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Asylum Seekers

Volume 408: debated on Tuesday 1 July 2003

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To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the facilities available in Northern Ireland for the processing of asylum applications. [120892]

I have been asked to reply.The Immigration and Nationality Directorate has 13 staff based at offices at Belfast International airport. These resources are used for various aspects of immigration control in Northern Ireland, including processing applications for asylum.In 2002, the Belfast office received 174 applications for asylum. No statistics exist on the numbers of these applications that were successful, or unsuccessful. Statistics only exist for the UK as a whole and no breakdown is available by region.In 2002, the Belfast office removed 62 failed asylum seekers from the UK.