(Bloomberg) — UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government plans to reform the asylum appeals process to speed up the deportation of rejected applicants amid nationwide protests over the housing of migrants in hotels.
Under the plan, appeals will be heard by a new panel of independent adjudicators in a bid to “dramatically” reduce waiting times from the current average of 53 weeks, the Home Office said in a statement Sunday.
The body will give priority to cases involving residents in taxpayer-funded accommodation and foreign offenders to determine whether an initial decision to refuse asylum should be upheld.
The Home Office said court delays in the appeal system are the biggest cause of pressure in the asylum accommodation system. The government has also provided funding to increase the number of sitting days for the first level of the judiciary that handles appeals.
The Labour government is taking steps to deport failed asylum seekers faster as voter dissatisfaction over immigration fuels a surge in support for Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK party. Fresh protests a year after anti-immigration riots highlight how divisive the debate has become, after both legal and undocumented migration reached record levels in recent years.
In an interview with the Times on Friday, Farage pledged to outline plans for mass deportations in the coming days, including a proposal for five flights daily.
Demonstrators took to the streets on Saturday from Bristol in southwest England to Aberdeen in Scotland. Footage aired by UK broadcasters showed hundreds of anti-immigration protesters clashing with counter-demonstrators, with police in bright yellow jackets forming a barrier in between.
The unrest follows a court ruling earlier last week that The Bell Hotel in Epping, northeast of London, should not be used to house asylum seekers because it had not sought the correct planning permissions. That left ministers scrambling to find alternative accommodation and prompted other local councils to explore legal action.
While Starmer’s administration has pledged to phase out the costly use of hotels in the asylum system by the end of the current parliamentary term in 2029, figures released on Thursday showed that as of the end of June, more than 32,000 migrants were housed in hotels, an 8% rise from a year earlier.
The number of those claiming asylum exceeded 111,000 in the 12-month period, a record in data stretching back to 1979. The numbers of irregular migrants arriving in small boats across the channel, meanwhile, is at record levels this year, with almost 28,000 arrivals through to Aug. 20.
The demonstrations come a year after a wave of violent protests, fueled by the murder of three young girls in Southport that social media users incorrectly stated was carried out by a Muslim asylum seeker. In fact, the perpetrator, Axel Rudakubana, who pleaded guilty earlier this year, was born in the UK to Rwandan parents.
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asylum appeals process, deportation of rejected applicants, housing of migrants, failed asylum seekers, immigration protests
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