At least 37,302 migrants living in the UK have disappeared over the past three decades, according to official figures released by the Home Office on Saturday.
Commenting on the matter, a Home Office spokesperson that said that "while even one absconder is unacceptable, this is historic data that covers a period of over 30 years and many of these individuals have likely left the country".
They pointed out that London has "a dedicated national absconder-tracing team working with the police, other government agencies, and commercial companies to track down and bring absconders back into contact with the Home Office".
The spokesperson assured that the government never gives up "trying to trace absconders", adding "we have significantly improved the way we collect data on people leaving the UK in recent years".
The overwhelming majority of those who have disappeared include so-called "in-country absconders" who either failed to keep in contact with officials or were not tracked in detention centres. About 134 asylum seekers were dubbed "port absconders" who managed to avoid border controls in order to enter Britain without permission.
UK's Migration System Doesn't Work, Watchdog Claims
Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK, expressed concern over the Home Office figures, which he said was a sign that Britain's immigration system doesn't work.
"This is a shocking failure. It is ridiculous to intercept those crossing the Channel illegally or after they emerge from the back of lorries, only to turn them loose to disappear into the undergrowth of the shadow economy", Mehmet noted.
The incident was preceded by reports that the Home Office was preparing weekly flights for upward of 1,000 migrants who recently took the risk-fraught journey across the English Channel back to the European countries that they came from, including Italy, Germany, and France.
UK Migration Flow on Rise
Over this summer, around 5,000 people travelled in dinghies and small boats across the Channel before claiming asylum in the UK, a big jump up from the 1,890 who came in the whole of 2019.
The past few years have seen thousands of migrants, mostly from war-hit countries in Africa and the Middle East entering the UK via the English Channel. Around one quarter of migrants who have claimed to be children upon arriving in the UK are reportedly older than 18.