FactCheck: Record asylum seeker removals?
Updated on 02 March 2007
Is Liam Byrne right to claim that Labour is removing more failed asylum seekers than ever before?
The claim
"We are removing more failed asylum seekers than ever before."
Liam Byrne, immigration minister in a Home Office news release, 28 February 2007.
Background
In the same week David Cameron unveiled plans for a new Border Police, Labour said it was winning its immigration battle.
Byrne boasted record numbers of failed asylum seekers were being shown the door. But how valid is his claim?
Analysis
A total of 18,235 failed asylum seekers were removed from these shores in 2006, the Home Office said this week.
Byrne said the total was a record, and official statistics back that up. The previous biggest total was 17,895 removals in 2003.
So, on the face of it Byrne appears to be right, but when it comes to immigration there is more than one set of figures to look at...
Taking the relatively manageable period of 2001 to 2006; figures show 276,100 applications for asylum were refused.
During the same period, a much lower total of 73,185 failed asylum seekers - and their dependants - were actually removed from the UK.
That leaves about 200,000 people who were initially refused asylum - but have not been removed.
Of the 200,000 many will have subsequently been granted discretionary leave - especially families - or will have been given humanitarian protection, which means despite initial asylum refusal they can stay after all.
Others will be awaiting appeals, while some will have been given temporary leave to stay until it's practical to return home.
The Home Office also says that many will have voluntarily left the UK - although it has no idea how many.
About 200,000 people who were initially refused asylum have not been removed.
Awaiting removal
But despite these factors, some basic reading between the margins of Home Office figures shows tens of thousands of failed asylum seekers are awaiting removal.
Given that 2006 was the first time removals out-stripped asylum applications, it's safe to assume that during the past six or seven years the number of people waiting to be removed from the UK has increased year-on-year.
And, given the increasing weight of numbers, wouldn't it be pretty surprising if the Home Office wasn't now removing record numbers? After all, its got 'record numbers' of people to remove.
Another element Byrne's press release overlooked was the number of asylum decisions made within the two month target - they dropped from 78 per cent in 2005, to 59 per cent in 2006.
Meanwhile, the number of failed asylum seekers unable to be sent home because of practical reasons - such as no viable way to return or medical problems - was up 10 per cent on the previous year to 6,555 in 2006.
Ironically, the Home Office put this down to Iraqi nationals...
Verdict
Byrne is right: the government is removing more failed asylum seekers than ever before.
But, given the gradual accumulation of those set for removal, it would be deeply surprising if the immigration services were not setting such records.
FactCheck Rating: 2
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Every time a FactCheck article is published we'll give it a rating from zero to five.
The lower end of the scale indicates that the claim in question largerly checks out, while the upper end of the scale suggests misrepresentation, exaggeration, a massaging of statistics and/or language.
In the unlikely event that we award a 5 out of 5, our factcheckers have concluded that the claim under examination has absolutely no basis in fact.
Sources
IND removal figures
IND immigration and asylum figures
Byrne press release
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