Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many asylum seekers were removed from the UK while their applications were still being processed in each of the last three years for which figures are available.

Other than in certified cases, the Home Office does not intentionally remove individuals whose claim for protection is still being processed.The Home Office does not routinely publish statistics on the number of individuals wrongfully removed or deported, or keep central records of people who have been wrongfully removed or deported.

However, as was noted in a letter provided to the Home Affairs Select Committee on 14 May 2018, the department identified 17 cases since 2015 in which a person was returned to the UK after being removed,

i. in five cases, the Department or the Court found no legal basis for their remaining here; the Department has subsequently removed or is seeking to remove that person again from the UK;

ii. in nine cases, proceedings are ongoing; and

iii. in three cases, the Department or the Court has found those people to have a legal basis to remain in the UK. (It is not necessarily the case that the legal reason which led to those people being brought back to the UK is the same grounds on which they have acquired a legal basis to remain).