UK IMMIGRATION NEWS

Asylum seekers permitted to stay due to case backlog

Friday, 10 July 2009

More than 63,000 of the estimated 450,000 asylum legacy cases identified under the Case Resolution Programme have now been approved.

Established in 2006 to clear a backlog in asylum cases, officials have so far processed 197,500 cases with a 32% approval rate. If approvals continue at that rate, up to 144,000 individuals will have received permission to remain by the time the cases are cleared – due by 2011.

Many approvals have been granted on the basis of human rights grounds, in that it was unsafe to return the applicants to their home countries or that they had now been living in the UK for so long that they had established families and effectively settled here.

Miss Lin Homer, chief executive of the UK Border Agency (UKBA) however admitted at least 7000 applicants so far could not be traced and their cases had been archived.

Some of the cases currently being reviewed also include those for applicants who should have been deported from the UK over a decade ago.

The Case Resolution Programme has however met with resistance, with the opposition Tory conservatives labelling it an amnesty by the back door. Shadow Immigration Minister, Mr Damian Green said: "Any progress is painfully slow on this."

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