Immigration Minister Claims Asylum System Is ‘Riddled With Abuse’

Robert Jenrick made the comments while defending asking single adult male illegal immigrants to share hotel rooms

Britain's Minister for Immigration, Robert Jenrick, arrives for a weekly meeting of Cabinet ministers at 10, Downing Street in London on May 16, 2023. (Carl Court/Getty Images)

The immigration minister has claimed the UK’s asylum system is “riddled with abuse” while defending government requests that illegal immigrants share hotel rooms.

Robert Jenrick made the comments days after a group of illegal immigrants protested outside a London hotel over cramped hotel conditions.

Speaking on BBC’s “Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg” programme, Jenrick revealed there was now a backlog of more than 150,000 asylum cases, and said the system needed to be changed “fundamentally.”

“The asylum system is riddled with abuse, we have to be honest with ourselves,” he told the programme.

“The way to tackle that is by changing fundamentally the way we handle asylum.”

Jenrick said the Illegal Migration Bill to detain immigrants who arrive through unauthorised means before returning them home or to a third country, such as Rwanda, will alleviate the pressure.

“That will create the deterrent we desperately need, it will break the business model of the people smuggle gangs and it will stop the system from coming under intolerable pressure like it is today,” he said.

The minister also said he does not think it is unreasonable to ask illegal immigrants—specifically “single adult males”—to share rooms after a group refused to enter a hotel in Pimlico last week where the Home Office had asked them to sleep “four people per room.”

“As I understand what happened here was that these migrants, who had themselves said that they were destitute, they had nowhere to stay, we had offered them a safe bed with board and lodgings in a good-quality hotel in central London,” he told the BBC.

Ensuite Bedrooms

Around 20 illegal immigrants are estimated to have slept rough outside the Comfort Inn in the borough of Westminster for two days last week in what a councillor said was a protest at the conditions inside.

Pictures published on Friday shows the street outside the hotel strewn with bags and belongings with a number of male immigrants outside.

Leader of Westminster City Council Adam Hug said the immigrants refused to enter the accommodation after being asked to share four to a room.

In a letter to Home Secretary Suella Braverman, the Labour councillor expressed his “deep concern” that the illegal immigrants were on the streets “without appropriate accommodation or support available” and no prior communication with the local authority.

Jenrick said the request was reasonable and claimed some had requested ensuite bedrooms.

He told the BBC: “Yes, some of them had to share with other people. These are single adult males: I don’t think that’s unreasonable.”

The minister said in response, the government “took the perfectly reasonable view” to “look after the taxpayer.”

“And if you’re genuinely destitute, of course, you’d accept that, and common sense prevailed and, I think, almost all of the migrants in question accepted the accommodation,” he said.

He again denied that it was policy to ask illegal immigrants to share four to a room.

“We don’t want to be using hotels at all,” he said. “These are taking away valuable assets for the local business community, for society, you know, people’s weddings and personal events have had to be cancelled because of that.”

The scene outside the Comfort Inn hotel on Belgrave Road in Pimlico, central London, on June 2, 2023. (James Manning/PA Wire)

‘Cannibalising’ Public Compassion

Meanwhile, the BBC reported that the Home Office estimates it will have to spend between £3 billion and £6 billion on detention facilities, accommodation costs, and removals under the current plans to tackle small boat crossings.

Jenrick said a lot of progress has been made on illegal migration in a short period of time, with “really unique landmark deals” with France seeing a “big increase” in the number of interceptions on the beaches.

He also said that migration targets are not “particularly helpful,” despite previous Tory promises.

He told Kuenssberg, “Net migration is far too high today.”

But asked about former Prime Minister David Cameron’s 2010 pledge to reduce annual net migration below 100,000, Jenrick said, “I don’t think that targets like that are particularly helpful because migration is an extremely challenging space where behaviours are constantly changing.”

Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, slammed Jenrick’s comments.

“Instead of explaining away failures in the asylum system, it is essential for the government to keep a sustained focus on fixing the problems within the UK asylum system, starting with real commitment and resourcing to tackling the asylum backlog of 170,000,” the campaigner said.

Net migration to the UK is estimated to have reached a record 606,000 in 2022, up 24 percent from 488,000 in 2021, according to the Office for National Statistics.

In his Sunday round of media interviews, Jenrick also said people arriving in small boats “risk cannibalising the compassion” of the UK public.

He told “Sophy Ridge On Sunday” on Sky News that young men putting “overwhelming pressure” on the asylum system are making it harder for the country to support people who “genuinely need our help.”

Jenrick told the programme that hundreds of Albanians are returning to their home country.

He added: “There are hundreds of Albanians who’ve arrived on small boats who have been placed on those flights as a result of the processes we put in place and the agreements that we’ve reached with Albania. The reason that we are returning Albanians is to deter people from coming in the first place, and that is succeeding.”

Last week, The Epoch Times revealed how the number of Albanian migrants locked up in British jails has almost doubled within four years.

The figures were revealed just days after the government announced it was sending 200 jailed Albanian prisoners—some who arrived in the UK illegally—home to serve the rest of their sentence.

Offenders handed terms of four years or more will return to their native country to serve the remainder, the Ministry of Justice said.

The arrangement will also see Britain provide support to Albania to help modernise its own prison system, according to the department.

PA Media contributed to this report.