Lost: A million failed asylum seekers

your modelling Dan is based on asylum seekers in less those granted asylum less those leaving less those in the queue less deaths = those here illegally.  

That on the numbers you have gives a big number.  

The unknown number and the one that there seems to be the biggest confusion on is leavers. You assume a very low figure for this in the tens of thousands I believe. The home office say in the article I linked to that in just a short period within your timescale there were 360k.  If you have the number for leavers wrong then your end number is wrong.  

Nobody apart from you believes that the number of ex asylum seekers now living here illegally is anything like the figure you suggest.  Remember the old phrase, lies damn lies and statistics. You seem to have added a fourth category, lies, damn lies, dans figures and statistics...  

Remember though we are in agreement that there are some ex asylum seekers living here illegally and that our asylum system fails in this respect (as in my view in so many others) and needs reform. I'll leave it there.

Dan we have established before that where you quote numbers they have usually proven unreliable whether a) because you are simply not very good at numbers and b) because you tend to try to spin the numbers to project the outcome you desire.

You haven’t provided a source for your claim that over an extended period there have been 1.3m applications of which less than one third have either been granted or have left. Frankly even if you had, given your track record I wouldn’t intend to spend hours adding up reams of numbers to identify your error. Given the generally accepted figure that roughly half of applications were successful ( increasing in recent years) it is hard to reconcile that figure with your claim that only 34% were successful or left. It seems flaw number one lies there.

Nonetheless my interest was piqued as I am aware that historically we have been weak at enforcing removal of failed claimants. So I have tried to do some research. It’s hard to find definitive figures but I did find a Red Cross report reporting on this issue. It’s only for one year so only gives a guide but are perhaps interesting.

They reported on outcomes for people who claimed asylum in 2014 as at May 2016. At that time c 90% of claims had been determined. Of the ones that were 56% were accepted 16% had left and 26% had failed but remained. Obviously over time that 26% number can only reduce. Only one year figures which provided you with wriggle room but clearly a massive difference between your figure of 65% and that years figure of 26% that will decline further.

The report highlights a number of reasons why people have not left including the impossibility of travelling without passports (most people in poor countries don’t have them) to the absence of ways to travel from say London to Damascus to the home country simply refusing to accept them back. The report is quite an interesting read. I’ll give you a link if you are interested.

Struggling to link it tbh Dan but if you tap “can’t stay can’t go British Red Cross” into Google, it should come up. If that doesn’t work shout and I’ll try again in morning.

Its a long read and it’s slant you won’t agree with but I hope if you are trying to be objective, there will be some interesting insights.

To be fair Dan I glossed over the human interest stories too.  But I found some parts of the report interesting. Its just another part of the story of what in the real world is a complex issue with complex solutions starkly opposed to the tabloid headline "black or white" goodies and baddies hatred nature of the discussion of the issue that we see our politicians, media and posters to these forums indulge in.  Whether even the "mind Zone" on this forum can cope with the real world complexities is an an open question.

The real world is that most people claiming asylum are genuinely fleeing oppression but in reality not all and while some cases are clear in either direction, inevitably some are not and the eventual decision is more borderline.  

Some people will have their claims rejected of course.  And that is going to create real world difficulties.  The applicant is likely to have come from a poor country. Often he will not have a passport.  Often there will not be a direct route back to his country.  Although the UK decision maker may have judged his claim inadmissable he may still be scared of returning to his home country - perhaps he was right that his life was at risk but just couldn't prove it.  He very likely has very little money.  His country , lets say Eritrea, has better things to worry about than organising emergency travel documents for him so will not accept him back. The UK government bureaucracy makes sure he is out of his accommodation and cuts off his £30 or so a week but otherwise isn't terribly interested.  He has no way of returning, no money, no roof over his head, no understanding of what is going on (and if he did the answer would probably be nothing).  Frankly he has little choice but to then enter the black economy in order to survive. 


Clearly it isn't the case for all rejectees, some the Government helps to return home , some go of their own accord, but for some the system fails. 

Dan

Yet again you haven 't evidenced your figures and then you seem to be overlaying extrapolations on top of seemingly erroneous figures.  Not sure how helpful this is now becoming.  

The best evidenced information we seem to have is per the BRC report we looked at earlier that said that eighteen months after application 26% of applicants were refused and had not yet left.  Obviously that number will have fallen as time progressed.

The BRC provided an interesting backdrop to why people who have failed do not always leave. That could have been an interesting discussion but seems you would rather make up quack numbers. 

I'll leave it there.
 

Page 6 para 1

2014 applicants at May 2016 
Applicants 25033
Not yet outcome determined 2529

Applicants with outcomes 22504

Granted 12563
Refused  9941

Of refused 
left (2755+882+440) = 4077
not left (9941-4077) = 5864
 
5864/22504 = 26%

I'll give the rest of your post the attention it deserves.

The trouble is we never kept decent records of those we could count and we have absolutely NO idea about the numbers that slip under our radar. As a result we don’t know if the real number is closer to one, or a million.