Britain’s migration crisis: Who is at risk of deportation under crackdown and is Labour targeting the right people?
T.The latest official data shows the number of asylum claims in the UK has reached a record high; Shabana Mahmood is planning a major overhaul of the system to make the country less attractive to refugees.
The home secretary’s radical package of measures to speed up the deportation of failed asylum seekers has triggered a Labor revolt, with MPs accusing the minister of “destroying the rights and protections” of people fleeing conflict.
Other proposals call for people granted refugee status to return home if their country is deemed safe. They will also have to wait 20 years, unlike the current five years, to apply to settle permanently in the UK.
Families with children could be forced to leave the country as part of measures aimed at removing those who have no right to be in the UK, while visas will no longer be issued for family reunification.
In a statement to the House of Commons, Ms Mahmood said the asylum system was “out of control and unfair”, adding: “These measures are designed to tackle the pull factors that draw people to this country.”
But while much of the focus is on reducing the number of asylum seekers arriving on small boats (Ms Mahood mentioned this three times in her speech to MPs on Monday), a large number are also arriving legally on visas, much of it made possible by post-Brexit measures.
An analysis of the top five nationalities of asylum seekers last year showed that almost all countries remained unsafe, calling into question the effectiveness of the threat to send refugees back to where they came from.
Here, Independent He is crunching the numbers to gauge who is at risk and whether Ms. Mahood’s planned crackdown would work if passed by Parliament.
Asylum applications at record high – but backlog of cases falling
The number of asylum seekers reached a record high of 111,084 cases in the year ending June 2025. This was a 14 percent increase from the previous year and eight percent higher than the previous record of 103,081 in 2002.
However, despite this increase, the number of live asylum cases awaiting decision decreased to 70,532 with 90,812 people during the year. This represented an 18 percent decrease from the previous year; however, it remained much higher than during the 2010-2018 period, when the number of cases rose from 6,000 to 27,000.
But Ms Mahmood said housing the majority of asylum seekers would still cost taxpayers £9 million a day in 2023. Latest figures show that the number of refugees housed in hotels totaled 32,059 as of the end of June. This number was 29,585 the previous year.
Ms Mahood told the House of Commons that the caseload in the UK was “heavy” and that the speed and scale of the asylum system was destabilizing communities and “making our country a more divided place”.
He said the new asylum policy would address two goals; To increase deportations of those who have no right to be in the UK and reduce illegal entry into the country.
He said: “It 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.”
But immigrants arriving illegally accounted for only half of the asylum cases filed last year.
How do refugees come to the UK?
Those making the perilous journey across the Channel to the UK are often the most common picture of migrants arriving in the UK and subsequently applying for asylum, with Home Office data showing they will account for 39 per cent of asylum cases made by June 2025.
This was despite the number of arrivals via small boat crossings rising by 38 per cent to 43,309 in the year ending June 2025 compared to the previous year.
A further 11 per cent of asylum cases came from people entering the UK through other illegal means such as lorries, shipping containers or without relevant documentation.
However, the second largest proportion of asylum seekers (37 per cent) entered the UK with an approved visa or relevant documentation. These included 14,800 people on work visas, 12,200 on business visitors and 8,900 on visitor visas.
Oxford University Migration Observatory in question The number of applications from visa holders increased within the scope of the post-Brexit immigration system, which was allowed The number of non-EU citizens receiving work, family and study visas in the country is increasing.
The remainder of asylum cases came from other routes, including UK-born children of asylum seekers or refugees.
Tom Southerden, Amnesty International’s legal program director, said: Independent He said Ms. Mahood’s plan would “make a bad situation immeasurably worse” by creating further backlogs and depriving people of stability.
He added: “We need an asylum system based on justice, evidence and respect for human rights, not one driven by headlines chasing persecution.”
Which asylum seekers are at risk of being sent back?
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the top five countries where the highest number of people sought asylum in the year ending June 2025 were Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea and Bangladesh.
Together, these countries represented more than a third of claimants during the period.
According to the latest figures, applications from Afghan citizens increased significantly following the capture of the capital Kabul by the Taliban in August 2021 and remain high.
Under Ms. Mahood’s renewed asylum policy, asylum seekers granted refugee status, including families, could be returned to their home countries once deemed safe.
The document attached to the policy included the following statements: “If the regime changes in his own country, our approach should also change. If someone has escaped from the rule of a regime and that regime has been changed, it should be possible to return him to that country.”
However, the State Department recommends against travel to some or all of most countries from the top four nations: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Eritrea.
As for Syria, after the fall of the Assad regime, the Ministry of Internal Affairs said it supported the voluntary return of people to the country, adding that it was now exploring forced repatriations to itself and other countries.
Fizza Qureshi, chief executive of the Immigrant Rights Network, said: Independent Ms. Madhood’s plan will not reduce the number of people seeking safety, but will instead make them more vulnerable to exploitation.
He added: “The government is focused on playing politics with their lives without ever considering the mental and physical impact this is having on them.”
And Labor Lord Alf Dubs, who fled Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia and came to Britain on the Kindertransport, accused Shabana Mahmood of using “children as weapons” in plans to make Britain less attractive to refugees.
This statement came after the home secretary said Britain could deport families, including families with children, if they refuse monetary incentives. The Home Office also alleged that children were being sent to the UK on small boats so their families could “exploit” the laws by putting down roots, thus preventing them from being removed from the country.
Lord Dubs told the BBC’s Today programme: “I find it sad that we have to take such a hard line; what we need is some compassion in our policy and I think some of the measures are going in the wrong direction, they won’t help.”
