42000 asylum seekers
The number of asylum seekers in the UK is increasing day by day. About 42,000 asylum seekers are waiting for an appeal hearing in the country. Their asylum applications have been initially rejected by the country’s Home Office. BBC News. According to statistics from the British Ministry of Justice, 41,987 appeal applications were pending in the courts at the end of 2024. This was 7,173 at the beginning of 2023.
Analysis by the Refugee Council showed that the total number of asylum appeals in 2024 was 71 percent higher than in 2023. The UK Refugee Council said that the number of asylum seekers has increased fivefold in two years and about 40,000 migrants are still staying in hotels.
42000 asylum seekers
The UK Home Office said that the number of asylum seekers receiving initial decisions in terms of asylum applications had doubled and that funding had been allocated for more time while they were waiting for a court hearing.
A government spokesman said, however, that the government was determined to gradually end the use of hotels by asylum seekers and reduce the unreasonably high costs of accommodation.
The Refugee Council’s chief executive, Enver Solomon, said that more asylum seekers were being rejected because of laws introduced by the previous Conservative government, which made it harder to prove genuine refugee status.
The majority of asylum seekers currently awaiting appeals are Afghan nationals who arrived in the UK in small boats via French islands in the past two years.
After the government introduced the Nationality and Borders Act, only four in 10 Afghans were allowed to stay in the UK in the second half of last year. Before that, the UK had granted asylum to almost all Afghans seeking asylum.
The Refugee Council’s chief executive, Enver Solomon, said that the cost of housing asylum seekers awaiting appeals and possible hotel costs could reach £1.5 billion this year.
