Blunkett: Immigration - results will take time

David Blunkett has privately admitted he cannot stem the influx of asylum-seekers despite intense pressure to do so from Downing Street.

Sources close to the Home Secretary said it would take until the summer before the rising number of asylum-seekers – expected to top 100,000 for the first time – would turn round.

The Home Secretary was "not about to bring in a whole raft of new policies", sources said. But efforts were being stepped up to ensure the new powers in last year's Asylum and Immigration Act were deployed fully.

But, as critics clamoured for tougher action on asylum, and Tony Blair made plain his willingness to review Britain's international obligations to take asylum-seekers if a solution could not be found, the Home Office said immediate results were not likely.

"We have to allow time for these measures to work," sources said. "We have put in place measures to reduce our intake of asylum-seekers."

A crackdown on illegal workers, in which employers harbouring illegal immigrants can be jailed for up to 14 years, has been ordered. Immigration officers have been told to deprive of benefits any asylum-seekers who did not immediately apply for asylum. The message to would-be immigrants is: don't come to Britain for economic reasons.

Concerns are growing for the fate of thousands of Kurds from Iraq who have been refused asylum and are forced to live "in limbo" as they wait to be deported.

The Refugee Council said as many as 3,500 Iraqis did not have access to benefits in Britain, and most were Kurdish. There are no direct flights to the parts of Iraq that are outside the control of Saddam Hussein, therefore Home Office officials have to find alternative routes to return Iraqi Kurds. Last week the Home Office said ministers would soon finalise the details of these deportations.

Two years ago, officials declared that part of northern Iraq – not in the control of Saddam Hussein – was safe for asylum-seekers. This has led to more refusals of applications from Iraqi Kurds, with more than a quarter turned down at the end of last September. The Court of Appeal last year criticised the Government for leaving these people without support and recommended they be granted a six-month stay. Asylum lawyers, refugee charities and some MPs said the safety of Iraqi Kurds could not be guaranteed in Iraq with the threat of war.