Report suggest up to 1 in 12 people in London illegally
A confidential report obtained by the Telegraph suggests that as many as 585,000 people in London are illegal immigrants – equivalent to around 1 in 12 people.
Chris Philp, the Conservative shadow home secretary, described the figures as “deeply alarming.”
He said, “Having lost control of illegal immigration over the Channel, the Labour government must now urgently start deporting far more illegal immigrants.
“It is totally unacceptable to have these numbers of illegal immigrants in the UK. The law needs to be looked at so that spurious human rights, modern slavery and asylum claims cannot be used to delay or prevent removals of illegal immigrants.”
The report was commissioned by Thames Water in 2023, and lists the numbers of “hidden and transient” Thames Water customers. According to FullFact, “The report bases its estimate for the number of irregular migrants in London on a study published by the Pew Research Center which estimated that the total number of irregular migrants in the UK in 2017 was between 800,000 and 1.2 million.”
It is worth nothing that official numbers have not been published by the Home Office. As such, these figures are estimates which.
However, this hasn’t stopped right-wing media from jumping on the report to create shock headlines, though some have emphasised the report is an unofficial suggestion. Left-wing media has adopted a more skeptical approach or not covered the report at all.
The Telegraph article’s assertion that “up to one in 12 of the capital’s population is an illegal migrant” is based on the report’s upper-limit estimate of irregular migrants in London (585,533) relative to the report’s estimate of the city’s “usual resident population” in 2021 (7,044,667).
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- The Guardian, at the time of writing, has not covered the report – this is their latest migrant coverage
One-in-12 people living in London is an illegal immigrant, shock data reveals: Almost 600,000 of the capital’s residents have NO right to be in the UK, previously secret report says
