Migration Watch UK: News

Nearly two-thirds of asylum seekers turned out to be bogus - but Britain ended up with £10 billion bill anyway, says report 24 August, 2011

The UK’s asylum system has been costing taxpayers on average more than £2 million a day since 1999 and, once anyone has set foot on British soil, they have a 77% chance of staying – whatever the merits of their case

That is the conclusion of a study by think-tank Migration Watch UK of the outcome of the asylum system over the period 1997 - 2010 published today in advance of the latest statistics due on 25 August.

The study found that only a quarter of those who sought asylum in the UK between 1997 and 2010 were granted asylum, including those granted on appeal. A further one in seven were granted other forms of protection so 60% were eventually refused altogether.

Of those refused only just over one third were removed with the result that anyone claiming asylum in Britain had a 77% chance of staying here - more often than not illegally. The study also found that, in recent years, the majority of applications (59%) were lodged only after the applicant had been detected.

The cost to the tax payer, including the cost of legal aid and the cost of the immigration courts was close to £10 billion or nearly £2.3 million a day over the period.

The proportion of asylum seekers granted protection in France was found to be significantly lower than in the UK.

Said Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migration Watch UK: ‘The asylum system has proved to be a £10 billion shambles. Those who, like ourselves, are serious about protecting genuine refugees should be no less serious about removing bogus claimants and, better still, deterring them in the first place.  The system needs to be much faster. Delays in the system leave the door open for appeals based on the right to family life without any consideration for the rights of society in general’

‘It also needed to be much tougher on the bogus. It is absurd, for example, that we should allow people who have been in Britain illegally for years to claim asylum so as to delay or prevent their removal; this now applies to almost 60% of claimants.

‘It is a pity that the lawyers have been so remarkably silent all these years. The failure of the UK Border Agency to implement the decisions of the immigration appeal courts reduces their activities to a charade and brings the rule of law into disrepute,’ he said.

60th Anniversary of the Refugee Convention

The following comment can be attributed to Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migration Watch UK.

 

"The situation has changed beyond recognition since the Refugee Convention was signed 60 years ago. There is now widespread abuse. Over half of all applicants in the UK only claim when detected. Nearly two thirds (60%) of all cases decided in the last five years were rejected after a long and expensive legal process but less than half of them are being removed. Those, like ourselves, who are serious about genuine refugees must be equally serious about removing asylum seekers who turn out to be bogus if public support for the system is to be sustained."

 

Notes to Editors:

1  Claims when detected

2  Outcome of cases

3  Numbers Removed

A Quarter of a Million Failed Asylum Seekers Granted Amnesty

Summary

1 The latest (and largest) exercise in granting settlement to failed asylum seekers is the continuation of a sorry tradition of amnesties that has resulted in over 250,000 failed asylum seekers being granted settlement since the early 1990s. Once settlement is achieved additional dependants can then join the person in the UK so the total number is likely to be much higher. It is now essential for the integrity of the immigration system that no more backlogs are allowed to develop.

Current Amnesty

2 During the late 1990s and early 2000s the Home Office allowed the build up of a backlog of around 400,000 cases. The exercises to clear these legacy cases resulted in 161,000 grants of settlement (ILR)…

See the full Briefing Paper No 11.25.

North African Crisis Could Test the Asylum System to Destruction

The recent instability caused by revolutionary change and military conflict in some Arab countries in North Africa has the potential to generate substantial flows of migrants into the EU. EU Ministers will meet on 11 May to consider what might be done.

Some migrants will be genuine refugees but many will be economic migrants. Anyone who sets foot in the UK and claims asylum has the right under the 1951 Refugee Convention to have his or her case heard and also has a right of appeal if refused. Applicants are supported by the taxpayer throughout the process which takes months, and often years. The UK's record in removing those whose cases eventually fail is extremely poor.

In theory, the UK can return economic migrants who claim asylum to the EU country in which they first arrived but that requires proof of their point of arrival which is often impossible to obtain.

Read the full Press Release and research document Briefing Paper No 9.29

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Proposals to Charge Fees for Immigration and Asylum Appeals

The Ministry of Justice has recently published a consultation paper on proposals to start charging fees for certain categories of appeals against adverse decisions by the UK Border Agency on asylum and immigration applications. Such appeals are heard in the first instance by the First Tier Tribunal, Immigration and Asylum Chamber and by the Upper Tier Tribunal beyond that. Section 42(1) of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, under which the Tribunals are established, empowers the Lord Chancellor to impose fees in respect of anything dealt with by the Tribunals. The consultation paper has been circulated to organisations such as the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association and other bodies concerned with the welfare of immigrants and asylum seekers or with assisting them in the conduct of their appeals. Responses to the consultation paper are invited and may be submitted up to 21 January 2011.

For the full document see Briefing Paper No 8.47

The Immigration Appeals System Revised - 2010 Version

This Briefing Paper 8.30 substantially amends and brings up to date the previous version dated March 2005 (now deleted), taking account of recent changes in the law

Introduction

1 The immigration appeals system has undergone major changes twice in recent years. Until April 2005 there was a two tier system, the first tier consisting of adjudicators sitting alone and the upper tier being the Immigration Appeal Tribunal. The Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004 [Referred to hereafter as “the 2004 Act”] created the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal, which was in essence a single tier tribunal and began operation on 4 April 2005. This Tribunal has itself now been abolished and superseded by further reforms which took effect from 15 February 2010. The hearing and disposal of asylum and immigration appeals has been taken over by the unified tribunal service created by the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. Please refer to Briefing Paper 8.35 for details of the new tribunal.

Service under strain as ‘Migrant a minute' registers with an NHS doctor

New research published today reveals the pressure that immigration is placing on the NHS.

The research, conducted by Migrationwatch, found that in 2007-8, 605,000 people who arrived from overseas registered with a GP in England and Wales – equivalent to one registration a minute, day and night, throughout the year. This was nearly 100,000 more than the inflow recorded in the International Migration Statistics for England and Wales for the same period. This suggests that short-term migrants (or illegal migrants) have also registered. Only 69,000 of the 605,000 were British people returning from a spell overseas.

The number of arrivals from overseas registering has increased by 50% in the past seven years but it is only in the last three years that registrations have exceeded the inflow of migrants. Of course migrants also leave. 333,000 left England and Wales in 2007-8 but this “churn” together with the additional population adds to the strains on the NHS.

These GP registration data are not precise as they are not compiled for statistical purposes. If anything, they understate the pressure of immigration on the National Health Service as those migrants who move practices within a year would not show up as arrivals from overseas. Furthermore, young men who make up a large proportion of migrants are known to be less likely to register with a GP than other groups.

There are no checks on the entitlement of those who seek to register with a GP, indeed doctors have discretion to register whoever they choose.

Five years ago, in May 2004, the Government issued proposals to exclude overseas visitors from eligibility to free NHS primary and medical services.The then Secretary of State promised “to ensure that the NHS is first and foremost for the benefit of residents in this country”. On 20 July 2009, five years later and on the last day of Parliament, the government issued proposals which included “to maintain GP discretion to determine registration to access free NHS primary care medical services along with the established principle that GPs may charge non-residents as private patients".

Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migration Watch said:“This amounts to an open door to primary care which can also lead to access to secondary care. The government has been dithering while the NHS has been struggling to cope with the extra numbers resulting from mass immigration. In present financial circumstances it is surely obvious that we do not have the resources to cope with the extra ten million people now officially projected over the next 25 years – seven million as a result of immigration."

Huge Cost of Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants Quantified

An amnesty for illegal immigrants would be bound to encourage further illegal immigration, their present number has been seriously underestimated and the lifetime cost would be in the order of £130 billion even on that low estimate of numbers, says a report out today from think-tank Migrationwatch.

The report is in reply to a paper published by the London School of Economics on 16 June in response to a request from London's Mayor. Introducing the document, Boris Johnson claimed it proved that immigrants were "far from a financial burden". He added:

    "This new Report has introduced some long overdue facts, hard evidence and academic rigour into a debate which has far too often been dominated by myth, anecdote and hearsay".

Clearly the Mayor had not read the Report which makes it clear that "It has to be emphasised that these are ball park estimates at best" (page 110) and that "many of the numbers that had been generated for this Report have required heroic assumptions" page 113).

The Mayor also claimed that:

   "So far from a financial burden, as some suggest, this new research has found an amnesty could be worth up to £3 billion a year to the country's economy."

What the Report actually says is:

"Neither the literature nor currently available UK data provides a quantitative basis from which one could at all reliably start to estimate the scale of effects on UK output which would be likely to follow from regularisation"(page 73).

The Report is, in fact, astonishingly thin on its claim of economic benefit - just two paragraphs in 125 pages. It goes on to take what is described as "an example". This gives, on the basis of four hypotheses, an expected increase in GDP of some £3 billion (page 73).

Migrationwatch have now examined this Report in detail and have found that:...

See Full Press Release

BBC Today programme: asylum seekers, Calais

Sir Andrew Green was interviewed on the Today Programme at 8.35 this morning about the asylum seekers' camp near Calais, together with Donna Covey, the Chief Executive of the Refugee Council.

Sir Andrew said that the reason for people queueing up in Calais must be that Britain was perceived as a "soft touch". The official statistics suggested that this might be the case as anyone reaching Britain and claiming asylum had a nearly 80% chance of staying, often illegally.

He suggested that the government should take three steps:

1 Double the resources for removal.

2 Clamp down on employers of illegal labour.They had started to do this.

3 Take on the absurd arguments for an amnesty which could only make a bad situation worse.

You can hear the discussion on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme web site.

Reform of the Immigration Appeals System

This is a revised version of briefing paper 8.35, originally published in May 2009

In August 2008 the government published a paper for the purpose of consulting on reforms to the present system for hearing appeals against adverse decisions by the Home Office on asylum and immigration cases. The substance of that paper and Migration Watch comments on it are set out in Briefing Paper 8.29, issued in November 2008. An account of the workings of the present appeals system is to be found in Briefing Paper 8.2. The government has now published a response to the consultations, setting out its decision. The undated paper “Fair decisions: faster justice” was issued jointly by the UK Border Agency (UKBA) on behalf of the Home Office and by the Tribunals Service on behalf of the Ministry of Justice in May 2009…

See Full Revised Briefing Paper 8.35