More than a third of asylum applications are being made by migrants who are illegally in the country or have overstayed their visas.
Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants and overstayers claimed asylum only after being caught by immigration officers, and not at the time of their first arrival in Britain. Critics say that the data, supplied by the Home Office in a written Commons reply, indicates the extent to which migrants try to “play the system” to prolong their stay.
Thirty-six per cent of asylum applications in 2004-14 were by migrants “encountered by local immigration and enforcement staff” — a total of 83,912 of the 231,100 main applications received during those years.
Alp Mehmet, deputy chairman of MigrationWatch UK, which campaigns for lower immigration,