UK Immigration Showdown: Which Countries Fuel Record Asylum and Channel Crossings?

The UK government is tightening its stance on immigration, threatening to impose visa bans on countries failing to cooperate with the removal of foreign nationals, as the latest Home Office data reveals a shifting landscape of legal and irregular migration. The focus has sharpened on key African nations while new figures highlight Pakistan as the top source country for asylum claims and Afghanistan as the leading nationality for irregular Channel crossings.

Visa Ban Threat and Diplomacy

The Home Office has issued a stark warning that it may cease issuing visas to foreign nationals from governments that do not increase cooperation on the return of illegal migrants from the UK. The African nations of Angola, Namibia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been identified as the first countries likely to face such a ban. Current data underscores the symbolic nature of this threat, as nationals from these three countries collectively accounted for an extremely small fraction of legal visas issued in the year to June 2025, with DRC nationals receiving 299 visas, Angola 273, and Namibia 140.

The Shifting Tides of Migration: Legal and Irregular Routes

Official statistics for the year ending June 2025 reveal a significant 32% drop in the overall number of non-visit visas granted, falling from 1,231,899 in the previous year to 834,977.

In legal migration, Indian nationals remain the largest group, securing 165,970 visas (19.9% of the total) for work, study, family, or humanitarian reasons. They are followed by China (114,128 visas, 13.7%) and Pakistan (69,580 visas, 8.3%).

Conversely, the most common nationalities arriving through irregular routes—such as small boats across the English Channel or in lorries—are overwhelmingly from countries facing conflict or instability. A total of 48,478 people were detected arriving via irregular routes in the year to June 2025, with the vast majority (42,446) crossing the Channel.

The top five nationalities detected in irregular migration, accounting for 55% of the total, were Afghanistan (6,589 arrivals, 13.6%), Eritrea (6,267, 12.9%), Iran (5,367, 11.1%), Sudan (4,318, 8.9%), and Syria (4,216, 8.7%). These five countries, which are the main sources of irregular arrivals, account for only 3% of visas granted for legal entry routes. For the countries facing the potential visa ban, the number of irregular arrivals was negligible: 11 from the DRC, three from Angola, and none from Namibia.

Record Asylum Claims and South Asian Nationals

The number of people applying for asylum in the UK has reached a new high, with 111,084 applicants in the year to June 2025—the largest figure since current records began in 2001.

Crucially, Pakistani nationals constituted the most common group applying for asylum, numbering 11,234 people (10.1% of the total). This places Pakistan ahead of the conflict-ridden nations that dominate irregular arrivals. The other top nationalities for asylum claims were Afghan (8,281 or 7.5%), Iranian (7,746 or 7.0%), Eritrean (7,433 or 6.7%), and Bangladeshi (6,649 or 6.0%).

Regarding the backlog of asylum claims, which stood at 90,812 waiting for an initial decision at the end of June 2025, Pakistani nationals again topped the list (8,200), followed by Syrian (7,331), Bangladeshi (6,838), Afghan (6,784), and Indian (5,073).

Foreign Nationals in UK Prisons

In addition to the migration data, the prison population in England and Wales included 10,737 foreign nationals at the end of September 2025, making up 12.3% of the total. Albanian nationals were the most common group (1,086 prisoners), followed by Polish, Irish, Romanian, and Indian (364). Nationals from the three African countries facing visa sanctions were low, with 56 from the DRC, 39 from Angola, and nine from Namibia.