provides more detailed and reliable data by to estimate the number of stateless persons
entering UK territory, although all numbers must still be treated with some caution. This
disaggregation confirms that only 16 per cent of all admissions identified in Figure 5 within the
current “stateless” nationality grouping in Home Office published statistics relate to stateless
persons, and in fact 84 per cent of this grouping are therefore refugees.71
3.3.3 Asylum
Overall numbers
The number of applications for asylum received by the UK Border Agency and its predecessors
between 2001 and 2010, and recorded in the published statistics for those who are categorised
as either “stateless” or of “other or unknown” nationality is set out in Figure 6 below.
Figure 6: Applications for asylum (excluding dependants) 2001 - 2010
250
Number of cases
200
150
Stateless
Other and
unknown
nationality
100
50
0
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Source: Published Immigration Statistics: April - June 2011, from asylum applications and
initial decisions for main applicants, by country of nationality (2001-2010).
This data merits particular scrutiny for a number of reasons. First of all, as is explained
elsewhere in the report, almost all of those stateless or potentially stateless persons who
expressed an interest in participating in the project had claimed asylum. Secondly, all
potential participants who were referred to the research team were migrants. Thirdly, their
experience and the analysis in Chapter 4 indicates that stateless persons who are currently
without leave to remain on the UK territory no longer have a formal route to regularise their
immigration status on the basis of their statelessness. Consequently, if a stateless person is
undocumented on the UK territory and wishes to attempt to regularise his or her immigration
status, then one of the only options that exists will be for him or her to claim asylum.72
71
Data obtained from the UK Border Agency publications team (via email on 4 Oct 2011) as an
unpublished subset of published immigration statistics derived from Admissions data tables
Immigration Statistics April - June 2011 (2005-2010).
72
See Chapter 4.
in the United Kingdom
39