The actual cost to process these migrants, according to Migration Watch is £956 million ($1,265,512,790 USD). And among the migrants, abuse, lies, deceptions and exploitation of the UK’s generosity (or foolishness) are rampant, as is the incompetence of British officials: “Separately, millions are wasted per year on cancelled flights for failed asylum seekers obstructed by legal challenges.”
The UK government also admits that “in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, they allowed people to remain in their accommodation even after their asylum decision has been made, positively or negatively, resulting in ‘an enormous strain on the system.”
Even prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the UK couldn’t afford the nearly 1.3 billion dollar USD tab for these unvetted economic migrants; many of whom have magically disappeared, including jihadists.
“The top five most common countries of nationality for asylum seekers are from Iran, Iraq, Eritrea, Pakistan and Albania. Two-thirds of resettled refugees in the UK are Syrian nationals.” 2020 alone has seen 7500 migrants illegally cross into the UK.
British citizens are being treated as sitting ducks, exposed to the risk of jihad terror attacks, while their resources are being drained during a severe economic downturn due to coronavirus lockdowns to support these illegal, unvetted migrants.
“An Asylum System Overwhelmed and Abused,” Migration Watch UK, November 18, 2020:
Summary
1. The asylum system is being overwhelmed following a rapid rise in the number of claims (most of which have been submitted by ‘clandestine’ entrants), as well as by growing costs, falling productivity, disintegrating enforcement, ballooning backlogs and significant (and, according to the government, “increas[ing]”) abuse. We estimate that, should Channel crossings be able to continue on the present scale, housing/payments for asylum seekers deemed eligible after arriving via this route will cost nearly a quarter of a billion pounds over a decade. Asylum-related accommodation is under ‘enormous’ and growing ‘strain’[1] – with about £400 million spent this year to house 60,000 asylum seekers and failed claimants (the total number of people housed tripling since 2012). There are nearly 10,000 people in hotels. Separately, millions are wasted per year on cancelled flights for failed asylum seekers obstructed by legal challenges. Nearly £40 million is claimed each year for legal aid for asylum cases. Reform is needed to end asylum abuse and to stop the waste of taxpayer money.Total annual cost of asylum operations = £956 million
2. The total cost of the asylum operations has more than doubled since 2013/14, from £450 million to £956 billion (Figure 1 below).3. Although much remains unclear about where the bulk of the money is spent, we know that £470 million was spent in the most recent year for procuring goods and services for asylum-related activities (nearly £200 million more than in 2016/17).
4. The Home Office (HO) says[2] that the total amount spent on managing asylum operations includes taxpayers’ money devoted towards:
Deciding a case (screening clients, interviews and decisions), managing appeals, detention costs (where detention has been used) and enforcement costs (escorting and assisted voluntary returns)
Housing/payments for a current total of 60,000 asylum claimants/failed claimants.
5. We detail the scale of each of these functions below:a) i) Asylum decisions/appeals
6. These costs are not reported separately in the Home Office accounts. What is clear is that the number of asylum cases that officials are dealing with has risen substantially in recent years, from 60,400 in 2014/15 to just under 110,000 in 2019/20. The majority of this latter caseload consists of 66,700 rejected or withdrawn applications (which has increased by just over a third since 2015) while there are 42,700 cases waiting for an initial decision (which has more than tripled since 2015).[3]
7. As the workload has increased and backlog ballooned, staff numbers have risen by 50% from just over 400 to nearly 600 which is not commensurate with the 80% rise in workload. Not surprisingly there has been falling productivity[5], while the number of people waiting more than six months for an asylum decision has tripled in three years. While 87% of applications were completed in the first six months in 2014, the share fell to 26% in 2019.[6]
8. Meanwhile, the amount spent on agency staff working at UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI – the department which oversees the asylum system) has nearly doubled from £20 million in 2015/16 to just under £40 million in 2019/20.[7]
a) ii) Enforcement / detention
9. Immigration Enforcement believes asylum abuse to be worsening and ‘cites an increase in individuals making late or spurious claims for asylum while in detention, claiming for medical reasons or that they are victims of modern slavery. It believes many of these claims are used to delay removal’.[8] The existence of such abuse is well-documented by a range of independent organisations, including the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders (ICIBI).
10. Well over 200,000 asylum claims failed between 2004 and 2018 and enforcement action is often required to monitor and remove rejected claimants who have no right to be here. The overall net budget for Immigration Enforcement is currently £392 million and has declined by £47 million since 2015/16 when it was £439 million.[9] Only an (unknown) portion of this budget will be devoted to enforcing the rules as they relate to failed asylum seekers. The latest HO figures show that 41,600 failed applicants are still in the country despite being “subject to removal”, up from 24,700 in 2011.
11. Pakistan is the single largest source country for people who have had an asylum claim refused but remain here (4,000) and is a major contributor to the Migration Refusal Pool (14,000), according to the National Audit Office (NAO).[12] The Home Office also believes there is a severe risk that individuals from minority groups in some countries, including Afghanistan, Eritrea and Syria, are ‘misrepresenting their status in asylum claims’.[13]
12. Within the overall net budget for enforcement, the total spent on the function which includes detention and escorting services declined from £194 million to £167 million in the most recent year. A portion will be asylum-related. Despite the fact that, as the ICIBI said recently, clandestine entry is the ‘most common method of entry’ for asylum claimants, asylum-related detention is currently low. In May 2020, the government said: ‘There is no-one currently detained and going through the Detained Asylum Casework process’.[14] This comes in a context which has seen the government ‘significantly reduce the size of its detention estate since 2016, reducing its costs by £40 million (21%) [while] detaining people for a shorter time’.[15] The ICIBI suggests that some HO staff believe more use should be made of detention to expedite returns of those illegally entering on small boats….
Robin Searle says
The bill for all this should be charged to those politicians and Govt officers responsible.
Jayell says
None of these asylum claims are valid since these ‘refugees’ have come across the channel from a safe country. Judging from their atrocious recent behaviour at the Napier barracks near Dover, they are obnoxious, criminal scroungers who need to be put back into their boats and ejected on the other side with a firmly aimed boot into their respective rear quarters. I also note that the largest group of refused refugees are Pakistanis whose collective track record in this country includes the appalling antics of the grooming gangs (the worst in British history) and that repulsive oaf currently contaminating London’s City Hall. They are disgusting blot on the UK’s demographic landscape that needs dumping elsewhere with the bare minimum of ceremony and expense.
LB says
“None of these asylum claims are valid since these ‘refugees’ have come across the channel from a safe country.”
Yes. And what does that tell you about the decision from the ones on top to bring them in anyway? I’ll give you a hint: it’s got nothing to do with “humane endeavors” to “save the poor and the downtrodden” from “war-torn countries”.
… Fine, I’ll give you the full answer: The elites on top who make the calls hate native Brits (and native Europeans, in general) and want them gone as fast as humanly possible. Sorry, couldn’t help myself.
Don’t worry though, I’m sure it’ll all work out somehow without the common folk ever needing to do anything, right?
Beverly Teboe says
Britain and Germany need to start picking out their prayer rugs and get familiar with the Qur’an (just in case you get stopped on the street and to continue living you’ll need to quote some verses). What is wrong with the political leadership in these countries? Islam never assimilates and you don’t need to be a Rhodes scholar to figure it out. To vacation or take a job on the continent is a fools errand.
Chrissie01 says
“… Pakistan is the single largest source country for people who have had an asylum claim refused but remain here (4,000) and is a major contributor to the Migration Refusal Pool”..
Because none of them are “refugees”…they are poverty migrants. Muslims are not persecuted in Pakistan, They are the persecutors of everybody else.
First, they snatch that stretch of land from India. Then – of course – they are unable to bring it to prosperity with their backward superstition and what to do? AAAHHH YESS!
Go and mooch off from the hated kuffar with endless whining!
I mean: Still waayyy better than learning discipline, hard work and honesty, isn’t it?
Michael Avery says
Why is it always Pakistanis in UK?
tim gallagher says
Michael, I imagine it is some connection of Pakistan with the British colonial times in India and that area. I live in Australia, and although we are now getting Muslims from many different countries, the vast majority of Muslims we seem to have are from Lebanon, which I think is because our stupid government decided back in the mid-1970s to take in people from Lebanon during the civil war there. I guess then Lebanese people realised that Australia was a good place to go and large numbers (family reunions, etc), both Christians and Muslims, came here. I think that is probably how it works. Apart from the Australian government deciding to let Lebanese Muslims in back in the 1970s, there is no connection because Lebanon, I’m pretty sure, was a French colony and French speaking place.
Istvan Vogel says
Your figures can’t be right. The cost may well be £956 million, but not Billion.
Matee says
Just a typo correction to the first line of Christine’s article: the cost in pounds sterling is 956 million, not 956 billion. Still far too much, but a thousand times less than the typo would suggest!
gravenimage says
I think you are right, Istvan Vogel and Matee. I know the numeral conversion between American (or Canadian) and British English is sometimes tricky.
gravenimage says
Fixed!
tim gallagher says
To me, this is insanity. The Muslim invasion of the UK and all these other western European countries goes on and on. The barbaric Muslim enemy has nothing to offer any of these western, non-Muslim countries as the Muslims will always be trying to take over and impose Islam on everyone. And then you hear about these huge amounts of money that the taxpayer hands out to pay for these Muslim enemies of our way of life to live in the UK while they try to take over the place for Islam. Absolute insanity by our western countries. Hungary and the other Visegrad bloc countries have the answer. No Muslims. If you are Muslim then don’t bother trying to come to this country the Hungarians say. That is the correct approach to islam’s barbaric garbage.
Dex says
The country is in lockdown and yet 69 Albanians in a fishing boat sailed from Ostend , Belgium and instead of forcing them back they were welcomed with open arms by civil servants and will now be housed at taxpayers expense in 4 star hotels!! Meanwhile a frustrated Home Office Minister is being charged with being too forceful and swearing at incompetent civil service who are putting hurdles in her way.
gravenimage says
Just nuts, Dex.
And what danger were they in in Belgium?
Or in Albania, for that matter–a Muslim-majority country that is not at war?
Send them back.