Up to one in 12 people living in London is an illegal migrant, according to report
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London is home to as many as 585,000 illegal migrants, a report has claimed. The estimate - the equivalent to one in 12 of the city’s population - comes in a study commissioned by Thames Water first reported by the Telegraph. According to the data between 390,355 and 585,533 people in London would be considered illegal migrants as per the study.
The report suggests most illegal migrants arrived in the UK on work, study or visitor visas and then overstayed. The report was accessed by the Telegraph through freedom of information-style requests. The Home Office does not release data regarding illegal migrant numbers in the UK, and exact data on this topic is often difficult to determine.
The study suggested that a median range of around 1 million unauthorised migrants could be living in the UK, with 60% of the UK’s illegal migrant population based in the capital. Migration experts suggested that the figures could be an underestimate as some of the underlying data dates from 2017, before the surge in migrants crossing the Channel.
The research was initially designed to identify “hidden” and “transient” users to better meet the demands of customers, looking at National Insurance registrations of non-EU nationals to identify “irregular” migrants across London boroughs.
