Asylum seekers and refugees

Can refugees enter the UK illegally?

Boris Johnson said if you come to the UK illegally, you are an illegal migrant. This is not correct in the case of refugees.

How many refugees does the UK take in?

A number of EU countries have granted asylum to more refugees than the UK in recent years.

This image on benefits for pensioners and refugees is not correct

What’s the difference between the benefits pensioners, ‘illegal immigrants’ and refugees can claim?

Do refugees have to stay in the first safe country they reach?

No. But the UK can, in some circumstances, return refugees to the first safe EU country they reached under EU law.

We factchecked a viral video on asylum seekers

Asylum seekers have to be destitute to get support and, if eligible, can’t choose what type of housing they get.

How many child asylum seekers are found to be adults?

Two thirds of assessed child asylum seekers, are found to be over 18, but only a small proportion of children seeking asylum are assessed over their age.

Who gets more, pensioners or refugees?

What’s the difference between what pensioners, ‘illegal immigrants’ and refugees can claim?

Two UK schemes have resettled 11,000 Syrian refugees

Just over 10,000 refugees from the Syrian conflict have been resettled via a government scheme since September 2015.

How much is the UK spending on security at Calais?

The UK and France have cooperated on border controls around French ports for years. How much do we spend on doing so?

Refugees in the UK

How many refugees and asylum seekers are there in the United Kingdom?

The Dubs Amendment: 3,000 refugee children?

The government never officially said that 3,000 child refugees would be accepted under the Dubs Amendment, although some campaigners say they expected that many to arrive.

Ask Full Fact: 'Dubs' and 'Dublin'

What are the Dubs 'amendment' and 'Dublin regulation', and why are they relevant to closing the migrant camp at Calais?

The UK, the USA, and Syrian refugees

We’ve looked into Jeremy Corbyn’s and Theresa May’s claims on the government response to the recent US order on refugees, and to the wider Syrian crisis.

Why do migrants and asylum seekers want to come to the UK?

We look at what the experts say on how, if at all, asylum seekers choose between potential countries of refuge.

Asylum seekers, the UK and Europe

In 2015, the UK had the ninth highest number of asylum seekers in the EU, and the fifth highest number of people accepted as refugees.

We aren't spending £36m just to close the Calais 'jungle'

The UK has committed £36 billion to “maintain security” in Calais. Some of this money will be used to close the ‘Jungle’ camp, but some is also being spent on border security and keeping child migrants safe.

Do 74 people try to enter the UK illegally every day?

There were 164,000 attempts to cross into the UK made between 2010 and 2015, although these figures don’t correspond to individual people.

Have 12,000 asylum seekers vanished in the UK?

Home Office data makes it unclear exactly what it means to have an asylum application “on hold”.

How is the EU doing on refugee relocation?

The EU programme for relocating asylum seekers within Europe has seen 6,000 people move country in the past year.

Unaccompanied refugee children in Europe

How many unaccompanied children are in Europe and how many are claiming asylum here?

Counting the number of migrants in the Calais ‘jungle’

Officials and charities disagree over an extra 2,000 migrants in the Calais camp. We look at how both got their figures.

Where are the UK's refugees?

Reports that over 80% of councils have taken in no Syrian refugees under the main government resettlement programme are correct - up to a point.

Refugees in Lebanon and the UK

Exact figures are hard to come by, but it seems correct to say that there are 10 times as many refugees in Lebanon as in the UK.