Get the facts on immigration statistics

18 September 2024

There aren’t 1.6 million asylum seekers claiming benefits in the UK

A post circulating on social media falsely claims that there are 1.6 million asylum seekers receiving “long term benefits”.

19 June 2024

ONS figures don’t show 14 million people will arrive in the UK ‘in the next 12 years’

The ONS actually projects that 10.4 million will immigrate to the UK between this year and mid-2036.

21 December 2023

List of claims about Muslims in Britain reappears on social media

A Facebook post contains a number of claims about Muslims in Britain that are either wrong or unevidenced.

25 October 2023

How does the number of migrant returns compare to the past?

The number of people being returned from the UK, including asylum seekers, foreign national offenders and others, is up since 2020, but is relatively low compared to earlier years.

14 March 2023

The asylum backlog is far higher now than when Labour left government

The home secretary told Parliament the current backlog bears “no comparison” to the situation in 2010, and that Labour would be “found wanting” in any comparison.

10 March 2023

No evidence to support Rishi Sunak’s asylum backlog claim

The Prime Minister said there were 6,000 fewer people in the “asylum backlog”—but the latest published figures show a large rise in the number of people waiting for applications to be resolved.

22 November 2022

No published data to support minister’s claim about migrants saying they’re under 18

Robert Jenrick’s claim that up to 20% of adult men arriving at an asylum processing centre say they’re under 18 has prompted new questions about the Home Office’s use of statistics.

12 October 2022

Evidence for claim that 60% of small boat arrivals are Albanian not yet published

The figure has been used by Priti Patel in Parliament and a number of times in the media, but it isn’t yet supported by published government statistics.

16 August 2022

Telegraph ‘migrant’ graph only captures fraction of arrivals in the UK

A graph published by the Telegraph misses hundreds of thousands of people who moved to the UK to live, study and work in 2021.

12 August 2022

Leaked report doesn’t ‘vindicate’ view that most people crossing the Channel on small boats are 'economic migrants'

The Mail on Sunday recently published an article stating that four in 10 people crossing the Channel in small boats are from Albania.

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Immigration statistics

There aren’t 1.6 million asylum seekers claiming benefits in the UK

ONS figures don’t show 14 million people will arrive in the UK ‘in the next 12 years’

List of claims about Muslims in Britain reappears on social media

How does the number of migrant returns compare to the past?

The asylum backlog is far higher now than when Labour left government

No evidence to support Rishi Sunak’s asylum backlog claim

No published data to support minister’s claim about migrants saying they’re under 18

Evidence for claim that 60% of small boat arrivals are Albanian not yet published

Telegraph ‘migrant’ graph only captures fraction of arrivals in the UK

Leaked report doesn’t ‘vindicate’ view that most people crossing the Channel on small boats are 'economic migrants'

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