UK immigration figures have revealed the number of Ukrainian refugees who sought safety in the United Kingdom during the year 2022 numbered a total of 114,000. However, a portion of those who arrived under the Government backed Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme and Ukraine Family Scheme visas programmes departed from the country within just a few months of arriving.

The Office for National Statistics on Thursday announced that previous estimates had assumed all those arriving on the Ukraine visa schemes would remain in the UK long-term.

However, the ONS said that internal Home Office analysis shows that some left the UK before reaching the 12 months period.

As a result, the ONS has revised their assumptions to account for those who may leave the UK before becoming long-term migrants.

According to official statistics released on Thursday, more than 600,000 people moved to Britain in 2022, a record high.

JUST IN: Jill Barclay’s horrific murder shows fear of male violence ‘ever present’

Office for National Statistics figures show that net migration for the year was 606,000, which is the difference between the number of persons moving in and out.

In 2022, 557,000 individuals left the country while 1.2 million moved here.

The new figures have also shown the number of individuals migrating to the UK by crossing the English Channel has experienced a remarkable increase of 42 percent in the period up to March 2023.

Within that timeframe, the month of August saw a record-breaking 8,631 migrants crossing the channel in small boats.

Nigel Farage slams Suella Braverman over immigration

Don’t miss…
Migrants arrive in UK on small boats as record immigration figures unveiled[LATEST]
Tory MPs to demand meeting with Sunak over disastrous immigration figures[LATEST]
Suella’s speeding ticket was a distraction to the real problems[LATEST]

Over the course of 12 months leading up to March of this year, approximately 45,000 people arrived in the UK via small boats from the European continent.

Of this total, more than half of the arrivals undertook the dangerous journey across the shipping lane during the months of August, September, and October 2022.

However, there are some indications of a slight improvement, as the Government’s report suggests that the number of crossings since the beginning of the year has decreased compared to the same period in the previous year.

According to the online report, there was a 17 per cent decrease in the number of small boat arrivals between January and March 2023 (3,793) compared to the same period in 2022.

This information is significant in light of Rishi Sunak’s pledge to prevent the arrival of boats from France.

Meanwhile, refugee charities have highlighted the backlog of asylum applications as an ongoing concern.

Tim Naor Hilton, chief executive of Refugee Action, said: “The human cost of the failure to process asylum claims is staggering. Many people wait years for a decision in which time they’re forced to live in poverty, banned from work, segregated from communities and detained in run down hotels.

“The Government’s Illegal Migration Bill is going to make things much worse. It will bulldoze our post-World-War-II pledge to help refugees and create a system in which tens of thousands of people are forced to live in the margins of society.”

Source: Read Full Article