More than 50 relatives of asylum seekers are being given permission to come to Britain every day.
The number of family members of refugees granted visas to settle here has more than trebled in a year, the most recent figures show.
Home Office data has revealed that 19,154 relatives of asylum seekers, many of whom will have first crossed the Channel to Britain in a small boat, followed them to the UK in the year to September 2024.
Around 10,000 of these will have been children with the rest adults, most of whom will have been spouses.
This is more than three times more family reunion visas than the same period to September 2023, when 5,805 visas were granted.
Applicants do not have to speak any basic English, prove they can support themselves financially and can have free access to the NHS.
Most of these refugees were from from Syria, Sudan, Eritrea, Iran and Afghanistan.
A family reunion visa allows partners and children of individuals previously granted refugee status or humanitarian protection in the UK to reunite with them here. These families have to have been formed before the asylum seeker left their home country for Britain.
Reform MP Rupert Lowe has said that the Government must deport anyone arriving in the UK illegally.
Migrants crowd a smuggler’s inflatable dinghy in an attempt to cross the English Channel, after leaving Ecault beach in Saint-Etienne-au-Mont last year. Around 50 relatives of asylum seekers are joining them in Britain every day, figures show
Two dinghies carrying 190 illegal immigrants were spotted by Border Force vessels last Tuesday
He tweeted today: ‘If you come illegally – you can’t stay, your family can’t come. Year ending September 2024 – 19,154 people were granted family reunion visas. Same period the year before? 5,805 visas.
‘They and their family are NOT welcome. No apologies’.
Critics have said the figures are worrying.
Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK, told The Sun: ‘There are huge cost implications at play here, all paid for by the public, who are seldom kept in the picture. And it doesn’t end there.
‘Those granted asylum and joined by family members, will be housed if they have children under 18 who live with them.
‘Add to this access to benefits, schooling, medical and dental care, and we can begin to grasp the frustration and anger felt by people waiting for social housing and in long NHS queues?’
The Home Office said in a statement: ‘We have a long history of providing protection through various safe and legal routes for those in need.’
As many as one in 12 people in London is an illegal immigrant, a shock report claimed last week.
The previously confidential study commissioned by Thames Water found that the ‘irregular’ population of the capital could be more than half a million.
It aimed to quantify the ‘hidden’ users of the utility firm’s services to better meet demand.
Researchers at Edge Analytics used academic estimates of illegal migrants nationally as well as National Insurance registrations for non-EU foreign nationals over a nine-year period to estimate the numbers in each London borough.
The study produced a range of figures from 390,355 at the lowest to 585,533 at the highest with a median figure of 487,944.
It suggested most illegal migrants arrived in the UK on work, study or visitor visas then overstayed.
The report obtained by The Telegraph claimed there is estimated to be more than one million illegal migrants in the UK, with 60 per cent of them in England’s capital.
Many illegal migrants arrive in the UK on work, study or visitor visas and then overstay the limit.
It has only taken 21 days this year for crossings to reach 1,000 – the quickest time on record
The Home Office doesn’t publish any comprehensive data estimating the number of illegal migrants in the UK.
It has only published figures on the number of illegal Channel migrants reaching the UK since 2018.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: ‘It is totally unacceptable to have these numbers of illegal immigrants in the UK.
‘The law needs to be looked at so that spurious human rights, modern slavery and asylum claims cannot be used to delay or prevent removals of illegal immigrants.’
