New monthly visa stats came out today and here are our key takeaways The tighter immigration rules under the previous government are having an impact: visa applications have dropped sharply, especially from health & care workers

Supreme Court has found it’s not legal for UK to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.

What does it all mean and how much does this matter for asylum policy in the UK?



Short threadsupremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-202… Supreme Court found Rwanda may fail to respect the agreement and send people back to countries where they could be at risk.

It leaves open the door that the deal could become legal in the future, if Rwanda improves its system—though that could be quite a long-term task.

More than a year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the UK’s introduction of special visas for people fleeing the war, our updated briefing examines Ukrainian migration to the UK. 🧵migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/brie… As of 1 August 2023, 305k people had applied for Ukraine visas, with 237k issued visas, and 183k arrivals: gov.uk/government/pub…

We have updated our briefing on small boat arrivals in the UK - a short 🧵to hightlight the main points: migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/brie… Around 46,000 people were detected crossing the English Channel in small boats in 2022.
First half of 2023 detected crossings were about 11,500 – a fall of 10% compared same period in 2022, but it's not possible to know whether the fall will be sustained, or the impact of policy.

Long-awaited Illegal Migration Bill Impact Assessment (IA) now published

It’s not really an IA of the Bill itself but of sending asylum seekers to 3rd countries. Major elements of Bill are not assessed at all

Some thoughts 🧵

gov.uk/government/pub… 2/ To give credit to analysts at Home Office, doing a full IA of a “novel and untested scheme” like this is effectively impossible. It’s actually an interesting read and parts of it are meticulously researched. But there are some massive caveats.

First, two main omissions

The UK’s large asylum backlog has been attracting attention recently, and we’ve produced a piece summarising what we know about the backlog, its causes, and its consequences. 1/n migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/brie… On 30 September 2022, there were 117k asylum apps awaiting initial decision (143k people, incl any family members). Most waiting longer than 6 months for a decision.

The post-Brexit immigration system was widely expected to lead to lower migration, so why has the number of visa grants gone up?

A thread based on our latest briefing note, out today 1/n

migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/comm… 2/ EU net migration *has* declined sharply in recent years. All else equal, this would have meant lower UK immigration overall. But all else was not equal. Various factors have combined to create unusually high numbers of visas granted to non-EU citizens. What has driven this?

Our newly updated briefing on immigration detention in the UK is live, and full of useful charts and data.
migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/brie…
It shows us that in 2021 numbers entering immigration detention were back up to pre-pandemic levels (24k) Immigration detention briefing also shows COVID reduced the no. of people in detention; returns from detention had not risen back to pre-pandemic levels by early 2022; and releases on immigration bail spiked at the end of 2021- Home Office attributes this to rise in boat arrivals

We’ve had numerous requests for data about Albanian asylum seekers following reports of an increase in the number of Albanian citizens crossing the English Channel over the summer.

Here’s a thread with some data about what we do and don’t know.

independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…

1/ 2/ In recent years, the number of people applying for asylum in the UK has increased across the board and not just among Albanians. But the increase in Albanian applications has been above average. In the first half of 2022, Albanians made up 16% of all asylum applications.