Explaining the UK asylum applications increase

A briefing written for the Channel Crossings project in March 2023.

Numbers of asylum applications in the UK have more than doubled since 2020 to 74,751 (see Figure 1), nearing the previous peak in 2002 of 84,132. When looked at in isolation, these numbers seem significant and there has been much speculation around what has caused this increase in asylum applications. Explanations often focus on factors which are specific to the UK, such as the small boat Channel crossings phenomenon, or the UK’s exit from the European Union. In this briefing we explain some of the factors driving this increase.

Source: UK Home Office Immigration system statistics year ending 2022

Brexit, the role of Albanian gangs in Northern France, or UK government policy (such as the lack of safe and legal routes for people seeking asylum) are some of the reasons that people have offered for the increase in applications for asylum in recent years. But what we know definitively from global studies of forced and irregular migration, is that there is no single explanation for increases such as this. Multiple factors influence the number of people applying for asylum in a given country, and many of these factors relate to events occurring far beyond the country in question. These multiple factors include distant international phenomena which create population displacement (such as wars), policies and events in other states (such as border controls), national foreign policy, bordering practices, the ways that statistics are captured, the existence of particular diaspora communities in a destination country, and ‘soft power’ factors such as former colonial relationships and reputations for respecting human rights. In short, the factors shaping how many people make an application for asylum in a given state in a given year are many and complex, and there is no single explanation. Importantly, only a small part of this can be influenced by individual states through national policy.

Nevertheless, in the UK in 2023 the evidence suggests that there is one key factor shaping the increase in application numbers: Broader regional trends.

In addition, there are three new factors which may be influencing asylum application numbers, and five longstanding factors which have been at work for many years. The possible new factors are:

1. People are being captured physically and statistically in ways that they were not previously 
2. The sudden withdrawal of the UK and allies from Afghanistan, leaving many collaborators behind, some of whom are now travelling themselves to the UK.
3. The perception amongst people residing in Northern France that Brexit makes their deportation from the UK to other EU countries less likely. 

These new factors are layered on top of four pre-existing factors which lead people to move on from European states to the UK:

1. Poor conditions for people seeking asylum in Greece and Italy
2. The Common European Asylum System and Eurodac database
3. Failures in the French asylum system, including mass destitution
4. The violent hostility of the French authorities to people seeking asylum 

Below we address, and evidence, each of the possible factors in turn:

The key factor: Broader regional trends in asylum applications

Broader regional patterns unrelated to anything special about the UK are the main driving factor influencing the increase in asylum applications in recent years. When we compare the numbers of asylum applications in the UK to nearby European states, we see that the UK is following a similar path to France and Germany, but with a less steep post-covid uptick than in those countries, and certainly in comparison to the EU as a whole. It should also be noted that the numbers of people applying for asylum in the UK are clearly much lower than in nearby European states. We offer below the data in both tabular and graphic form (see Table 1 and Figure 2).

Table 1: Asylum applications compared

Year	Apps UK	Apps EU	Apps France	Apps Germany
2019	35737	631285	138295	142445
2020	29851	417080	81735	102530
2021	50042	537355	103780	148165
2022	74751	799825	137505	217735

Sources: UK Home Office Immigration system statistics year ending 2022, EUROSTAT

The UNHCR suggests that the recent increase is “likely linked in part to the easing of global travel restrictions that were in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic”. This certainly seems to be a factor at the regional level. UNHCR reports that the global population of displaced people increased by 10 million 2021-2022 and identifies the war in Ukraine, conflict in the Tigray region in Ethiopia, the events leading up to the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in Afghanistan in 2021, and displacements from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen as key driving factors in this increase.

Three new factors

Though broader trends in population displacement and consequent asylum applications are the primary factor, there are also three other likely factors.

1. People are being captured physically and statistically in ways that they were not previously:

As discussed above, the UK is broadly in line with Europe wide trends. The UK receives a lower number of applications for asylum than Germany and France partly because of the geography of the country (an island located very far from conflict zones), and partly because key UK borders are controlled outside of the UK -in French and Belgian ports, train stations, and around the world in international airports. In light of these factors, we might expect the numbers to be much lower than regional trends. In this section we explain why this is not the case, and why the types of journeys now being taken might be contributing to the increase in asylum applications being made.

Because of significant investment in border infrastructure building cumulatively over the past 30 years, and restrictive policies such as carrier sanctions, it is now extremely difficult to travel to the UK to seek asylum by clandestine means such as stowing away in lorries, or travelling by aeroplane. We know from research on borders and forced migration around the world that making it difficult for people to move does not stop them from moving. Rather, it funnels them into alternative, usually more difficult and dangerous routes. It also creates demand for smuggling services. Thus, informal camps began to appear in Northern France shortly after the Channel Tunnel opened and the UK introduced border controls in France. When the Channel Tunnel company reached a level of fortification that prevented clandestine travel through the tunnel, people began to stow away in lorries. This was made almost impossible through significant border infrastructure investment and so, from 2018 onwards, people began to attempt to cross the English Channel in small boats.  

In short, actions to secure borders are powerful in shaping the journeys of would-be asylum seekers. This has had a knock-on effect on their visibility to authorities since they are much more visible in small boats in the English Channel than they were when stowing away in lorries. In turn, this means that more people are captured by authorities, and induced to make timely applications for asylum. In other words, it is possible that there are not more people than previously, but that circumstances have just made it more likely that they are statistically captured. Small boat crossings started in 2018, 1800 small boat crossings were recorded in 2019, 8500 in 2020. The increase in applications for asylum seems to track the shift in mode of travel, as well as reflecting regional trends. 2020 was also when government monitoring and data collection in the Channel increased significantly, with a joint intelligence task force and Channel threat commander introduced. Thus, more people are counted. 

This possibility has been noted by the Home Office. At a Westminster Legal Policy Forum on ‘Next steps for the asylum system in the UK’ in November 2022 Daniel Hobbs (Director of Asylum Protection and Enforcement at the UK Home Office) said “Previously most of our asylum claims came through to [the processing office in] Croydon having been here for years, having overstayed their visa. Now they arrive via our ports… This is not clandestine migration, it is quite obvious. We can see them” 

The example of Albanians may be illustrative here. For five years Iranians were the largest group of people seeking asylum in the UK. While Albanians have always been represented in the asylum statistics (and many are granted asylum). They are also the most common nationality of those referred to the national trafficking and modern slavery reporting mechanism. In 2022 Iranians were overtaken as the largest national group in the asylum statistics by Albanians, with 13650 applications from Albanians that year. We were only able to access anecdotal evidence to support the role of Albanian people smugglers in northern France as a factor in the increase in Albanian asylum applications in the UK. This has been reported in the news media quoting anonymous sources. But taking into account what is known about the functioning of borders, it seems most likely that it is the visible journeys (small boat Channel crossings) which are new, rather than new smuggling gangs. In other words, it is likely that this movement was occurring before, but that it was not statistically captured to the same extent, as Albanians were more likely to be clandestinely smuggled as part of trafficking operations.

• The sudden withdrawal of the UK and allies from Afghanistan 

The number of Afghans applying for asylum in the UK increased significantly in 2022, following the sudden withdrawal of the US, UK and allies from Kabul in summer 2021. Home Office statistics show that 1832 Afghans applied for asylum in the UK in 2022, up from 287 in 2021 and 240 in 2020. Around 9000 people have been resettled in the UK under the Afghan Resettlement Scheme, while others must make their own way to the UK to apply for asylum. While these numbers are small, they are part of the overall picture as many Afghans will have more connection to the UK than other European countries owing to the country’s involvement in Afghanistan.  

• The ‘Brexit effect’ perception 

The UK had numerous opt-outs from European directives on asylum and the only aspect of the EU’s ‘Common European Asylum System’ that impacted the UK was the Dublin III Agreement. This allowed member states to send people seeking asylum to another country if it was found (often through the EURODAC fingerprint database) that they had travelled through another European country on their journey. The UK sent very few people elsewhere in Europe using the Dublin III mechanism, and it had little impact on overall asylum applications in the country. In fact, the UK overall gained more applicants than it lost in the final year of inclusion in the mechanism. In 2019 the UK received 2236 requests from EU member states to accept transfers of individuals to the UK, and 714 transfers took place. The UK made 3,259 transfer requests to EU member states, and just 263 transfers took place. With the end of the UKs participation in Dublin III people seeking asylum also lost some entitlements around family reunion. 

In spite of these facts, there is some anecdotal evidence, mainly reported by media outlets, that there is a perception amongst people in Northern France that they are less likely to be sent back to France from the UK now that the UK has exited the European Union and thus left Dublin III. The relative role of this effect in impacting overall numbers of asylum applications in the UK is difficult to capture but we assess it to be a low impact factor.

Four pre-existing factors 

The four pre-existing factors are interconnected and follow the experiences of would-be asylum applicants across their journey in Europe so we deal with them together:

1. Poor conditions for people seeking asylum in Greece and Italy
2. The Common European Asylum System and Eurodac database
3. Failures in the French asylum system, including mass destitution
4. The violent hostility of the French authorities to people seeking asylum 

People who are seeking asylum find themselves in Northern France for a variety of individual reasons. Though each person’s migration story is different, research has found four main reasons people find themselves in Calais, Dunkirk, and the surrounding areas. First, many displaced people have applied for asylum in France but remain destitute while they wait to be accommodated. The informal camps in which they live expose them to a variety of dangers, including police violence. Three UN Special Rapporteurs criticised the French government for the “inhumane” conditions in Calais and Dunkirk in 2018 and drew attention to the harassment and intimidation of NGOs providing humanitarian aid in the area. Many migrants lose hope in the French asylum system as this occurs.

Second, some have been biometrically processed and added to the EU Asylum Fingerprint Database (EURODAC) in their first country of entry to the EU -often Italy or Greece. But they are often then denied protection in these countries and experience coerced onwards migration, particularly by the police, to northern European states. Upon arrival, they cannot apply for asylum because of the Common European Asylum System which would see them deported back to Italy or Greece if they are found. They therefore find themselves with no way back, and no clear path forwards. For these people, the Channel can seem like a reasonable risk in search of sanctuary. This is a very brief summary, but it encapsulates one of the broader sets of contexts that lead people to move on to the UK.

Conclusion

In conclusion, asylum application numbers are produced by complex sets of factors. Many of these factors cannot be ‘solved’ using national level policy mechanisms. They include the outbreak of wars and other forms of displacement. This is why UK asylum application numbers reflect broader European trends. While strong UK border controls may have some dampening effect on application numbers, their main impact is in augmenting the routes that people seeking asylum make. It is possible that in augmenting these routes successive UK governments have also rendered irregular migrants more visible, which is reflected in the increase in application numbers in recent years.