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TeaNumber of asylum claims in Britain hits latest record high Official data showsBecause Shabana Mahmood is planning sweeping changes to the system to make the country less attractive for refugees.
Home Secretary’s Revolutionary package of measuresWhich will speed up deportations of unsuccessful asylum seekers gave rise to labor revolt MPs accused the minister of “eroding the rights and protections” of people fleeing the conflict.
Offers Other People with refugee status will return home if their country is deemed safe. They will have to wait 20 years to apply to settle permanently in the UK, as opposed to the current five years.
Families with children could also be forced to leave under measures to remove people who do not have the right to remain in the UK, while visas for family reunification will no longer be granted.
In her statement to the Commons, Ms Mahmood said the asylum system was “out of control and unfair”, adding: “These measures are designed to tackle the factors that attract people to this country.”
But while many focus Work is being done to curb the number of asylum seekers arriving in small boats – Ms Mahood mentioned it three times in her speech to MPs on Monday – a large proportion come legally on visas, made possible through multiple Post-Brexit measures.
An analysis of the top five nationalities of asylum seekers last year revealed that almost all countries remain unsafe, raising questions about the effectiveness of the threat of sending refugees back to where they came from.
Here, Independent It uses a selection of numbers to measure who is at risk and whether Ms Mahood’s planned action, if it gets through Parliament, will work.
Record levels of claims for asylum – but the backlog of cases is falling
The number of people claiming asylum reached a record high in the year ending June 2025, reaching 111,084 cases. This was an increase of 14 percent from the previous year, and eight percent more than the previous record of 103,081 in 2002.
Yet despite this increase, the number of live asylum cases awaiting a decision actually fell over the year to 70,532, relating to 90,812 people. That was an 18 percent decrease from a year earlier — but still much higher than the period from 2010 to 2018, when the number of cases rose from 6,000 to 27,000.
But even then, housing the majority of asylum seekers in 2023 would cost taxpayers £9 million a day, Ms Mahmood said. The latest figures show a total of 32,059 asylum seekers were housed in hotels by the end of June, up from 29,585 a year earlier.
Ms Mahood said in her speech in the Commons that the caseload in the UK was “enormous”, and that the speed and scale of the asylum system were destabilizing communities, and “making our country a more divided place”.
He said the new asylum policy would attack two targets; To remove people who do not have the right to remain in the UK and to reduce illegal arrivals into the country.
He said: “This starts with acknowledging an uncomfortable truth: while asylum claims are falling across Europe, they are rising here, and this is due to the comparative generosity of our asylum offer compared to many of our European neighbours.”
However, immigrants arriving illegally accounted for only half of the asylum cases filed last year.
How are asylum seekers coming to Britain?
While people making the dangerous journey across the English Channel to the UK often paint the most common picture of immigrants arriving in the UK and then applying for asylum, Home Office figures show they made up 39 per cent of asylum cases registered by June 2025.
The number of arrivals at small boat crossings increased to 43,309 in the year ending June 2025, an increase of 38 per cent over the previous year.
11 per cent of all asylum cases recorded came from people entering the UK by other illegal means, such as by lorry, shipping container or without relevant documentation.
However, the second largest share of people claiming asylum, 37 per cent, entered the UK on an approved visa or with relevant documentation. These included 14,800 people who had study visas, 12,200 people who had work visitor visas and 8,900 people who had visitor visas.
Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford Said There was an increase in the number of claims from visa holders under the post-Brexit immigration system, which allowed More non-EU citizens in the country on work, family and study visas.
The remaining asylum cases came from other routes, including UK-born asylum seekers or children of refugees.
Tom Southarden, director of legal programs at the charity Amnesty International, said: Independent Ms Mahood’s plan would “make a bad situation vastly worse” by creating more backlogs and depriving people of stability.
He said: “We need an asylum system based on fairness, evidence and respect for human rights, not one driven by headlines chasing cruelty.”
Which asylum seekers are at risk of being returned?
According to the Home Office, the top five nationalities with the largest number of people claiming asylum in the year ending June 2025 were Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea and Bangladesh.
Overall, those countries represented more than one third of all claimants during this period.
After this the claims of Afghan citizens have increased significantly Capture According to the latest data, violence in the capital Kabul by the Taliban will continue in August 2021.
Under Ms Mahood’s revised asylum policy, asylum seekers with refugee status can be returned to their home countries with families if deemed safe.
His policy document reads: “Should the regime change in their home country, our approach must also change. If someone has fled the rule of one regime, but that regime has been replaced, it should be possible to return them to that country.”
However, of the top four nationalities, the Foreign Office advises against travel to parts or all of most countries: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Eritrea.
For Syria, the following overthrow the Assad regimeThe Home Office said it is supporting people to return to the country voluntarily, as well as now exploring enforced returns in its own and other countries.
Chief Executive of Migrants Rights Network, Fiza Qureshi said Independent Ms Madhood’s plan will not reduce the number of people seeking protection, but will instead make them more vulnerable to exploitation.
He further said, “The government is focusing on playing politics with their lives without any consideration for the mental and physical impact it has on them.”
And Labor peer Lord Alf Dubs, who escaped Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia and arrived in England on the Kindertransport, alleged Shabana Mehmood Using “children as a weapon” as part of its plan to make Britain less attractive to asylum seekers.
It came as the Home Secretary said Britain could deport families, including those with children, if they refuse to offer monetary incentives to leave. The Home Office has also claimed that children are being sent to the UK on small boats so that their families can “abuse” the laws by putting down roots, thereby hindering removals.
lord dubs told BBC’s Today programme: “I find it troubling that we have had to take such a tough stance – we need a bit of compassion in our politics and I think some of the measures were going in the wrong direction, they won’t help.”