Since Rishi Sunak announced his plan to reduce the number of unprocessed asylum claims, the backlog has swelled. Some 166,000 people are now waiting for a decision on their case. Political pressure is mounting on the government. The doubling of “migrant hunts” targeting hotels housing asylum seekers – such as the recent protests organised by far-right groups in Knowsley – only adds to the urgency of this situation.
The Home Office will now allow 12,000 asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya, Syria and Yemen to complete a questionnaire in place of an interview. In principle, this makes sense: the UN refugee agency has called for a “triaged” approach, and those who will probably be granted refugee status should be fast-tracked. But the form is wickedly complex, with more than 50 questions that must be answered in English. Asylum seekers will have only 20 days to complete it – hardly enough time to access scarce legal advice. If they fail to do so, their application may be withdrawn, meaning at best that they have to reapply and at worst that they are at risk of return.
The home secretary, Suella Braverman, has blamed the backlog on asylum seekers who enter the UK “illegally”, wrongly criminalising those who cross the Channel. This is a wilful misrepresentation of reality. A recent analysis from the Migration Observatory points to the sluggish machinery of the Home Office. The department is beset by high turnover and low morale. Staff tasked with life-or-death decisions are paid about £25,000. The attrition rate between April 2021 and March 2022 was nearly 50%. Mr Sunak’s pledge to double the number of caseworkers was welcome, but there is no reason to think dysfunction won’t continue: one whistleblower recently claimed the department was hiring inexperienced staff from jobs at McDonald’s in an effort to clear the backlog.
A culture of bellicose posturing emanates from the top. Speaking to this newspaper in 2021, one former immigration judge said the Home Office knowingly fought hopeless appeals because it was terrified that apparent concessions “might leak out and be another set of Daily Mail or Sun or Telegraph stories”. Trying to push refugees elsewhere likewise wastes time and resources. Under new “inadmissibility” rules, the Home Office now has six months to assess whether some asylum seekers could have applied in another country. If they can’t be removed within six months, their claim is considered in the UK. Some 21,000 were informed between January and September last year that the Home Office was examining whether they could be resettled elsewhere. Of these, only 21 were returned to a third country.
Fast-tracking a select number of asylum seekers will be a sticking-plaster solution to the backlog. Public feelings about immigration are more complex than politicians may think: recent polling by King’s College London shows that attitudes in Britain are among the most positive internationally. But without a compelling vision for the future, the government will probably continue treating asylum seekers who make the dangerous journey across the Channel as unwanted intruders, storing up future legal appeals and creating further delays in the system. This is neither humane nor efficient.
