UK NEWS

225,000 ASYLUM SEEKERS STAY IN SECRET AMNESTY

ASYLUM SEEKERS: The Home Office is trying to clear a backlog of 450,00 cases

Friday July 25,2008

By Tom Whitehead, Home affairs correspondent

UP TO 225,000 asylum seekers are set to stay in Britain thanks to a secret amnesty.

The Home Office is trying to clear a huge backlog of 450,000 cases.

At least half that number are now expected to be told they can stay.

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said: “This exercise should be about reviewing applications properly and granting asylum in genuine cases.

“The Government should not be tempted to grant an effective amnesty just to get the backlog cleared and achieve a good headline.”

The 450,000 cases were unearthed in 2006. Among them are claimants who should have been deported years ago, while others have never been dealt with.

Ministers have promised to work through the backlog by 2011, while still dealing with all fresh asylum claims and those failed cases awaiting deportation.

Lin Homer, chief executive of the Border and Immigration Agency, told MPs yesterday that 90,000 cases have so far been examined. Some 39,000 have been allowed to stay – including a sex offender given a 24-month community order.

No details of the offence or when it was committed were given.

The approval rate is 43 per cent – more than four times the normal 10 per cent for asylum applications, although more are granted on appeal.

If that rate continues throughout the remaining cases then 195,000 asylum seekers can expect to be told they can stay.

But in the first update on progress last December, when 52,000 cases had been examined, the approval rate stood at 37 per cent, so it is growing as more files are examined.

It means that at least half of the people in the backlog are now likely to be allowed to stay.

Many of the asylum seekers have been here so long that they now have families and are therefore protected under human rights laws that guarantee the right to family life.

About a quarter of the cases are more than seven years old.