- Immigration has been a recurring theme in UK, Irish and global politics over the last number of years. In some cases there have been protests, riots and attacks on people who are perceived not to be ‘local’.
- Sometimes discussions and debates are based on inaccurate information about who exactly is coming to the UK. There can also be misunderstandings about what rights and benefits various groups of people are entitled to.
- This article explains the reality of who is coming into the UK. It explores up to date numbers and sets out the entitlements of different groups.
- In short, FactCheckNI has found that the vast majority of migrants to the UK are legal, and unauthorised migrants are barely entitled to anything at all.
We were prompted to write this explainer after a viral video which featured a man at a demonstration in England making various claims, for example that all “illegal immigrants” get electric bikes for free, and £1,500 per month rent paid for them. We explore the issue by breaking down who is migrating to the UK – looking at the different categories – and detailing what they are entitled to.
- Who are inward migrants to the UK?
There are various types of people who come to the UK from other countries. These include refugees, asylum seekers, students and workers. There are also unauthorised migrants. These are all different groups, with very different rights and entitlements.
Refugees
The 1951 UN Refugee Convention defines a refugee as:
- a person who has a well-founded fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion
- is outside their country of nationality or habitual residence
- is unable or unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution.
Very few people enter the UK as ‘refugees’. It is not possible to claim asylum in a British embassy in another country, and there is no application process or form to fill out from outside of the UK. There are only two ways that people can get refugee status in the UK:
- by arriving into the UK and claiming asylum, and for that claim to be successful;
- as part of an established refugee resettlement scheme.
There are three different resettlement schemes operated between the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the UK government. The UK resettlement scheme (or UKRS), the community sponsorship scheme and the mandate resettlement scheme.
In each case, UNHCR identify who is eligible: there is no application for resettlement.
In recent years, there have also been a number of country specific refugee resettlement schemes in the UK, for people from Afghanistan, Syria (now closed), Ukraine (now closed) and Hong Kong. There is also a scheme for Afghans who worked with the UK government in Afghanistan and endangered their lives in doing so, and also a scheme – Homes for Ukraine – for people to sponsor Ukrainians fleeing the war. Refugee advocacy groups point to the limited nature of these schemes.
People seeking asylum
Someone seeking asylum has left their country and is seeking protection from persecution for and serious human rights violations in another country, but who hasn’t yet been legally recognised as a refugee and is waiting for their asylum claim to be processed.
We all have the right to seek asylum under international law. A person has to be physically on UK soil to claim asylum.
Some asylum seekers come to the UK using a legal visa route, in other words, with valid leave to enter.
However, some people rely on smugglers to get them to a safe country. The British Red Cross say that most people have no choice but to undertake dangerous journeys, often without knowing their final destination.
The UK recently introduced the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which means that people who have come to the UK by ‘irregular’ routes (e.g. small boats) without a visa will not be able to claim asylum.
Advocacy groups are extremely concerned that this Act will affect the most vulnerable groups. Certain UN agencies have also stated that the Illegal Migration Act ‘significantly erodes human rights‘.
Many sections of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 (including those relating to removal, detention, and modern slavery) have not yet been implemented. Removal depends on the UK Government having active removal agreements with ‘safe’ third countries, which it does not have, bar Albania. In November 2023, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the Rwanda scheme – the intended destination for processing asylum claims – was unlawful.
Moreover, secondary legislation in the Illegal Migration Act 2023 (Amendment) Regulations 2024 has effectively lifted the ban on processing asylum claims for people who arrived in the UK by irregular means.
Once a person seeking asylum has arrived in the UK, the process is as follows:
- A person arrives in the UK and claims asylum
- The Home Office assesses the claim (there are two opportunities to appeal a claim that is initially refused)
- The Home Office either grants status and a person becomes a refugee, or refuses the claim and the person becomes a ‘refused asylum seeker’
The Migration Observatory reports that between initial claims and appeals, 66% of asylum applications between 2018 and 2020 inclusive were successful.
Refused asylum seekers may choose to leave the UK via the Government’s voluntary return service. Others are forcibly removed back to their country of origin. The Migration Observatory has detailed information on deportation, removal and voluntary departure. Some people who are refused asylum stay in the UK and become unauthorised migrants (see below).
Students
Students form a large percentage of the people who come from other countries to the UK. Students have visas valid for a limited time, depending on their level of study. Students who reside in the UK for 12 months or more fall under the UN definition of a long-term migrant and are included in UK migration bulletins.
Workers
Many of the people living in the UK who come from other countries have come to work. Entry clearance visas allow an individual to enter and stay in the UK within the period for which the visa is valid.
Family
The UK government also provides family-related visas. People who can apply for these include “persons wishing to live with family members, who are British citizens or non-British settled migrants in the UK, as part of their family. This category also includes people wishing to join a relative with refugee status or humanitarian protection in the UK.”
Resettled EU Nationals
Before Brexit, and until 31 December 2020, people from any EU country had freedom of movement in the UK. This meant EU nationals could live and work in the UK and vice versa. With Brexit, this was no longer the case, and the UK Government introduced an EU settlement scheme, where EU citizens who had been living and working in the UK before 31 December 2020 could apply to stay.
Unauthorised Migrants
Unauthorised migrants are people in the UK without any form of legal status, formal process or permission. They are the closest grouping we have to the language of “illegal immigrants”.
The Migration Observatory state that there are four ways a person can become an unauthorised migrant in the UK.
- Entering the UK on a visa and overstaying
- Entering the UK without authorisation or through deception, such as using forged documents
- Not leaving the country after an asylum application and/or after appeals have been rejected
- Being born in the UK to parents who are unauthorised migrants, because the UK does not have birthright citizenship
We will now look at how many people fall into each of these categories.
- Numbers of Migrants to the UK
Recent UK governments have been keen to lower migration numbers. Figures published in May 2025 estimate that net migration to the UK in the year to December 2024 was 431,000, compared with 860,000 the previous year – which is a significant decrease. Full Fact explain why they expect this figure to keep falling over the next few years.
The UK Government summarise the number of visas granted and number of “detected irregular arrivals” in the year to March 2025 in this chart:
Fig.1. Source: GOV.UK
For the purposes of this explainer, we drill into the detail to quantify the different types of people coming into the UK.
Refugees
UK Government data records that in the year ending March 2025, there were 69,885 grants of leave on safe and legal (humanitarian) routes, allowing people to come to, or remain in, the UK. Of which, there were:
- 17,276 out-of-country visa grants and 2,118 in-country extensions through the Ukraine schemes
- 14,424 out-of-country visa grants and 7,739 in-country extensions through the BN(O) (Hong Kong) route
- 7,736 refugees resettled
- 20,592 grants of family reunion visas
A total of 109,343 people claimed asylum in the UK in the year ending March 2025.
At the end of March 2025 there were 78,745 cases (relating to 109,536 people) awaiting an initial decision.
There were 44,000 irregular arrivals detected in the year ending March 2025, including by small boat. A small number of counties make up 70% of the nationalities of people crossing in boats – Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Albania, Syria and Eritrea.
Between 2018-2024, around 68% of all initial decisions on asylum applications from people who arrived by small boat were successful, higher than the general rate of success for initial asylum applications (57%).
Students
In the year ending March 2025, there were 403,497 sponsored study visas granted to foreign students. In that same period, 18,411 visas were issued to student dependants.
Workers
In the year ending March 2025, there were 192,110 visas granted to main applicants in all work categories. Of these:
- 23,000 of these were ‘Health and Care Worker’ visas
- 75,000 of these were ‘Temporary Worker’ visas, including ‘Seasonal Workers’
- There were also 434,000 extensions for work to main applicants, primarily amongst ‘Graduate’, ‘Health and Care Worker’, and the ‘Skilled Worker’.
Family
In the year ended March 2025, 76,484 family-related visas were granted. This includes Partner visas (for people whose partners earn at least £29,000 per year). It also includes 20,592 Family Reunion visas (for family members to reunite with an individual who has been granted refugee status).
Resettled EU Nationals
In the year ended March 2025, there were 329,000 grants of settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme.
UK government data shows that up to 31 December 2024, 4.1 million people had been granted settled status, and 2.9 million granted pre-settled status, under this scheme.
People Granted Resettlement or Citizenship
People granted resettlement or citizenship is an interesting category, because it captures how people might move from one group to another – for example, from a person seeking asylum to becoming a settled refugee; or someone who has come to work in the UK achieving more permanent status.
There were 172,798 grants of settlement in the UK in the year ending March 2025.
- 37% of the total settlement grants – 64,470 – came from people who had previously been granted leave to remain in the UK on a work route, in particular the ‘Skilled Worker’ route.
- There were 45,543 grants of settlement to individuals whose most recent leave was under refugee status, humanitarian protection, discretionary leave, or exceptional leave to remain.
- A further 44,770 individuals were granted settlement following leave under family formation or reunion routes.
There were 269,213 grants of British citizenship in the year ending March 2025.
8,496 of these grants of citizenship were to EU nationals (up 15% on the previous year) and 210,717 to non-EU nationals.
Unauthorised Migrants
It is not possible to count the number of unauthorised migrants in the UK, precisely because they exist outside all official systems and do not wish to be found. Attempts at estimation in the US have been described as ‘counting the uncountable‘.
The Migration Observatory reports that the two most recent estimates are from 2017. The Pew Research Center estimated a range of 800,000 to 1.2 million unauthorised migrants in the UK. The Greater London Authority estimate (from April 2017) stood at 674,000 – or 809,000 including UK-born children of unauthorised migrants.
These are overall population estimates, not annual figures. The Migration Observatory are keen to underline that these figures are “highly uncertain and have large margins of error”.
In terms of refused asylum seekers, the Migration Observatory reports that of the 166,000 individuals that were refused asylum between 2010 – 2023, 82,000 had left the UK and 85,000 “had not been recorded as having departed the country”. So, a little over 6,000 people a year whose whereabouts are unknown.
- Rights and Entitlements
All of the groups above have quite different rights and entitlements when it comes to interacting with UK government services. Refugees have most rights and entitlements, and unauthorised migrants have barely any rights at all. We have summarised them in the following table:
Resettled refugees are also entitled to pay home fees, rather than international fees, for higher education.
If a refugee commits a serious crime, restricted leave may be imposed (tighter conditions for remaining in the UK) and their status may be revoked.
Because people seeking asylum are entitled to very small living allowances, a range of charities have stepped in to fill the gaps.
This could include providing food, toiletries, clothing or other items that people seeking asylum cannot afford. Some charities give practical administrative help, for example with registering with doctors or schools. Others provide English language classes, safe social spaces, or support for vulnerable groups such as LGBTQI+ people or survivors of trafficking.
Due to the expense of public transport, bikes are often a useful way for refugees and people seeking asylum to get around. Several charities have stepped in to provide them.
One such charity – The Bike Project – “collects secondhand bikes, refurbishes them and donates them to refugees and people seeking asylum in the UK.” The Bike Project is funded by retail sales as well as individual, corporate donations and grants and lists its supporters on its website. It received a grant from the Syrian VPRS programme in May 2020 according to Birmingham City Council to fix some old bikes, as well as some National Lottery Funding to support cycle training and a new workshop.
There are plenty of other charities, for example H.E.L.P in Peterborough, or Sustrans here in Northern Ireland.
Does this mean that all illegal immigrants get electric bikes for free, as claimed in the viral video? In short, no.
The vast majority of migrants to the UK are legal, and have a range of rights and entitlements according to their legal status. Unauthorised migrants are entitled barely to anything at all.