Asylum hotel bills are rocketing
Illegal immigration matters. Ultimately, it is the UK taxpayer who has to foot the bill for accommodation (including hotel) costs for more than 25,000 asylum claimants. Our analysis of new data from the Home Office suggests a cost of just under £1.3 billion per year (see our full research paper here and our press release here). This means an annual cost per asylum seeker per month of just under £4,300 (a figure which seems to have risen by £1,825 since late 2021). The amount of taxpayer money spent per asylum seeker per month is now 1.5 times the average monthly pay for NHS nurses. Shockingly, taxpayers are being forced to fork out ever-increasing amounts of money for accommodation providers over and above contracts that were worth a whopping £4.5 billion over ten years when the government signed them to secure asylum-related housing provision back in 2019. All this begs the question as to why our new PM failed to raise the Channel crisis when she met President Macron in New York this week. With the number of illegal crossings for the year now over 30,000 and heading towards 50-60,000 by year’s end, the decision to keep schtum on the Channel is, to quote a Home Office official, “baffling.” The problem on the Channel is not going to go away, it will only get worse. Suella Braverman, our new Home Secretary, we believe, has the nous and the will to tackle it but she will need the full backing of the Prime Minister and her parliamentary colleagues. But, even this may not be enough unless the French, and especially the President, are prepared to play ball. It is as much in France’s interests as our’s to solve this escalating problem.
Blog of the week
Irregular Immigration Behind The Broken Asylum System
The latest ‘irregular’ migration statistics for the year ending June 2022 revealed the extent to which, what used to be termed illegal migration, feeds the broken asylum system, since nearly all those entering this way claim asylum. Leading the clear abuse are those crossing the English Channel illegally via small boats or by being smuggled in the back of lorries. Additionally, there are those who arrive by air and gain entry by deception. The statistics show that in total more than 100,000 people have entered the country through unauthorised routes or by deceiving a border official (i.e. entering legally) since the beginning of 2018. Of those 100,000, 51,881 arrived by small boat (another 12,392 have arrived in the past two months), 17,166 landed at a British airport without the correct documentation and 31,525 were detected at UK ports or elsewhere within Britain. Read the full blog here.
Migration Watch in the news
See below for our appearances in the news this week:
The Sun: INN COMERS Asylum claimants’ hotel bills cost nearly £1.3billion per year, shock report claims
‘As the illegal boat arrivals soared over the summer, the number being housed in hotels has likely gone up too.
‘It is now costing the already hard-pressed taxpayer eye-watering sums.
‘The Home Secretary must now show the resolve needed to deal with the costly chaos.’
You can also see our research reported in the Daily Mail and the Telegraph.
GB News: We must work with the French to solve the Channel crisis
‘So far, really, I don’t think anything has happened that is likely to have an impact on the numbers coming across.’
LBC: Channel migrant crossings pass 2021 record with 28,000 people arriving in small boats
‘It was a matter of when not if the 2021 figure was overtaken. At this rate it will be 50,000-60,000 by the end of the year.
‘The new Home Secretary must act quickly and decisively if the open door to illegal immigration and traffickers is to stand any chance of being closed.’
You can also see us quoted in The Sun on the same issue here.
Make your voice heard
For years we have been drawing attention to the severe cost to British workers of weak and ineffectual immigration policies and the harm that mass, uncontrolled immigration does to the integration, cohesion and stability of our society. For this reason, we are stepping up our fight. We are taking the fight to those who would open our borders to the point when they might as well not be there. Indeed, that is effectively what we have on the Channel coast and something close to that with our visa system. Join us in our campaign to make the powers that be see sense. You can become part of this battle, by writing to your MP here, and calling for a return to sensible border and immigration control.