More than 50,000 illegal migrants, including 1,200 foreign criminals, have gone missing in the UK after absconding, a figure that exceeds the number still waiting in the asylum decision queue, official data show. The Telegraph has the story.
Internal Home Office figures show that the 50,000 illegal migrants, including 1,200 foreign national offenders, were recorded as absconders on Government systems.
The data, obtained by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration and dating from December 2024, show there were more ‘missing’ illegal migrants than asylum seekers currently awaiting an initial decision by the Home Office. As of March, there were 48,758 migrants awaiting an asylum decision.
As well as foreign criminals who have evaded deportation, the total includes people refused asylum who have then absconded to avoid being sent back to their home countries and Channel migrants seeking asylum who have disappeared after being placed on immigration bail.
Migrants in the immigration system are required to maintain regular contact with the Home Office through bail reporting conditions. Failure to do so can see them classed as absconders and lead to enforcement action such as arrest and detention.
The disclosure comes as Shabana Mahmood prepares to launch new legislation next week to stop migrants ‘gaming the system’ by using human rights laws to avoid deportation.
The Home Secretary’s new Immigration and Asylum Bill will reform human rights laws, including making it harder for migrants to make modern slavery claims and tightening Article 8 rights to a family life under the European Convention on Human Rights to end abuse by illegal migrants frustrating their removals.
Labour blamed the Conservatives’ “chaotic” management of the asylum system for the missing migrants. “Management of contact with those with no right to be in the UK was chaotic and data was unreliable,” said a Home Office source.
“Under the previous government, removals failed to keep pace with arrivals, and the Conservatives stopped asylum decision-making as they pursued their failed Rwanda plan. As a result, the asylum backlog ballooned to 175,000.”
Mahmood is doubling the budget for immigration enforcement – which finds, detains and removes illegal migrants – from £681 million in 2023-24 to £1.33 billion in 2028-29. The number of enforcement staff is increasing from 4,500 to 7,300 over the same period.
The number of arrests of migrants in illegal working raids rose to 12,300 between July 2024 and the end of December 2025, up 83% on the previous 18 months.
Nearly 70,000 illegal migrants and foreign criminals have been removed and deported since July 2024, an increase of 41%. Of these, 10,000 were foreign national offenders.
Worth reading in full.
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Any chance that we might copy Denmark and other less ‘woke’ EU countries before we are outnumbered?
Now if you took the illegal immigrant scum to old army camps where they would be safely surrounded by electric fences, dog runs, machine gun equipped guard towers, anti-personnel mines they would not get lost. And when they do come out they are safely chained together for their tasks of cutting back the growth along our roads, around road signs, cleaning them and collecting litter while armed guards and rabid dogs watch over.
This would be dereliction of duty ….. if it wasn’t deliberate.
It shouldn’t be hard to find them, look in the nearest kebab or vape shop.
More than 50,000 illegal migrants, including 1,200 foreign criminals, have gone missing in the UK after absconding
This is not incompetence, it’s malice. The fact is we have oikophobic, anglophobic, anti-white rulers who ware determined to replace us.
Time to detain them in secure camps. No free ‘goodies’, just a bed and basic food. Then send them back in batches. If they refuse to say where they came from, simply determine where by their appearance and language.
The only thing I’d add is security from each other (and soap). It really wouldn’t do to allow gangs to dominate the detention facility.
A lot more than 50,000 are missing, for sure, because those 50,000 are only the ones the government says they know about. By their nature (illegal) there will be lots that arrive unknown (or known but simply not put into the system – ignored) and disappear. Then there are those who have overstayed their visas, who are also illegal.
Yeah, but we’ve got detailed biometrics so if they ever show up in the criminal justice system due to black economy activity we can add illegal entry to the charge sheet…
Oh wait… No biometrics because ECHR?