The number of asylum claims in the UK has hit a record level, latest official data shows, as Shabana Mahmood plots a sweeping overhaul of the system to make the country less attractive to refugees.
The home secretary’s radical package of measures, which would see the deportation of failed asylum seekers fast-tracked, has triggered a Labour rebellion with MPs accusing the minister of “ripping up the rights and protections” of people fleeing conflict.
Other proposals would see people granted refugee status returned home if their country is deemed safe. They would also have to wait 20 years to apply to settle permanently in the UK, unlike the current five years.
Families with children could also be forced to leave under measures to remove those with no right to be in the UK, while visas would no longer be granted for family reunion.
In her statement to the Commons, Ms Mahmood said the asylum system was “out of control and unfair”, adding: “These measures are designed to tackle the pull factors that draw people to this country.”
But while much of the focus has been on curbing the numbers of asylum seekers arriving by small boats – Ms Mahood mentioned it three times in her speech to MPs on Monday – a large proportion also arrive legitimately on visas, many made possible through post-Brexit measures.
An analysis of the top five nationalities of asylum seekers last year showed almost all the countries remained unsafe, bringing into question the effectiveness of the threat of sending refugees back to where they came from.
Here, The Independent picks through the numbers to measure who is at risk and if Ms Mahood’s planned crackdown, if it gets through Parliament, will work.
Record level of claims for asylum – but backlog of cases falling
The number of people claiming asylum hit a record level in the year ending June 2025, reaching 111,084 cases. That was a 14 per cent increase on the year before, and eight per cent higher than the previous record of 103,081 in 2002.
Yet despite this rise, the number of live asylum cases awaiting a decision actually fell in the year, down to 70,532, relating to 90,812 people. That was a reduction of 18 per cent from the year before – but it remained much higher than the period 2010 to 2018, when the number of cases grew from 6,000 to 27,000.
But still, housing the majority of the asylum seekers was costing the taxpayer £9m a day in 2023, Ms Mahmood said. Latest figures show a total of 32,059 asylum seekers were in being housed in hotels as of the end of June, up from 29,585 the year before.
Ms Mahood, in her speech to the Commons, said the burden of cases on the UK “was heavy”, and that the pace and scale of the asylum system was destabilising communities, and “making our country a more divided place”.
She said the new asylum policy would attack two goals; to increase removals of those with no right to be in the UK, and to reduce the illegal arrivals into the country.
She said: “It starts by accepting an uncomfortable truth: while asylum claims fall across Europe, they are rising here, and that is because of the comparative generosity of our asylum offer when compared to so many of our European neighbours.”
However, immigrants arriving illegally only make up half of the asylum cases lodged last year.
How are asylum seekers arriving in the UK?
While those making the dangerous journey across the English Channel to the UK often provide the most common picture for immigrants arriving in the UK and then applying for asylum, Home Office data shows that in the year to June 2025, they made up 39 per cent of asylum cases lodged.
That is despite the number of arrivals on small boat crossings increasing to 43,309 in the year ending June 2025, up 38 per cent from the year before.
A further 11 per cent of all asylum cases lodged came from people entering the UK via other illegal avenues, such as lorries, shipping containers or without the relevant documentation.
However, the second largest proportion of people making asylum claims, 37 per cent, entered the UK on an approved visa or with the relevant documentation. They included 14,800 people who held a study visa, 12,200 who had a work visitor and 8,900 who had a visitor visa.
The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford said the number of claims from visa holders had increased under the post-Brexit immigration system, which allowed more non-EU nationals in the country on work, family and study visas.
The remaining proportion of asylum cases came from other routes, including UK-born children of asylum seekers or refugees.
Tom Southerden, legal programme director at the charity Amnesty International, told The Independent that Ms Mahood’s plan would “make a bad situation immeasurably worse” by creating further backlogs and depriving people of stability.
He added: “We need an asylum system grounded in fairness, evidence and respect for human rights, not one driven by headline chasing cruelty.”
Which asylum seekers are at risk of being returned?
According to the Home Office, the top five nationalities with the largest number of people claiming asylum in the year ending June 2025 were Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea and Bangladesh.
Together, those countries represented more than a third of all claimants during the period.
Claims from Afghan nationals have risen substantially following the capture of the capital Kabul by the Taliban in August 2021, and continue to remain high, according to the latest figures.
Under Ms Mahood’s revamped asylum policy, asylum seekers granted refugee status could be returned to their home country once it is deemed safe, including families.
The document attached to her policy read: “Should the regime change in their home country, our approach should change too. If someone has fled the rule of one regime, but that regime has since been replaced, it must be possible to return them to that country.”
However, of the top four nationalities, the Foreign Office advises against travel to parts or all of most of the countries: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and Eritrea.
As for Syria, following the toppling of the Assad regime, the Home Office said it was supporting people to return to the country voluntarily, adding it was now exploring enforced returns to it and other countries.
Fizza Qureshi, chief executive of the Migrants’ Rights Network, told The Independent Ms Madhood’s plan will not reduce the number of people seeking safety, but instead make them more vulnerable to exploitation.
She added: “The government is focusing on playing politics with their lives without any consideration on the mental and physical impact this has on them.”
And Labour peer Lord Alf Dubs, who fled Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia and arrived in England on Kindertransport, accused Shabana Mahmood of using “children as a weapon” under her plans to make Britain less attractive to asylum seekers.
It came after the home secretary said Britain could deport families, including those with children, if they refused monetary incentives to leave. The Home Office has also claimed that children are being sent to the UK on small boats so their families can “exploit” laws by putting down roots, thereby blocking removal.
Lord Dubs told the BBC’s Today programme: “I find it upsetting that we’ve got to adopt such a hard line – what we need is a bit of compassion in our politics and I think that some of the measures were going in the wrong direction, they won’t help.”
