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All part of the plan: ‘An amnesty in all but name’: Fury over new Government plans to fast-track 12,000 immigration applications – including Channel migrants – with new questionnaire that is ‘likely to see 95% of claims granted’


Rishi Sunak faces renewed pressure on immigration after a new fast-track scheme for 12,000 asylum seekers – including Channel migrants – was dubbed an ‘amnesty in all but name’.

In a bid to begin clearing the massive asylum backlog, the Home Office will launch a streamlined system which will see migrants granted refugee status on the basis of a 10-page questionnaire.

The plan was immediately attacked by critics as the Prime Minister faced demands from his own backbenches to urgently tackle the Channel crisis.

More than 95 per cent of the 12,000 claims are expected to be granted, based on current rates, allowing them to settle permanently in Britain and sponsor relatives to join them here.

Officials said the ‘vast majority’ of cases will go ahead without an asylum interview – a detailed, one-to-one session with a Home Office caseworker which is designed to show up discrepancies in an applicant’s claim.

The new fast-track scheme will be applied to Libyans, Syrians, Afghans, Eritreans and Yemenis who arrived in Britain before June 28 last year, including those who arrived by small boat across the Channel.

Officials were unable to say how many Channel migrants are in the pool.

It is believed to be the first scheme of its kind in the UK, although a similar backlog-clearing exercise designed to fast-track historic asylum cases was set up by the former Labour government in 2006 and ran until 2011.

Applicants will still undergo security and crime checks under the new programme, officials said.

However, there have been a number of cases of asylum seekers from the five countries covered by the scheme who have committed serious crimes in the UK.

They include Afghan asylum seeker Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai, who stabbed aspiring Royal Marine Tom Roberts to death in a row over an e-scooter in Bournemouth last year.

Abdulrahimzai posed as a 14-year-old boy to gain entry into the UK in 2019, but in reality he was a 19-year-old man wanted by Serbian police for gunning down two people with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

Last month he was jailed for life with a minimum term of 29 years for Mr Roberts’ murder.

Read More: ‘An amnesty in all but name’

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UK Could See Over One Million Migrants This Year, Report Claims


More than one million migrants could end up arriving in Britain this year, a report on Friday has claimed.

Experts reportedly expect that there could be over one million migrants landing in Britain this year, a report by The Telegraph has revealed.

The paper had formerly put the maximum net migration figure for 2023 at somewhere in the region of 675,000 thousand ahead of official statistics set to be released by the UK government in the coming weeks.

However, the publication has since revised the figures upwards, with another set of experts now predicting a net migration figure as high as 997,000, with gross migration numbers set to be higher than that still.

“If emigration has reverted to pre-pandemic and pre-Brexit patterns, we could see net migration hit the one million mark,” Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) researcher Karl Williams remarked, adding that while such a number would “be at the very top end” of their estimates, it was “by no means an implausible figure”.

Read more: UK Could See Over One Million Migrants This Year, Report Claims

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UK Immigration: biting back


ONS data on annual immigration are due out on Thursday and, with the expectation of record high figures, the media is gearing up for the perfect storm with analytical articles already finding their way into print.

The Times for instance, is running a lengthy “weekend essay”, headed: “Net migration is at a new record high. How did it come to this?”.

With that, we get a long sub-heading telling us that: “For 13 years Tories have promised to bring immigration down, but the post-Brexit system has allowed it to soar as foreign workers take unpopular jobs. For Rishi Sunak, it’s a political headache and an economic necessity”.

I don’t need to review the content of the piece. Anyone who is particularly interested will read it for themselves and those who know everything there is to know on the subject will pass it by and give the rest of us the benefit of their wisdom regardless.

What did grab my attention, though, was the closing paragraph which notes that Sunak has suggested he wants to cut the numbers to below half a million, and then asks: “Is he channelling one of his predecessors?”.

Moving on, author, Matt Dathan, the paper’s home affairs editor, informs us of a comment made by Lord O’Donnell, Cameron’s cabinet secretary, at an event on Thursday.

According to O’Donnell, when Cameron made that infamous pledge to reduce immigration to the “tens of thousands”, he had “no intention of doing it”. The cabinet secretary learned of this when he proposed ways in which the policy could be achieved.

These including the prospect of leaving the EU or a vast reduction in visas, to which Cameron had responded: “Don’t be daft. It’s an announcement, don’t get carried away”.

Read more: UK Immigration: biting back 

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Albanian Migrants in UK Jails Almost Double in 4 years


The number of Albanian migrants locked up in British jails has almost doubled in four years, analysis by The Epoch Times has found.

According to Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures, almost 1,400 Albanian foreign nationals are currently in custody in England and Wales—compared to just over 800 in 2019.

Those from the Balkans now make up the biggest number of all foreign inmates in the UK’s soaring prison population, and fall just second to the biggest overall nationality—British prisoners.

The figures can be revealed just days after the government announced it was sending 200 jailed Albanian prisoners home to serve the rest of their sentence—amid concerns that UK prisons are nearing capacity.

Offenders handed terms of four years or more will return to their native country to serve the remainder, MoJ said last week.

The arrangement will also see Britain provide support to Albania to help modernise its own prison system, according to the department.

Earlier this month, justice minister Lord Bellamy, KC, told Parliament that jails are “quite tight” and at 99 percent capacity.

Read more: Albanian Migrants in UK Jails Almost Double in 4 years

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Think-Tank Warns 15 Birmingham-Sized Cities Needed to Cope With UK Immigration


Migration Watch UK said current net migration figures will lead to a 16 million increase in the population over next 25 years

The UK will need to build at least 15 cities the size of Birmingham to cope with rising immigration figures, according to a new think-tank report.

Migration Watch UK suggests current levels of net migration will see the population on course to rise by nearly 16 million to 80 million by 2046.

It estimates this would result in the need to build between 6 and 8 million more homes—equal to between 15 and 18 more cities the size of Birmingham.

The report—released on Thursday—states that if current net migration figures of 600,000 were reduced to 100,000 per year or less, the impact of the housing shortage would ease and present better opportunities for those wishing to get on the property ladder.

The reduction would also preserve the countryside from being bulldozed to make way for housing.

The think-tank released the report as it launched a campaign demanding the government sets out a target of reducing immigration, backed by a petition which has already received nearly 34,000 signatures.

It comes weeks after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faced a Tory backlash as official estimates indicated net migration reached a record high of 606,000 people last year.

Sunak said the number was “too high” but insisted he had not lost control of the immigration system.
But Conservative MPs warned of voter anger and frustration at “unsustainable” levels of net migration.

Read More: Think-Tank Warns 15 Birmingham-Sized Cities Needed to Cope With UK Immigration

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Asylum seekers who will be housed on migrant barge off the coast of Dorset will be ‘free to come and go as they want’ and will be provided with free bus service into town, Home Office confirms

Asylum seekers who will be housed on a migrant barge in a south coast harbour will be ‘free to come and go as they want’, the Home Office has confirmed.

A free bus service will be laid on daily to transport around 500 migrants from the Bibby Stockholm in and out of Portland Port in Dorset.

Once they have left the port they will be free to roam around Weymouth, Portland and beyond. They will also have access to local services, including a GP.

The plan to moor the barge in Portland Port has been met with strong opposition from local residents, the MP for Dorset South, Dorset Council and NHS Dorset.

Chief among the concerns is the sudden impact the introduction of 500 people will have on the local community.

Locals fear that already over-stretched local services, including GP surgeries, won’t be able to cope with the influx.

Many have voiced worries about an increase in crime and anti-social behaviour, risk to their personal safety and the impact on tourism.

Tensions were high at a public meeting where Home Office officials sought to allay locals’ fears.

Read more: Asylum seekers who will be housed on migrant barge off the coast of Dorset will be ‘free to come and go as they want’ and will be provided with free bus service into town, Home Office confirms

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Age tests for migrants who claim to be children will start this year, immigration minister Robet Jenrick says after a 41-year-old asylum seeker posed as a youngster


Scientific age assessments of migrants who claim to be children will start this year, the immigration minister has confirmed.

The oldest asylum seeker yet discovered pretending to be a child was actually found to be 41, Robert Jenrick said.

He told MPs that medical assessments – thought to include X-rays or MRI scans – will initially run in parallel with existing tests which are based on behavioural and language studies.

‘That will happen over the course of this year,’ Mr Jenrick told MPs in the Commons.

‘The oldest individual that we’ve encountered who posed as a child was subsequently found to be 41 years of age.

‘We do take the issue of age assessment extremely seriously.

‘There are individuals who abuse the system – that’s wrong as a matter of principle but it’s also a serious safeguarding risk to genuine children.

‘It’s important that we weed out those cases of abuse because it poses such a risk.

‘I’m afraid we’ve seen some very tragic instances such as the murder that occurred in Bournemouth at the behest of somebody who had posed as a child.’

Mr Jenrick was referring to the case of Afghan asylum seeker Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai who fatally stabbed aspiring Royal Marine Tom Roberts last year.

Abdulrahimzai was on the run from murder charges in Serbia when he arrived in Britain, and was later convicted in his absence of gunning down two people with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

The Home Office commissioned a report, published in January, which said migrants suspected of pretending to be children could undergo a range of medical tests to determine their true age.

It recommended a combination of X-rays of the wisdom teeth and the hand or wrist, plus MRI scans of the knee or collarbone.

The move may prove controversial because medics have opposed the use of X-rays for non-medical reasons.

Other shocking cases in which adult asylum seekers claimed to be children include Ahmad Otak who in 2012 forced his ex-girlfriend to watch him murder her sister and her friend after she refused to take him back.

A court heard the Afghan lied about his age to get preferential treatment from social services, but Otak was actually 22.

Others include Parson’s Green terrorist Ahmed Hassan, who posed as a 16-year-old before setting off a bomb on a Tube train in west London in 2017, injuring 23 people.

A judge said he was satisfied the bomber was between 18 and 21.

Other adult migrants have ended up in schools being taught alongside young teenage children.

Migrants who claim to be under 18 receive better housing and support, a more sympathetic hearing in their asylum claim and are less likely to be detained.

Under current rules, local authorities are not allowed to carry out physical examinations of asylum seekers suspected of lying about their age.

Instead, social workers estimate the person’s age by assessing their behaviour and language skills.

In 2021 the British Dental Association said it ‘vigorously opposed’ using dental X-rays to establish asylum seekers’ ages.

Read More: Age tests for migrants who claim to be children