200,000 illegal refugees 'vanish'

At least 200,000 failed asylum seekers are staying illegally in Britain because it is so difficult to keep track of them, the Home Office has admitted.

More than 20,000 refugees whose applications for asylum have been rejected are thought to slip through the net every year.

Officials admit they frequently lose track of claimants, who disappear after they have been refused permission to stay.

The head of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate said the present system made it very difficult to guarantee that failed asylum seekers would be deported.

Asked by Tory home affairs spokesman Humfrey Malins whether he expected to remove even half of all failed applicants, director general Stephen Boys Smith said: "I find that very hard to answer, I think it is possible. We are confident we can get the present number up."

Mr Boys Smith said that about 40 per cent of people who apply for asylum get official permission to remain in Britain. He said: "So we are talking of the 60 per cent with regard to whom there is some kind of negative decision, and I think it is possible to reach about half of that [for removals]. Whether it is possible long term to sustain that I'm not quite clear.

"Whereas it's relatively easy to remove people to certain countries, say in Eastern Europe, to remove them to other parts of the world is hugely difficult."

Mr Malins today branded the confession an "astonishing admission of failure".

He told the Daily Express: "I can't think of any criminal justice system anywhere in the world which sends people right through the courts and then can't implement the sentence."

The Home Office is to publish its asylum statistics for last year later this week.

They are expected to show that there were about 71,000 new applications last year.