Fury as Home Office loses track of almost 6,000 asylum seekers who are now roaming Britain in immigration farce branded ‘shocking’ by Labour

Almost 6,000 asylum seekers whose claims have been withdrawn have gone missing in the UK, ministers have admitted.

The migrants ‘remain in the UK and the Home Office is taking steps to urgently re-establish contact with them’, the disclosure to MPs revealed.

It comes as the department was rebuked by the statistics watchdog after the Government was accused of lying about meeting a target to clear part of the asylum backlog, with the body’s boss warning this could affect ‘public trust’.

The Home Office confirmed the figures after the Commons Home Affairs Committee demanded answers when a senior official last year told members the department did not know the whereabouts of more than 17,000 asylum seekers whose claims had been withdrawn.

Labour said the news was ‘yet more evidence of the shocking mismanagement and chaos’ in the asylum system.

In the letter to committee chairwoman Dame Diana Johnson, illegal migration minister Michael Tomlison and legal migration minister Tom Pursglove said it was ‘erroneous to say that the Home Office has lost the 17,316 cases that have been withdrawn over the 12 months to 30 September 2023’.

They said there were a ‘variety of reasons’ why this decision could be made and that the majority (68 per cent) have either ‘left the UK already’, submitted a fresh asylum claim or steps were being taken to ‘secure their removal from the UK.’

But the ministers confirmed 5,598 (32 per cent) of those asylum seekers ‘remain in the UK and the Home Office is taking steps to urgently re-establish contact with them’, adding: ‘When we withdraw a claim, and if someone has no other permission to stay in the UK; funding and support stops and someone becomes liable for law enforcement activity to be removed from the UK.

‘If these individuals were to make further submissions, caseworkers may consider whether their previous actions are damaging to their credibility.’

Some 5,931 (35 per cent) are still in the UK and are in contact with the Home Office with their cases ‘now being managed by various teams across the Home Office including but not exclusively, Immigration Enforcement, appeals and litigation teams and further submissions’.

The letter said 3,144 (18 per cent) of migrants who had their case withdrawn are no longer in the UK and have ‘no reason to have a continuing asylum claim’.

The remaining 2,643 asylum seekers (15 per cent) are still in the UK and, in the wake of the department’s initial decision to withdraw their claim, have ‘re-engaged with the Home Office and have been granted some form of lawful immigration status’.

The numbers give an indication of how many asylum cases may have returned to the backlog after initially being recorded as withdrawn.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: ‘This is a staggering admission that the Home Office has lost almost 6,000 asylum seekers and has no idea where they are.

‘The fact that thousands of people have been allowed to effectively disappear into the underground economy or left vulnerable to exploitation by criminal gangs is yet more evidence of the shocking mismanagement and chaos in the Tory asylum system.

‘Time and again ministers are spending their time on gimmicks rather than getting a grip.’

The Prime Minister previously pledged to ‘abolish’ a portion of older asylum applications awaiting an initial decision, by the end of last year, tasking the Home Office with tackling 92,601 so-called ‘legacy’ claims made before the end of June 2022.

But figures showed 4,537 applications were still outstanding as of December 28.

It came as the number of asylum seekers winning refugee status has hit the highest level since records began nearly 40 years ago.

Official figures show 38,761 asylum claims were granted by the Home Office in the year to September – more than during the asylum crisis in the early 2000s.

Home Office caseworkers made just under 42,000 initial decisions on asylum claims in the year – the highest level in two decades.

Of those, 75 per cent led to the applicant being given asylum or another form of humanitarian protection.

A Home Office document said: ‘The number of people granted (38,761) is the highest since records began (in 1984) and higher than the previous peak in 2002 (when 33,460 people were granted and the grant rate was 34 per cent).’

The ‘grant rate’ is the proportion of asylum applications which lead to refugee status at the initial stage. Before the pandemic this was about a third of applications. 

Permanent secretary Sir Matthew Rycroft and his interim second-in-command Simon Ridley faced questions in November about the asylum backlog amid the race to reach Rishi Sunak’s target.

MPs highlighted how the number of applications withdrawn had increased substantially in the run up to the deadline and asked the whereabouts of the 17,316 applicants, to which Mr Ridley replied: ‘In most cases, I don’t know where those people are.’

He told the committee a claim was withdrawn when asylum seekers did not turn up for interviews or complete questionnaires and were ‘not engaging with the system that leads to a decision’.

Other reasons included when someone had already left the UK before their claim was considered or if they chose to pursue another application for permission to stay in the country, according to the Home Office.

A No 10 spokeswoman said: ‘Every effort is taken to locate and remove individuals who have no right to be here and there’s a dedicated unit to trace and locate people.’

Rishi Sunak last night saw his Rwanda Bill pass unamended through the House of Commons as he continued his efforts to ‘Stop the Boats’.

The Prime Minister secured victory after a threatened widespread rebellion against the legislation by Tory MPs melted away.

Formally titled the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, the draft laws are aimed at ensuring migrant deportation flights to Rwanda finally get off the ground.

Both the Bill and a new treaty agreed with Kigali are part of Mr Sunak’s strategy for manoeuvring around last year’s Supreme Court ruling against the asylum scheme.

But despite MPs approving the legislation, there are still a number of hurdles for Mr Sunak to clear before a first plane-load of asylum seekers might arrive in Africa.