That number had emerged as MPs discussed PM Rishi Sunak’s target to eliminate the “legacy” backlog of applications lodged before July 2022 by the end of last year.
When asked about the 17,000 withdrawn claims, Simon Ridley, a senior civil servant in the Home Office, told the committee in November: “I don’t think we know where all these people are”.
But they admitted 5,598 - roughly a third - of the claimants “remain in the UK and the Home Office is taking steps to urgently re-establish contact with them”.
"The fact that thousands of people have been allowed to effectively disappear into the underground economy or left vulnerable to exploitation by criminal gangs is yet more evidence of the shocking mismanagement and chaos in the Tory asylum system.
Mr Sunak previously pledged to “abolish” a portion of older asylum applications awaiting an initial decision, by the end of last year.
He tasked the Home Office with tackling 92,601 so-called “legacy” claims made before the end of July 2022.
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