More Than 700 UK Asylum Seekers ‘Living in Limbo’ for 5 Years Waiting for Decision

A group of illegal immigrants are brought in to the port of Dover, Kent, after their small boat was intercepted in the English Channel on Oct. 9, 2022. PA Media

More than 40,000 asylum seekers have been waiting more than a year for a decision from the Home Office and 725 have been “living in limbo” for more than five years, according to figures obtained by the Refugee Council.

According to Home Office data the number of people waiting for an initial decision on their asylum application rose from 29,522 in December 2017, to 64,891 in December 2020 and then, in the space of less than two years, doubled to 122,206 in June 2022.

Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said in a statement, “Immediate action should be taken to address the huge backlog of men, women and children stuck in limbo while waiting years for a decision on their asylum claim, costing millions of pounds a day accommodating them in often poor quality hotels.”

He said, “These people came to the UK in search of safety, but they are being condemned to years of worry and uncertainty, with a grave toll on their mental health, instead of being able to put down roots in their new community and rebuild their lives.”

Home Secretary Suella Braverman and her predecessor Priti Patel have both described the asylum system as “broken” and say the crisis has been exacerbated by an influx of illegal immigrants crossing the English Channel this year.

In October, Dan Hobbs, the Home Office’s director of asylum, protection, and enforcement, told the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee 96 percent of asylum claims from 2021 had still not reached a final adjudication and, of the 4 percent that had, 85 percent had been successful.

Conservative MP Tim Loughton called the 96 percent figure “ridiculous” and said, “So a vast number of people are still not knowing if their claim is going to be successful or not and are residing in the UK at the taxpayers’ expense?”

“Yes, they will be at different stages, some may be pending appeal,” Hobbs replied.

The government is spending £6.8 million ($8 million) a day putting migrants up in hotels.

A view of the Holiday Inn where illegal immigrants from Manston are being temporarily housed by the Home Office, in Kennington, Ashford, Kent, on Nov. 9, 2022. Chris Summers/The Epoch Times

One Sudanese asylum seeker, known by the pseudonym Abu, has been in a hotel in Yorkshire for nearly a year.

Abu told the Refugee Council he had fled Sudan in October 2021, leaving his family behind, after being arrested for taking part in demonstrations against the country’s military rulers.

Sudanese Asylum Seeker Claims Ukrainians Getting Better Treatment

Abu said: “When you see how they are treating Ukrainian people, compare that, people say that it’s because they are European, and we are not European, it make you feel like we are not a priority.”

A Home Office spokesman told PA: “The number of people arriving in the UK who seek asylum has reached record levels and continues to put our asylum system under incredible pressure.”

He added, “We are doing everything we can to address this issue, we have increased the number of caseworkers by 80 percent to more than 1,000, and a successful pilot scheme has seen the average number of asylum claims processed by caseworkers double, which we are now is being rolling this out across the country.”

“We are also working to prioritise applications from children and young people where possible, whilst we increase overall decision maker numbers, improve training and career progression opportunities to aid retention of staff and capacity,” the Home Office spokesman said.

PA Media contributed to this report.