In the middle of a weekend of anti-immigration demonstrations in front of hotels used to accommodate asylum seekers in several cities in the United Kingdom, the British government has promised on Sunday August 24, to accelerate the processing of asylum request procedures.
British interior minister Yvette Cooper said in a statement that call processing times were “Totally unacceptable”and announced the creation of an independent organization to assist the courts. Currently, some 51,000 asylum requests are awaiting examination, with more than a year on average before the rendering of a decision, the government says.
Measures have already been taken to accelerate initial decisions, and delays in the appeal procedures are now, according to him, the main cause of engorging the migration system, limiting the number of evictions. The new organization will be made up of“Referees” independent, and one of the objectives is to accelerate the processing of requests from people from “Sure country”.
Establishment of a legal period
The Government will also impose on the courts a legal period of 24 weeks to rule on appels of asylum seekers hosted by the government, and on those of “Foreign delinquents”. Yvette Cooper reaffirmed her determination to “Considerably reduce the number of people in the asylum system (…) To end the use of hotels to welcome them ”at the Horizon 2029.
On Sunday afternoon, anti-immigration demonstrators gathered in front of one of these establishments in Birmingham, in the center of England, while the police were deployed in front of another hotel in the Canary Wharf district of London. Gatherings had already taken place on Friday and Saturday in front of several of these accommodation places in the United Kingdom. Clashes with the police or counter-demonstrators, who came to defend the reception of asylum seekers, broke out in Bristol, Liverpool, or in Horley in Surrey, with a total of fifteen arrests for brawl or aggression.
At the end of June, 32,059 asylum seekers were housed in hotels, the government being forced to provide them with accommodation during the examination of their file. Since mid-July, the city of Epping, north of London, has been the scene of regular and sometimes violent demonstrations before one of these establishments.
On Tuesday, the High Court of Justice ordered him to temporarily stop hosting asylum seekers. But the government of Keir Starmer appealed this decision, which could be emulated in the country. 111,084 people asked for asylum over the period from June 2024 to June 2025, an increase of 14 % over a year. This is the highest figure over twelve months since the start of surveys in 2001.
