Thousands of migrants leave UK but backlog of asylum cases reaches 225k

Thousands of migrants have left the UK but the backlog of asylum cases has reached 225,000.

Deportation flights have gone up 25 percent since Labour formed a government. The Home Office has said 1,240 people left the UK between July and August. Another 2,360 people on top of that have returned to their home countries voluntarily.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has promised to remove over 14,000 people by the New Year – this would be the highest rate of deportations since 2018.

It means almost 11,000 people will need to be removed within the next four months.

But a backlog in the asylum system means almost 225,000 people are waiting on initial claim decisions, appeals and pending removal.

The Home Office repurposed Rwanda flights for failed asylum seekers, instead taking them to countries including Vietnam and Timor-Leste.

This comes a week after Germany and France called for a Europe-wide deal on migration and asylum with the UK to prevent “irregular flow” of people and reduce the danger to migrants.

The UK also recently offered to airlift marooned asylum seekers off Diego Garcia, a remote military island in the Chagos Islands, to the UK.

Almost 60 Tamil migrants were stuck on the Indian Ocean island, which is home to a British-American military base, after their boat ran into trouble.

The rat-infested conditions have been described as inhumane, with children at immediate and growing risk of harm.

This was decided as part of the UK handing over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We have been working at pace to find practical solutions which protect the welfare of the migrants and the integrity of British territorial borders.”