UK Cost of Illegal Immigration Rises to £4 Billion in 12 Months

A view of the scene outside the Comfort Inn hotel on Belgrave Road in Pimlico, central London, on June 2, 2023. James Manning/PA Wire

The cost to the UK of managing the illegal immigrant influx has almost doubled in a year to £3.97 billion—a rise of £1.85 billion within 12 months.

The figure—released among immigration statistics on Aug. 24—is almost quadruple that of Home Office spending on illegal migration a decade ago, which was £500.2 million in 2013.

The massive expenditure was revealed alongside a record high of backlogged asylum cases, with more than 80 percent waiting six months or more for an initial decision on their claim.

A total of 175,457 people were waiting for an initial decision on an asylum application in the UK at the end of June 2023. That’s up 44 percent from 122,213 for the same period a year earlier, and the highest figure since current records began in 2010.

Of the total, a record high of 139,961 have been waiting longer than six months for an initial decision, an increase of 57 percent from a year ago.

The figures are a “disastrous record” for the prime minister and home secretary, according to shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock, who described the UK’s asylum system as in “complete chaos.”

“With this level of mismanagement, there is very little prospect of reducing the eye-wateringly high bill for hotel rooms for all those left in limbo, currently costing the British taxpayer £6 million a day,” the Labour MP said.

Afghan Rise

The latest stats also show a rise in the number of migrants receiving government support.

At the end of June, there were 117,450 individuals in receipt of asylum help, 26 percent more than at the end of June 2022. More than 50,500 of those were lodged in hotels, 62,728 people were listed as being in “other” accommodations while 4 percent, a total of 4,176 people, were in receipt of subsistence support.

The Home Office attributed the rise to a “long-term trend” of increasing numbers and rising asylum applications and the consequent increase in the number of cases in the asylum system.

Albania was the most common nationality applying for asylum in the UK, with 11,790 Albanian nationals making claims.

While there was a substantial rise in Albanian small boat arrivals and asylum applications in 2022, the Home Office says these have eased and, by early 2023, had dropped below levels seen in 2021.

Afghan nationals have also increased, with almost 10,000 asylum applications— almost double the number for the year ending June 2022.

Iranian nationals made 7,776 applications in the year ending in June. That’s 29 percent fewer than in the year ending June 2022.

It has been estimated more than 1,300 people crossed the English Channel to the UK on board small boats in January Gareth Fuller/PA

Albanian Removals

The majority of those forcibly removed from the UK last year were foreign national offenders—any non-British individual convicted in the UK of any criminal offence.

Over 3,100 were removed from the UK in the year ending March 2023, accounting for 72 percent of enforced returns.

Over 26 percent were from Albania, 18 percent from Romania, and 11 percent from Brazil.

Asylum-related returns accounted for 8 percent of total forced returns in the same period, up from 6 percent in the year ending March 2022.

In the year ending March 2023, there were 3,354 asylum-related returns. That’s up 68 percent from the year ending March 2022. The Home Office attributed that to a 122 percent rise in returns of Albanians who had claimed asylum, to 1,272 in 12 months.

Ninety percent of small boat arrivals—40,386—claimed asylum or were recorded as dependent on an asylum application.

In total, just under half of the asylum applications raised in the year ending June 2023 were from people who arrived on a small boat.

Of the 97,390 people who applied for asylum in the year ending June 2023, 60 percent were adult males aged 18 to 49. Children aged 17 and under accounted for almost one-fifth of those claiming asylum.

The new immigration statistics come as small crossings topped 19,000 for the year so far.

Separate Home Office figures show some 345 people made the crossing in six boats on Aug. 23, boosting the number over three days so far this week to 1,217 and the overall total for the year to date to 19,174.

There was an average of 58 people per boat that made the journey on Aug. 23.