Thousands of UK asylum seekers wait ‘in limbo’ for years

LONDON, 14 Nov. (DPA/EP) –

Tens of thousands of migrants are waiting more than a year for a decision on their asylum application, with hundreds waiting more than five years, according to figures from British authorities.

The number of people waiting for an initial decision on their asylum application in the UK has nearly quadrupled in the last five years, from 29,522 in December 2017 to 122,206 in June 2022, according to UK Home Office data obtained by the UK. Council of Refugees under freedom of information laws.

The figure was 64,891 in December 2020, which means that it almost doubled in 18 months.

A third of the applicants — 40,913 — have been waiting between one and three years, while 725 people, including 155 children, have been “living in limbo awaiting a decision” for more than five years, it said. the organization.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman has come under increasing pressure to fix the UK’s asylum system, which both she and her predecessor Priti Patel described as “broken”.

The Government is spending 6.8 million pounds (7.7 million euros) a day to accommodate migrants in hotels. Home Office figures published in August showed that the cost of the UK asylum system has exceeded £2bn a year for the first time, with the highest number of applications for two decades and record delays for people who await a decision.

At that time, the Home Office announced the creation of a task force to study how to speed up the processing of asylum applications in an attempt to increase the number of decisions taken on cases on a weekly basis.

Enver Solomon, chief executive of the charity, said: “Immediate action must be taken to address the huge backlog of men, women and children stuck in limbo as they wait years for a decision on their asylum claim, costing millions of pounds a day, lodging them in hotels that are often of poor quality”, says dpa.

“These people came to the UK in search of safety, but they are being sentenced to years of worry and uncertainty, at serious cost to their mental health, instead of being able to put down roots in their new community and rebuild their lives.” added Solomon.

The Refugee Council called on ministers to introduce a series of measures to tackle the problem, including creating a task force dedicated to clearing the backlog and setting a deadline for its removal.

Solomon has assured that there are “clear steps that this government could take immediately to address this situation. We are willing to work constructively to help you do so,” adding that the “unspeakable human misery that this situation causes is simply unsustainable.” in addition to assuming a huge cost to the public treasury.

He has also warned that, if action is not taken, next year “another appalling episode is likely to occur” such as overcrowding at the Manston immigration processing center in Kent.

We urgently need to move to a fair, orderly and compassionate asylum system that always sees the face behind the case and deals with claims in a timely and effective manner.