Increasing number of migrants being granted work permits before their asylum decisions due to backlogs | UK News

An increasing number of migrants who may be in the country illegally are getting the right to work in the UK, Sky News can reveal.

Asylum seekers living in migrant hotels are being granted work permits before a decision is reached on their asylum claims, due to the length of time they have been waiting.

The Home Office backlog in processing claims means almost 100,000 people had been waiting more than a year for an initial decision on their asylum claim at the end of June this year – an almost 80% increase from this time last year, according to the latest data.

Under UK immigration rules, anyone who has been waiting more than 12 months through no fault of their own can receive a work permit and apply for any job on the country’s shortage occupation list.

Hussein, 34, who lives in a hotel in Staffordshire, is now working full-time for a charity after his work permit was granted in October this year.

He is still waiting for a decision on his asylum status, having arrived in the UK on a small boat at the beginning of July 2022.

He told Sky News he fled Iraq because he was concerned that previous work he’d done for Western armies was putting him and his family in danger.

On his phone are pictures of his young daughter back home, who he wants to help financially once he’s earning a regular salary.

He said the £9-a-week given to asylum seekers by the government simply isn’t enough to live on.

“We are getting very, very little money as financial support,” he said.

Although he has his meals paid for by the taxpayer and served in his hotel, he insists it is not enough.

“In the end as a human being, as a person…life is not only sleeping and eating – you might need clothes, you might need shoes, you might need maybe if you have some habits like smoking or anything, so all of this needs money.”

Read more from Sky News:
Gang leader who smuggled up to 10,000…