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Record rise in new UK citizenships
Number of applicants has risen to 130,000/yr, writes CR Jayachandran.
Record number of foreign nationals were granted British citizenship last year with Indians being the second largest immigrants who became citizens, second only to Pakistanis.
According to figures published by the British Home Office, 140,795 immigrants became citizens last year. Nearly 80,000 of the new citizens were from Africa and the Indian sub-continent. Nationalities with the largest number of grants were Pakistanis (14,000), Indians (13,500) and Somalis (11,100), followed by South Africans (6,370) and Nigerians (6,280). Around 4,000 were from the EU and 4,600 from Australia and New Zealand.
The new Immigration and Asylum Minister Tony McNulty said, "The figures show that many people who settled in the UK seek a commitment to our society by becoming British citizens."
The figures show a 12 per cent rise on 2003 and nearly four times the number when Labour took office. Since 1997, more than 700,000 foreigners have been granted citizenship compared with around 250,000 in the previous seven years, the Daily Telegraph reported Wednesday.
The report said about half of those granted citizenship qualified for it by being residents in the country for five years or more and around 30 per cent became British through marriage. The remainder were mainly dependant children.
An additional 14,000 asylum seekers were granted indefinite leave to remain in the country as part of a backlog clearance exercise and will become eligible for citizenship in future, the report added.
The unprecedented levels of immigration was one of the major issues during the just concluded general elections in Britain.
In the late 1960s, about 75,000 citizens a year were accepted, falling to around 50,000 after new laws were introduced in 1971. For about 25 years the annual figure remained close to this level, falling to 37,000 in 1997, the year Labour took office. By 2002, however, the number granted citizenship had trebled to 120,000 and the upward trend has continued, largely fuelled by the high level of asylum seekers.
However, a recent fall in asylum numbers appears to be affecting the total applying for citizenship. Last year, there were 135,000 applications, still a historically high number but a decrease of eight per cent compared to 2003. The latest asylum figures for the first quarter of this year, also published on Tuesday, showed a 17 per cent fall compared to the previous three months. Monthly applications are now at their lowest level since March 1997.
The official quarterly asylum statistics confirm that the backlog of new cases awaiting a decision is down from a peak of 140,000 five years ago to 8,700.
Only 16 of applicants are currently given full refugee status or granted leave to stay on initial decision, with a further 16 per cent of those who appeal also allowed to remain.
But deportations remain at around 1,000 a month - far below Tony Blair's new target of ensuring that they will exceed the monthly total of rejected asylum applications by the end of this year.
McNulty, however, promised more legislation to deal with the problem.
"Asylum applications are continuing to fall significantly, and at a faster rate than other European countries," McNulty said.
"But we also know there is more to do to tighten the system still further and increase the number of failed asylum seekers we remove. This is essential if people are to have confidence that the system is both robust and fair," he said.
