The asylum process has only just managed to recover with 10,000 decisions being made last month. A special exercise is under way to clear the backlog of people who have been waiting since before 1996. R is for refugee. This is someone recognised to have a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or holding a political opinion. This applies where they passed through another country deemed to be safe en route.
T is for the trend in asylum applications.
The record 71,000 asylum applications last year was triggered by the crisis in Kosovo but numbers also surged to record levels in 1993 when Bosnia exploded. U is for unaccompanied children. Last year there were a total of 3,349 new asylum applications from children and young people under 18. Shops are forbidden from giving cash as change. W is for the white list of countries from which the HO assumes that asylum applications are unfounded.