THe Guardian reports that the Home Office is yet to make decisions on thousands of asylum applications from before June 2022 despite Rishi Sunak’s promise to clear the legacy backlog.
The paper says that caseworkers have been offered financial incentives to help hit the prime minister’s target of processing 92,000 cases from before June 2022. But in a statement released on Monday, the department said 4,500 complex cases from the backlog were still subject to further investigation:
In December 2022, Sunak pledged to tackle the remaining legacy asylum backlog by the end of 2023. The backlog had more than 92,000 cases of individuals who claimed asylum before 28 June 2022 which were waiting for an initial decision.
A statement from the Home Office on Monday said: “While all cases have been reviewed and 112,000 decisions made overall, 4,500 complex cases have been highlighted that require additional checks or investigation for a final decision to be made.
“These hard cases typically relate to asylum seekers presenting as children – where age verification is taking place; those with serious medical issues; or those with suspected past convictions, where checks may reveal criminality that would bar asylum.”
The statement came in a press release that said “the prime minister’s commitment of clearing the legacy asylum backlog has been delivered”.
A Conservative source said the Home Office’s claim to have cleared the backlog was clearly wrong. “You’ve either cleared all the cases and made decisions or you haven’t. And they haven’t,” they said.
Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “It is misleading for the government to claim that the legacy backlog has been cleared as there are thousands still waiting for a decision and almost 100,000 waiting in an additional backlog created by the government’s unfair and draconian new laws, including the unlawful Rwanda plan, that have left men, women and children feeling anxious and fearful resulting in some self-harming and becoming suicidal.
“The Home Office has lost track of too many people who have been removed from the asylum process and at the same time left those who have been granted refugee protection to fend for themselves, at risk of sleeping rough during the winter months.”
On asylum, as on inflation. the Prime Minister's claim to have delivered turns out to be just so-much spin.
Welsh Liberal Democrats Councillor for Cwmbwrla Ward, City and County of Swansea - Please buy my novels at Author Page
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Tuesday, January 02, 2024
1 comment:
I am happy to address most contributions, even the drunken ones if they are coherent, but I am not going to engage with negative sniping from those who do not have the guts to add their names or a consistent on-line identity to their comments. Such postings will not be published.
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How have they made this miraculous reduction.?Those who have gained success (asylum) where are they?.This 'lost track' of them ,to me, means get rid of them and do not keep records.It passes the buck to other organisations tofind sort out and support them.
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