Rishi Sunak caught in fresh migration row as asylum seekers 'given loophole to stay in UK'

 The UK came close to giving all waiting asylum seekers a full amnesty, it has been claimed, casting doubt over the legitimacy of approved claims as the Government says it has cleared its backlog.

The Home Office confirmed that Rishi Sunak had met his commitment of clearing the backlog of asylum applications before the end of the year, but how exactly the Government achieved this has landed the PM in hot water. 112,000 applications were processed, on which 77,000 decision were made - 67 percent of which were allowed to stay.


But sources have since cast doubt over the legitimacy of this process. Patrick Christys on GB News quoted a source which claimed the Government was even initially advised to give a "full amnesty to everyone on the backlog list and start again".

He added: "So when people are piping up now and saying that approving 67 percent of the asylum backlog proves that the majority of people coming across the channel are genuine asylum seekers, you have to consider that we very easily could have had a situation where every single one of them was granted amnesty.

"The Government could not publicly be seen to have an amnesty - the backlash would have been too large. But I can also reveal that of the 25,500 people who were refused asylum, it is not clear if any of them have been deported.

"We have requested that information from the home office, and we are yet to hear back."