*this headline, like the Telegraph’s recent front page on immigration, has no statistical basis.
On 22 January, the Daily Telegraph tried to convince Londoners they were surrounded by potentially society wrecking illegal immigrants with the front-page headline “1 in 12 Londoners is an illegal migrant[1]”. While most of the 5,900+ commenters vitriolically agreed, it may not be a surprise that the number is laughably wrong – and that is the least of the article’s problems.
The headline 1 in 12 number is premised on the belief that London’s population is 7,630,200 (it isn’t: the 2021 census says that it is 8,799,800) and that the number of “illegal migrants” is 585,533 (it isn’t, I’ll explain below). However, most farcically they divided one of these two incorrect numbers by the other, got the basic arithmetic wrong, and arrived at the number 12 rather that the larger (but still incorrect) 13.
These could simply be honest mistakes, but I would note that each part of this string of errors tends to exaggerate the number, suggesting a degree of motivation. The tone of the article also indicates that a higher and scarier number is what was wanted.
How did the Telegraph get its number?
The original number of “illegal migrants” comes from an unpublished Thames Water study, commissioned to estimate the level of water demand per person in London. The article misrepresents the study in two ways. While the study produces an estimate with a wide range, the Telegraph chose to ignore the most likely number and instead uses the highest possible number in the range – thus increasing their headline figure by a third.
More importantly, the Thames Water study wasn’t counting “illegal migrants” (I will use the more accurate terms “irregular” or “undocumented” from here on). It was estimating the number of people who use water that are not in official statistics – that includes irregular migrants, but also people with second homes, visitors and tourists.
As the report is unpublished, it is hard to tell its overall composition or even how the estimate was made. What we do know is that it is significantly higher than the GLA and Pew Research estimates[2] which, unlike the Thames Water research, actually set out to measure the number of undocumented migrants using transparent and well-understood methods.
Who are these irregular migrants?
While it is clear that the Telegraph article is exaggerating the number of undocumented migrants for effect, there are undoubtedly undocumented migrants in the UK. It is worth trying to understand who they are.
The article is illustrated with pictures of migrants on small boats, mostly male and some with sinister balaclavas. By now, you may not be surprised that this image is wholly misleading.
This has nothing to do with small boats. The people on these boats apply for asylum upon entry into the UK. They then enter the slow and labyrinthine asylum process and while they are in that system they are not irregular migrants as they have the right to have their claim assessed[3].
Many are long term UK residents…
The picture painted by the Pew and GLA research reports is that most undocumented migrants had the right to stay in the UK at one point in time, but visas or status had expired, for myriad reasons.
- Irregular migrants are equally divided between male and female
- They are younger than the UK’s general population with over half under 35 years old
- Around 14% are children, half of whom were born in the UK, but as their parents were undocumented, they too are undocumented
- More than a third have lived in the UK for over 10 years.
The reality is we have long had a complex and erratically administered visa system. By design, the system is precarious, with time-limited stays that can be renewed if you have both luck and money. That precarity can bite when visas expire if you lose your job, split up with a partner or simply forget to fill in a form at the right time. You can live legally in the UK for decades and suddenly become “undocumented”, sometimes without even knowing it.
You could have been born in the UK, have never left the UK, but remain undocumented into adulthood. Lack of documentation means you are probably not eligible for benefits, health care or student loans. Churches have told us of cases where bright children born in the UK cannot go to university because not only do they not have access to the student loans available to their classmates, they are classified as foreign students and so must pay even higher fees.
…with complex stories worth hearing.
Churches have long supported migrants in their communities. There are lots of projects around the country where asylum seekers and undocumented migrants are treated with dignity and offered practical support. I have sat in church halls with Latin American migrants who are cleaners and catering staff, with ambiguous legal status, talking about the battles they have with the Border Agency and struggling to get support for their children.
While I could recognise the people I have encountered in the research papers from the GLA and Pew, I could not see them anywhere in the Telegraph article. As with much of the coverage of migration, no effort was made to hear the voices of migrants or understand their stories. Instead, they were just collateral in a bigger political battle.
Much of my work has focused on people in receipt of benefits. Like them, undocumented migrants lack power or public sympathy, so they can be misrepresented with impunity. While both benefit claimants and undocumented migrants often experience hardship and even destitution, they are regularly presented as privileged and then blamed for society’s ills. For example, this story actually claims that “the NHS is giving undocumented migrants priority for appointments[4]” and approvingly quotes think-tanks explicitly saying that these undocumented migrants are the reason for the difficulties we all face accessing public services. A claim that would be utterly laughable if the resentment and hatred it encourages wasn’t so dangerous.
Dignity and Truth
There are lots of views about what a good immigration policy looks like and how it should be administered and enforced. But as Christians, we believe there should be no debate about seeking to be truthful, nor about treating people with dignity and respect, especially those with the least power in our society.
The Churches in JPIT have endorsed the ‘Fair Begins Here’ promise, a vision for a well-managed, fair and compassionate approach to asylum set out by the coalition Together with Refugees. You can show your support for this by encouraging organisations you are involved in to sign up, putting up a poster or sharing on social media – find out more here.
[1] The front page of the print edition was “One in 12 in London is an illegal migrant”. The web version has now been changed to add the words “Up to” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/01/22/one-in-12-in-london-is-an-illegal-migrant/
[2] The GLA UK wide estimate is 594,000 -745,000 and Pew research counts something slightly different and gets 800,000 – 1,200,000 again across the whole UK. For a summary of the two studies and their differences see here.
[3] Some may have been refused asylum and could theoretically become undocumented if they then stay in the country. However, given the timelines and the high success rates of people coming via small boats that is currently a very small number.
[4] This refers to clinics designed to treat hard to reach groups such as homeless, destitute including irregular migrants. Irregular migrants access very little healthcare but do indeed have preferential access to the very few clinics run for irregular migrants.