Backdoor amnesty granted to 160,000 asylum seekers in UK

An "amnesty" has been quietly granted to more than 160,000 asylum seekers over the past five years by a UK Border Agency that MPs have concluded is still "not fit for purpose", in a damning report published Wednesday. The Commons home affairs select committee report says it is indefensible that officials have been unable to trace a further 74,500 asylum seekers, among a total of 450,000 unresolved "legacy" cases. The agency has been working through these cases since it was first declared not fit for purpose by then home secretary John Reid in 2006. The MPs say fewer than one in 10 of those trapped in this historic backlog of asylum cases has actually been removed from the country but they add this should not be a surprise as some of the cases date back nearly 20 years. The cross-party committee regards what it describes as an "amnesty policy", alongside renewed delays to the much heralded e-borders system to count people in and out of the country, as further evidence that the agency is still not proving effective. The report says that work has at last been concluded on 403,000 of the 450,000-strong backlog of cases. Just over 38,000, or nine per cent, had their claims rejected and have been removed from Britain. Just over 161,000, or 40 per cent, were granted leave to remain and 74,500 have been "archived" because the applicants cannot be found and it is not known whether they are in the UK, have left the country or are dead. A further 129,000 cases are officially classified as "errors". The MPs say the 161,000 granted leave to remain is such a large proportion that this amounts in practice to an amnesty. They also disclose that ministers have allowed agency caseworkers to grant permission to stay to applicants who have been in Britain for six to eight years, rather than the 10 to 12 years that applied at the start of the programme. "We understand that ministers would have been unwilling to announce an amnesty for the applicants caught up in this backlog, not least because it might be interpreted as meaning that the UK was prepared more generally to relax its approach to migration; but we consider in practice an amnesty has taken place, at considerable cost to the taxpayer," conclude the MPs. From / Gulf News