BRITAIN’S “broken” asylum system is facing further chaos with a record 55,000 people stuck in a three-year backlog, Trending In The News on Sunday can reveal.
Officials are swamped with claims — with 100 migrants hitting the three-year wait milestone every month.
Thousands more refused refugee status remain in the UK because immigration chiefs do not know where they come from.
Many destroy their documents before arrival, creating a bureaucratic nightmare for officials tasked with deporting them.
The system has been put under increasing pressure by the huge number who have reached Britain by boat across the Channel and movement rules imposed during lockdown.
Last week it emerged just five of over 23,000 who made the perilous crossing this year have been returned to Europe.
But figures obtained by Trending In The News on Sunday show 54,432 have been waiting more than three years for their case to be resolved, up 12 per cent on last year and double the 2015 figure.
Figures for those who have exhausted all appeal avenues and are waiting to be removed now stand at 39,510, up 68 per cent on the 2015 figure.
Thousands are left trapped in “Zombie UK” where they are not allowed to work legally but where there is nowhere they can be deported to.
The problem is highlighted by the case of Liverpool hospital bomber Emad Jamil Al-Swealmeen, 32, who had asylum claims rejected in 2014 and 2017.
Immigration lawyer Ivon Sampson said: “There is no identity document, so where do you return them to? They get lost in the system.”
The Home Office said: “Our New Plan for Immigration will speed up the removal of failed asylum seekers.”
- SMUGGLING gangs are ordering “supersize” inflatable boats from China to maximise the number of Channel migrants on board, sources say.
