousands of EU Settlement Scheme applications rejected as invalid, and a fee waiver backlog that seems to be rapidly spiralling out of control. My...
The latest modern slavery statistics have been published and show that the ‘immigration enforcement competent authority’ had made its lowest percentage of positive conclusive grounds decisions confirming that a person is recognised as a victim of trafficking since it was set up, with a recognition rate of 20.68% for the...
The Home Office has published its latest “ad hoc” statistics release, showing a dramatic increase in the number of Vietnamese people coming to the UK and a 24% increase in people detected crossing the Channel so far in 2024. The statistics were published to support the Prime Minister’s speech in...
The latest immigration and asylum statistics have been published today. We have highlighted some of the interesting data below on asylum, EU Settlement Scheme, fee waivers and student and work routes. Asylum As many have been predicting for a while now, the asylum grant rate has dropped substantially in the...
In December 2022 the Prime Minister pledged to clear the ‘legacy’ backlog (claims made before 28 June 2022 when certain provisions of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 were brought into force) by the end of 2023. Yesterday he claimed that this goal had been achieved, despite the government’s statistics...
It has been a bumper day for statistics, as the Office for National Statistics and the Home Office have published their latest quarterly figures covering all aspects of immigration and asylum. Contrary to the government’s line that their Rwanda deal and Illegal Migration Act are reducing small boat crossings, we...
As anticipated, the latest published trafficking statistics covering July to September 2023 show a substantial reversal in the number of refusals at reasonable grounds stage, although these are still far higher than before the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. How does the modern slavery protection process work? Firstly, a potential...
Last year 1,334 people came to the UK and claimed asylum based on their sexual orientation, amounting to 2% of all asylum claims. A lot of them are probably feeling quite frightened this morning after the Home Secretary has chosen to single them out for attack, as being undeserving of...
The Ukraine Scheme homelessness statistics released each month provide an update on the long-term consequences of additional schemes for people with Ukraine Scheme visas. Monitoring of progress through regular data publication (even if incomplete) highlights where the government and local councils are doing well, and where they are not. You...
The latest quarterly immigration statistics were published today. Most of the media focus is on net migration and the Office of National Statistics ONS report. Net migration turned out to be around 600,000 rather than the 700,000 or more that some had predicted. Here, though, we’re going to focus on...
The latest quarterly immigration statistics are out. I’m focussing here on what the figures reveal about the system, including the backlog, arrivals, resettlement, grant rate, modern slavery referrals, detention and removals. Backlog The asylum backlog has reached over 160,000 people: 160,919 awaiting an initial decision, or 166,261 in total once fresh...
On 3 November 2022, the latest quarterly release of statistics on modern slavery claims was published, covering 1 July to 30 September this year. During this period, 4,586 people were referred into the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) or via the Duty to Notify as potential victims of modern slavery. This...
The EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) opened in 2018 and had issued almost 6.5 million decisions by the end of June 2022. The sheer scale of the scheme is a remarkable achievement for the Home Office. The department took on a momentous task when the UK government decided that everyone who...
At least 464 people have been stripped of their British citizenship since the law allowing it was relaxed 15 years ago, Free Movement analysis shows. Home Office figures record 175 people being deprived of their citizenship on national security grounds, and 289 for fraud, since 2006. Before that, it had...
The backlog of asylum cases has passed 70,000 despite a fall in the annual number of applications. Almost 71,000 asylum seekers, including dependants, were awaiting an initial decision on their claim for refugee status as of 30 June 2021, according to new Home Office figures. The overall backlog has doubled...
Copy: Refugee Week 2020Infogram This week is Refugee Week. From 14-20 June 2021, the UK celebrates the contribution of refugees and promotes better understanding of why people seek sanctuary. The infographic above draws on government figures to illustrate some trends in asylum in the UK. Most of the data comes...
We’ve seen a constant drip of leaks about the UK’s “broken” asylum system and how the upcoming Borders Bill or Sovereign Borders Bill or New Plan For Immigration or whatever it’s called will be the “biggest overhaul of the asylum system in a generation”. A lot of this is cover...
Migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats are overwhelmingly genuine refugees, senior Home Office officials have confirmed. Evidence presented to the Home Affairs committee of MPs on 3 September makes clear that the majority of those making the perilous crossing are either being granted refugee status straight away or...
Data about the operation of Rule 35 of the Detention Centre Rules brought into the public domain by a Freedom of Information request lays bare the inadequacies of the current system for reporting vulnerabilities among immigration detainees. The data, obtained by Lewis Kett of Duncan Lewis Solicitors, demonstrates that Rule...
With statistical assistance and input by George Symes. A person whose immigration application to the Home Office has been refused sometimes has a right of appeal. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, people essentially had a choice. Their appeal could be heard in person, at court, in front of a judge...
The EU Settlement Scheme promised convenience and efficiency for those required to secure their immigration status in the UK after Brexit. Yet statistics retrieved from the Home Office indicate that at least 36,000 applications had faced delays of over three months by October 2019. In this post, we explore what...
There is no way of telling how many EU citizens will be left living illegally in the UK because of Brexit, a new report has concluded. The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford says that the government doesn’t collect or release the data needed to work out how many...
The Home Office has been concealing important data about the EU Settlement Scheme, an independent inspection report suggests. While the department refuses to release the number of “disguised refusals”, or to disclose gender breakdowns relevant to its equality law obligations, it appears to have had that information at its fingertips...
In a review of Amelia Gentleman’s book The Windrush Betrayal, David Goodhart of the Policy Exchange think tank said this: Over … [the] period [2004-2018] the number of voluntary removals rose sharply from 3,566 in 2004 to 28,655 in 2016, perhaps some evidence that, despite Gentleman’s assertions, the hostile environment...
The Home Office released a new set of EU Settlement Scheme statistics in early October. While this update again showed a rise in applications to the scheme, it also suggests re-applications to it are counted towards the total. This raises questions over the quality and transparency of statistical reporting about...
A few weeks ago I analysed EU Settlement Scheme stats released in August. I argued that the Scheme is not working as well as the Government claims it is. While it might be performing well from the point of view of its administrators at the Home Office, it surely seems to...
An important Office for National Statistics (ONS) report released this week provides revised figures for EU and non-EU net migration since 2009. Here’s my take on what the key points of the report are. It has been clear for some time that something wasn’t quite right in the headline net...
Over 900,000 people have applied for EU settled status so far. By the end of June 2019, the Home Office had processed 806,000 applications, granting full settled status in 65% of cases and pre-settled status in 35% of cases. The department says that nobody has been refused status outright. There...
