you want immigrants, we got lots of 'em.
more than anyone else. Never mind the quality, feel the width
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3419109.stm
UK 'tops 2002 asylum seeker list'
More than 110,000 people applied for asylum in the UK in 2002
The UK took in more asylum seekers in 2002 than any other country in the developed world, a report has claimed.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said the UK had 110,700 asylum claims, 30,000 more than the US, in second place.
But the Home Office disputed the OECD figures, saying that a total of 103,080 applications had been received in 2002.
The OECD figures were collected before the Nationality and Immigration Act, which cut asylum numbers in 2003.
That fall allowed Tony Blair to hit his target of halving the monthly number of applications from their October 2002 peak of almost 9,000.
A Home Office spokesperson said: "The measures the government has put in place over the last few years are bringing about a sustained improvement of the immigration and asylum system.
"The number of applications has halved and is now consistently far below the levels of last year as a result of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act and the historic steps to move UK border controls to France."
The Home Office said there were 4,225 asylum applications in September 2003 compared to 8,770 in October 2002.
During that period, an average of just over 1,400 failed asylum seekers and their dependants were removed each month, according to Home Office figures.
'Strong messages'
The OECD report, Trends in International Migration, also said some countries which have traditionally taken in a lot of refugees, such as Germany, Australia, the Netherlands and Belgium, saw numbers drop sharply in 2002.
They had succeeded in sending "strong messages to asylum seekers in 2001 or 2002 by reinforcing their control and detention measures or by speeding up decision-making processes", OECD analysts said.
ASYLUM CLAIMS LEAGUE
Britain - 110,700
US - 81,100
Germany - 71,000
France - 51,100
Austria 37,100
Source: OECD
The UK was one of the countries which "despite measures to control flows of asylum seekers, did not completely succeed in reversing their growth" in 2002, they added.
However, although the UK received more asylum claims than other developed countries, it came eighth in an OECD list which took population sizes into account.
The OECD said Britain received 1.9 applications for every 1,000 inhabitants, compared to Austria's 4.6, Norway's 3.9 and Sweden's 3.7.
