The ‘absurd’ reality about asylum claims in Britain is today laid bare in extraordinary detail.
Fuelled by the small boats crisis plaguing the Channel, a record 108,000 applications were lodged in 2024.
Claims from dozens of countries, including Afghanistan and Iran, have doubled over the last 20 years.
can reveal that the UK has even recorded a 200-fold explosion from three nationalities.
Just one citizen from Tajikistan, a former Soviet state, tried to claim asylum in Britain in 2004, according to Home Office statistics. This exploded to 380 in 2024, marking the biggest percentage increase of all the nations tracked.
The full findings of the third chapter of our ongoing investigation into asylum seeker claims can be viewed below in our interactive map. Dating back to 2004, it lists how many applications have been registered from 200-plus countries.
Our analysis comes after Keir Starmer this week warned that mass immigration risks making Britain an ‘island of strangers’.
Scrambling to blunt the threat of Reform, the Prime Minister vowed to give Brits what they had ‘asked for time and time again’. He unveiled a package to ‘take back control of our borders’.
last week exposed how one council in Britain is housing 600 times more asylum seekers now than a decade ago.
Before that, we revealed citizens in the US, and even Scandinavia are trying to claim asylum here – despite already residing in wealthy Western countries that are free of major human rights abuses.
The Centre for Migration Control said our latest analysis – chronicling the increase in applications nations all over the world – was proof people now view Britain as a ‘soft touch just waiting to be exploited’.
Robert Bates, of the think tank, added: ‘It is absurd that we allow our generosity to be abused to such an extent.
‘The system is in chaos, costing us billions.
‘The only way to restore order is to freeze future asylum applications and ramp up the deportation of those who entered illegally.’
Taking aim at Sir Keir, Mr Bates added: ‘Labour doesn’t have any answers to this crisis and will continue to allow our borders to be eroded by activist judges blocking deportations on spurious “human rights” grounds.
‘Britain is diving headfirst into a future of division and tension as a result.’
Alp Mehmet, of Migration Watch UK, said: ‘We have long been seen as a soft touch, with good reason.
Asylum is protection given by a country to someone fleeing from persecution in their own country.
An asylum seeker is someone who has applied for asylum and is awaiting a decision on whether they will be granted refugee status.
An asylum applicant who does not qualify for refugee status may still be granted leave to remain in the UK for humanitarian or other reasons.
An asylum seeker whose application is refused at initial decision may appeal the decision through an appeal process and, if successful, may be granted leave to remain.
‘The bulk of those applying for asylum are now entering legally, with a minority coming illegally across the Channel. The latter, mostly young men, once here, are unlikely ever to be removed and that’s why they come.’
Asylum claims aren’t just made by new arrivals but also by foreign nationals who may have been in Britain for years.
Pakistan was the most common country of origin (10,542), followed by Afghanistan (8,508), Iran (8,099), Bangladesh (7,225) and Syria (6,680).
Those five countries alone made up 38 per cent of all asylum applications last year.
Yet Tajikistan, which has been controlled since 1994 by long-standing dictator Emomali Rahmon – an ally of Russian despot Vladimir Putin, topped the table in terms of biggest percentage increase.
The mountainous nation, tucked in central Asia has an ‘abysmal’ record, according to the Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Tajik authorities have jailed critics of the Government, including opposition activists and journalists, on politically-motivated grounds.
There has also been a crackdown on conservative Muslims since Tajik men were arrested and charged with a terrorist attack on a Moscow concert hall in March 2024.
Behind Tajikistan, in terms of the biggest increases since 2004, came the Stateless group (from two in 2004 to 564 in 2024) and Nicaragua (one in 2004 to 122 in 2024).
Included within the Stateless category are the Bidoon – an Arab minority considered ‘illegal residents’ by the oil-rich Gulf state of Kuwait.
When it gained independence from Britain in 1961, Kuwait did not class the Bidoon as citizens. At the time they made up around a third of the country’s population.
From the mid-1980s onwards the Kuwaiti government began to view Bidoon as a security threat, particularly because some incoming refugees from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq were trying to avoid military service by posing as Bidoon.
The Minority Rights Group says: ‘Due to their stateless status, Bidoon face difficulties in obtaining civil documents, finding employment, and accessing healthcare, education, and other social services provided to Kuwaiti citizens.
‘As a result, many live in relative poverty and are relegated to working in the informal sector.’
Kuwait also had an increase in asylum claims of 3,600 per cent, rising from 52 in 2004 to 1,936 in 2024.
The official Home Office guidance on the Bidoon states all cases must be considered on their individual facts, with the onus on the person to demonstrate they face persecution or serious harm.
In January, an asylum seeker from Kuwait was jailed after he fractured a bride-to-be’s spine three weeks before her wedding by crashing an uninsured vehicle into her while speeding away from the police.
Behind Tajikistan and Stateless, Nicaragua experienced the next biggest rise in applications to Britain.
Nicaragua, the largest country in Central America, has seen democratic backsliding since 2006, and is now widely described as an authoritarian dictatorship.
Under the presidency of Daniel Ortega, the country has had a growing climate of repression, intimidation, and harassment due to a policy of arbitrary arrests and exiling.
To be eligible for asylum, the Home Office says: ‘You must have left your country and be unable to go back because you fear persecution.’
This could be based on race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation or political opinion, or any other factor that places them at risk in their country.
Only once asylum seekers are granted refugee status or another humanitarian cover are they allowed to work, study and claim benefits in the UK.
In total, 80 countries out of a total of 211 reported a doubling of applications between 2004 and 2024.
Eighteen of these saw rates rocket by 20-fold.
The analysis, however, understates the true scale of the issue because 31 countries are now taking asylum seekers where they weren’t previously.
For instance South Sudan, created in 2011, had 359 applications lodged in Britain in 2024.
However, citizens from 50 countries are now lodging fewer applications to Britain.
Home Office data shows asylum claims have spiralled to all-time highs in the wake of the small boats fiasco, with 108,000 applications lodged in 2024.
Pakistan was the most common country of origin (10,542), followed by Afghanistan (8,508), Iran (8,099), Bangladesh (7,225) and Syria (6,680).
Those five countries alone made up 38 per cent of all asylum applications last year.
On average in 2024, 53 per cent of applications were refused at initial decision – not counting withdrawals.
When an application is refused at initial decision, it may be appealed.
Between 2001 to 2021, around three-quarters of applicants refused asylum at initial decision lodged an appeal and almost one third of those appeals were allowed.
While waiting for their case to be heard, they are housed in state-provided accommodation, such as hotels, although that process can take months.
Asylum seekers which have been completely refused are meant to be deported by the Home Office, but these are often expensive and subject to severe delays.
There have been a number of high-profile cases of former asylum seekers being allowed to stay due to extremely controversial reasons.
One such case from earlier this year involved an immigration tribunal appeal ruling that an Albanian criminal would be allowed to stay because his son had a ‘distaste’ for foreign chicken nuggets.
Britain’s small boats crisis has fuelled the growing toll, with tens of thousands having trekked across the Channel seeking a better life since 2018.
Small boat arrivals now make-up nearly a third of all asylum claims.
Others arrive through legal routes such as on a student visa before they lodge an application.
The topic of where asylum seekers are housed has been a huge topic of controversy.
In the Runcorn by-election, where Reform narrowly beat Labour by six votes, both parties promised to close a 425-bed hotel in the constituency that was being used by the Home Office to house asylum seekers.
Locals in the Cheshire town claimed crime had increased in the area since it started housing asylum seekers in 2020.
Residents in Hartlepool, Swansea and Coventry also railed against the negative consequences of the influx, saying it has heaped pressure on housing, GPs and dentists.
As well as getting free accommodation, asylum seekers are also entitled to UK taxpayer-funded NHS healthcare, prescriptions, dental care and children under 18 are required to go to school (where they may be able to get free meals).
If their accommodation provides meals each person gets £8.86 per week, this rises to £49.18 per week if no meals are provided.
Extra money is also provided to pregnant mothers and young children.
Under Number 10’s long-awaited blueprint to curb immigration, skills thresholds will be hiked and rules on fluency in English toughened.
Migrants will also be required to wait 10 years for citizenship rather than the current five, and face deportation for even lower-level crimes.
Graduate visas will be reduced to 18 months, and a new levy introduced on income that universities generate from international students.
Requirements that sponsoring institutions must meet in order to recruit international students are also being tightened.
Policymakers estimate the government’s package will bring down annual inflows by around 100,000.
Most grants of refuge have historically come via the UK’s in-country asylum process.
Others, however, have come through resettlement schemes involving nations such as Ukraine, Syria, Hong Kong, and Afghanistan.
Citizens who arrive in these situations are not recorded in the asylum figures.
A Home Office spokesperson said: ‘The majority of these increases occurred under the previous government, there are multiple factors contributing to an increase in asylum applications globally over time.
‘We inherited an asylum system in chaos, and have taken immediate action by increasing asylum decision making by 52 per cent and removing 24,000 people with no right to be here, meaning there are now fewer asylum hotels open than since the election.
‘By ending the use of hotels, we are also forecast to save the taxpayer £4billion by the end of 2026.’