Asylum figures reveal ‘amnesty’ to stay in UK

Figures reveal 403,500 cases of asylum seekers investigated by the UK Border Agency (UKBA) resulted in 9 per cent (38,000) having claims rejected, while 40 per cent (161,000) were granted leave to stay in the country.

The UKBA was tasked with dealing with a backlog of cases that amounted to 450,000 individuals, with a target of this summer to complete the process.

The Home Affairs Committee, headed by Keith Vaz, has concluded that the agency’s success in nearly achieving its target has come thanks to new policies that have created an “amnesty” for people to stay.

“The net result is that a very large number of people remain in the UK who either have no right to be here, or who would have been removed had their cases been dealt with in a timely manner.” Home Affairs Committee report

The committee also described as “indefensible” the admission by the UKBA that in one in six cases they have no idea where the asylum seeker applicant is. The committee said that the target to break the backlog of cases had only been achieved “through increasing resort to grants of permission to stay”.

The Liberal Democrats called for an “earned path to citizenship” with tough qualifying criteria in the run up to last year’s general election.

At the time this was branded an “amnesty for illegal immigrants” by both Labour and the Conservatives.

A report by academics at the London School of Economics in 2009 also explored the idea of offering irregular immigrants who meet certain criteria a right to remain. One of its authors told Channel 4 News that the Government’s tough talk on immigration “appears to be a mistake”.

Professor Ian Gordon said that historic opinion polls on immigration issues showed an increase in dissatisfaction when the Government was seen to lose control and there was a gap between rhetoric and reality.

“It seems to me that there is a disconnect between what is being said and what is being done,” said Professor Gordon. “The UKBA are clearly getting guidance from the government.

“The toughness appears to be a mistake,” he added. “It makes it harder for the public to accommodate what is a sensible and realistic set of judgements from the government.”

No ‘secret amnesty’

Both Professor Gordon and Professor Christine Whitehead, who also contributed to the report, noted that the policy is one that the previous Government also adopted in its last few years.

“There is no ‘secret amnesty’ as such,” said Professor Whitehead. “What the current Government have been doing is the same as the previous Government.”

But Immigration Minister Damian Green denied that there was an amnesty, and instead chose to focus on the elimination of the case backlog. He explained: “What we’ve done is get through to the bottom of that huge problem we inherited.

“The main thing is we’ve now eliminated this backlog from the system so we can now get on with the everyday job that the previous Government couldn’t because they had that backlog.”

He added that exit checks would be brought back by 2015.

Shadow Home Office Minister Gerry Sutcliffe said the “scathing” report showed “the gap between what this Government promised and what it is delivering.

“This is woeful mismanagement from the Home Office, adding to the confusion surrounding their policy,” he added.