Just under one-fourth of the asylum applications the Directorate of Immigration receives are not taken into consideration.
RÚV reports that, according to data from the Directorate of Immigration (UTL), the office received 354 applications for asylum last year, double the amount the office received over the previous two years.
194 applications, or just under 55% of the total, were taken into official consideration and investigation. Of these, only 82 people were granted asylum or some other kind of protection, while 112 were ultimately rejected.
At the same time, 23.16% of the total applications were not even examined. The primary reasons given for not opening the casefiles were either because the individuals in question had asylum applications in process in other countries, or they had been granted residence permits in other countries.
While people from all of 26 different nationalities have applied for asylum, residents of the Balkans – in particular, from Albania – were the largest group of asylum seekers. At the same time, Albanians were also the most likely to be denied asylum in Iceland.
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