Tens of thousands of migrants are waiting more than a year for a decision on their asylum claim, 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 claim in the UK nearly quadrupled in the past five years, from 29,522 in December 2017 to 122,206 in June 2022, according to British Home Office data obtained by the Refugee Council under freedom of information laws.
The figure was 64,891 in December 2020, a near doubling 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, the organization has said.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman has come under increasing pressure to fix the UK asylum system, which both she and her predecessor, Priti Patel, described as «broken.»
The government is spending £6.8 million (€7.7 million) a day housing migrants in hotels. Home Office figures released in August showed the cost of the UK asylum system has topped £2 billion a year for the first time, with the highest number of applications for two decades and record delays for people waiting for a decision.
At the time, the Home Office announced the creation of a taskforce to look at how to speed up the processing of asylum applications in a bid to increase the number of decisions made on cases on a weekly basis.
Enver Solomon, the charity’s chief executive, said: «Immediate action must be taken to address the huge backlog of men, women and children stuck in limbo while they wait years for a decision on their asylum application, costing millions of pounds a day to house them in often substandard hotels,» reports dpa.
«These people came to the UK seeking safety, but they are being condemned to years of worry and uncertainty, at serious cost to their mental health, rather than being able to put down roots in their new community and rebuild their lives,» Solomon added.
The Refugee Council called on ministers to introduce a series of measures to address the problem, including the creation of a dedicated working group to clear the backlog and the setting of a target date 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 it do so,» adding that the «unspeakable human misery this situation causes is simply unsustainable,» as well as being a huge cost to the public purse.
He also warned that, if no action is taken, next year «is likely to see another appalling episode» like the 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 applications in a timely and efficient manner,» he has concluded.
