War and economy push immigration to Britain to record high in 2022

By JILL LAWLESS
Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — Official figures show the number of people moving to Britain reached a record high of 606,000 in 2022. The Office for National Statistics gave the figure for net migration – the difference between the number of people arriving and those leaving. The figure is up from just under 500,000 in 2021. The figure includes tens of thousands of international students and almost 200,000 people who have come to the U.K. under special programs for Ukraine and Hong Kong. The high figure will renew debate about Britain’s departure from the European Union, which was motivated in part by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of people from other European countries