NEWS & BLOG

Our Statement of Solidarity

At West London Welcome, we stand in solidarity with refugees, migrants, and people seeking asylum in our community and across the country. Many of them face growing ordeals – not only the difficulties of moving to a new country under often traumatic circumstances and a growing climate of prejudice, harmful misinformation, and mistrust in the UK.

We also extend our support to other charitable organisations, who continue their vital work in the face of increasing online hostility and heightened security concerns.

Those who arrive in the UK seeking safety do so with hopes of rebuilding their lives, contributing to society, and belonging to their new communities. Yet too often they are portrayed as the cause of wider social problems. In reality, less than 1% of the world’s refugees ever reach the UK, and their presence is not the reason for the country’s struggles with housing, healthcare, or education.

Despite the many hurdles they face – such as being legally unable to work while awaiting asylum decisions and surviving on extremely limited financial support (£8.86 a week) – those we support show enormous determination to play a positive role in the new neighbourhoods in which they live. Many asylum-seeking people we support volunteer with us, from cooking delicious meals to translating, organising donations and teaching our creative classes; our centre would not thrive without them. They are enthusiastically learning English with us and tell us they wish they were allowed to work to financially support themselves. It is so important to recognise these aspirations and contributions. We must not allow a deliberate campaign of negative narratives, whether from some politicians, media outlets or anger being expressed online or on demonstrations, to overshadow this reality.

We want to highlight the anxieties that many in our community now feel. Some have told us they hesitate to share their immigration status for fear of discrimination or abuse, and many feel frightened after the biggest far-right organised rally in decades was held in London two weeks ago. We are deeply concerned by this, and it strengthens our resolve to ensure that West London Welcome continues to be a safe, inclusive space where everyone feels a sense of belonging and that we work hard to counter campaigns of misinformation.

Our charity was founded to provide friendship, support, and solidarity to those building new lives in West London. That mission has never felt more urgent. We are proud to witness daily the courage and determination of refugees and migrants who, with the support of our caring and compassionate volunteers and partners, are contributing to our strong, multicultural local neighbourhoods. We remain committed to this work — reducing isolation, building inclusion, challenging injustice, and promoting mutual understanding.

Together, we can ensure that those who come to the UK seeking safety can find not only protection, but also opportunity, dignity, the chance to thrive, and, ultimately better the country. It’s on all of us to counter misinformation when we see it and share the real stories of migration we know – which are overwhelmingly positive.

Fact-checking Migration and Asylum

1. Myth: “People should enter the UK legally if they want to seek asylum here.”

Fact: There are virtually no safe routes for people seeking asylum to travel to the UK – the vast majority of refugee resettlement schemes are closed and the few existing pathways are highly restricted, so only a very small number of people can come formally. It is almost impossible for most people in the Global South to apply for visas to come here, and people must be physically in the UK to make a claim for asylum – they cannot claim from outside the UK. This means most people wanting to seek asylum enter the UK without permission, because there is no other way of getting here in order to claim asylum. There is nothing in the 1951 Refugee Convention that stipulates the route you should take; we are an island, and if all safe routes to come here are cut off, those who have good reason to claim asylum in the UK have no choice but to face the terrifying Channel crossing. There is no such thing as an ‘illegal’ person seeking asylum – under international law, anyone has the right to apply for asylum in any country.

Source: International Rescue Committee

2. Myth: “Asylum seekers get everything for free when they come to the UK.”

Fact: People seeking asylum are banned from working or receiving state benefits. They receive just £49.18 a week to cover all food, toiletries, clothes and travel. People seeking asylum are banned from working or receiving state benefits and do not receive accommodation unless they have less than £50 in cash or deposit. This means they’re forced to rely on the government for somewhere to live, otherwise they’d be on the streets. Once accommodated
in hotels, they receive just £9.95 a week on a cash card along with three small, airplane-style meals a day served in plastic containers. If they’re housed somewhere with access to a kitchen, they’re given £49.18 a week to cover their food, toiletries, clothes and travel. They’re not given free phones or iPads.

Source: UK Parliament

3. Myth: “It’s only men coming to the UK to seek asylum.”

Fact: This is false. Adult men accounted for 59% of total asylum claims in the year ending March 2025; 41% of claims were made by women and children.

Source: Gov.uk

4. Myth: “Asylum seekers are all trying to come to the UK rather than staying in France or the first country they reach.”

Fact: Less than 1% of the world’s refugees live in the UK. Most people seeking asylum stay in the first country they arrive in, with 70% living in neighbouring countries to their country of origin. Many people do stay in France, who receive a much larger number of asylum claims than Britain – in 2024, France received approximately 157,850 asylum claims, significantly more than the UK’s 108,138 claims. The UK is ranked 17th per capita in Europe, with fewer asylum applications per head of population than many other European nations. People who continue on to the UK often have family ties, language connections, or professional links to the country.

Sources: International Rescue Committee and the UK Government

5. Myth:“People crossing the Channel aren’t genuine refugees.”

Fact: In 2022, two-thirds of the people who crossed the Channel were granted asylum. Of these successful applicants, half came from just five countries: Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea, Sudan, and Syria – all countries with war and notorious human rights violations. People seeking asylum from these countries have amongst the highest rate of successful claims.

Source: International Rescue Committee

6. Myth: “Immigration keeps rising because there are millions of people coming to the UK by small boat.” 

Fact: Immigration in the UK has been falling over the past year, not rising. Net migration fell by half in 2024, and recent rule changes mean it is expected to fall further, mostly due to a decrease in health and care visas. Most migrants are students or workers. In the year to June 2025, small boats made up less than 5% of Home Office visas granted and arrivals detected – around 43,000 people.

Source: Guardian

7. Myth: “Migrants are making the UK’s housing crisis and economy worse.”

Fact: The housing crisis is not due to migration. Research shows that the housing crisis is due to an historic lack of new affordable homes being built and lack of investment in housing by successive governments over decades. Meanwhile, higher net migration has been shown to lead to lower economic deficits and debt, since migrants tend to be of prime working age and work both low-paid and high-paid jobs. According to some policy experts, cutting migration may increase the UK’s budget deficit, damage the economy and may worsen the housing crisis.

Source: John Perry, policy advisor at the Chartered Institute of Housing

8. Myth: “Migrants in the UK are mostly unemployed.”

Fact: In 2024, the employment rate of working-age migrant men was higher than that of UK-born men (83% and 78%, respectively). Among women, the employment rate for working-age migrants was 71%, slightly lower than for the UK-born (73%).

Source: University of Oxford Migration Observatory

9. Myth: “Migrants are only coming here to live off benefits.”

Fact: Of the 8 million people receiving Universal Credit in the UK as of June 2025, 83.6% were British and Irish nationals. Only around 1.5% of claimants were refugees, and 0.7% had arrived in the UK via safe routes such as those for Ukrainians and Afghans. People seeking asylum cannot claim benefits.

Source: BBC

10. Myth: “Migrants are more likely to commit crimes than British people.”

Fact: A 2023 study found no evidence of a relationship between an increase in immigration and the rise of any kind of crime in 30 countries, including the UK.

Source: Does more immigration lead to more violent and property crimes? A case study of 30 selected OECD countries

11. Myth: “Charities supporting refugees think the use of asylum hotels is a good idea.”

Our perspective as a refugee charity is that asylum hotels are unsuitable places for anyone to live long-term. They aren’t places of luxury – multiple people share very small rooms for months or years, usually with no kitchen. Migrants are not responsible for the cost of the asylum system. This cost is a result of the policies of successive governments, first deliberately delaying decision making on claims – the backlog of people awaiting an asylum decision more than tripled between 2020-2023 – and then entering into poorly negotiated contracts with private contractors who have consequently made large profits for inadequately delivered services. People should be housed within communities in a way that is fairly and affordably organised around the country, not in hotels.

Source: Institute for Public Policy Research

12. Myth: “Refugees and migrants are a burden on the NHS.”

Fact: The NHS itself depends heavily on migrant workers — around 1 in 6 NHS staff is a foreign national.

Source: Migration Advisory Committee Report 2023

Migration is a constant of human history. People have always moved for safety, opportunity, or survival. Weaponisation is political; narratives of invasion, swarms, or “crisis” often serve political agendas rather than reflect reality. Refugees are ordinary people who have lived through extraordinary hardships. They are not a threat but members of our global community who, given the chance, rebuild their lives and contribute enormously to society.

Our mythbusting resource is downloadable in PDF form here.