Immigrant
chaos as 16,000 held
in backlog

Some 14,000 applicants, growing at a rate of 700 a month, had already been refused the right to stay but are still pleading with the UK Border Agency (UKBA) to reconsider.

An additional 2,100 cases – shipped in a box from an office in Croydon to Sheffield – were still waiting for an initial decision at the time of the inspection, with some dating back a decade. The UKBA said these have since been cleared.

The backlogs were discovered by the Independent Chief Inspector for Borders and Immigration John Vine as part of an inquiry into applications to remain in Britain on the basis of marriage.

“This is completely unacceptable and I expect the Agency to deal with both types of case as a matter of urgency,” Mr Vine said.

The inspector said he was “surprised” to discover the UKBA is also failing to check whether applicants earn enough to look after themselves without having to rely on state handouts.

Meanwhile, a separate inspection into how the UKBA and Border Force deal with criminals at ports, such as Heathrow Airport, discovered that the policy of swift removal is being rendered ineffective by the level of immigrants claiming asylum.

UKBA staff told the inspector that the agency was sitting on 14,000 refused cases that the UKBA was asked to reconsider because there was “no policy” on how to deal with them.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of campaigners Migration Watch UK, said: “This is yet further evidence of the chaos in the immigration system from which they are taking years to recover.”

During the inspection, Mr Vine discovered 2,100 cases that had yet to receive an initial decision, including some dating back as far as 2003. Around 180 of these applicants wanted to stay in the UK due to marriage or a civil partnership, while the remaining cases related to other reasons.

In his report, Mr Vine said: “We are concerned that this backlog of cases has been allowed to develop.

“As a result, some applicants have been waiting for considerable periods of time for their cases to be resolved. This situation causes anxiety, uncertainty and frustration for those individuals and their family members.

“Delays in deciding applications also mean that enforcement action is likely to be more difficult in the event that the case is ultimately refused.

“This is because the individual will have been in the UK for a number of years and may have developed a family or private life.”

UKBA staff are not consistently applying the “income support threshold” rule to applicants who want to stay in the UK due to marriage, the inspector found.

In one case, an applicant applied to stay in Britain because he was married to a person settled in the country who had a disposable income of around £200 per month - far below the minimum income support level.

The inspector also found that the percentage of allowed appeals in marriage cases was too high at 53% between April 2011 and February 2012.

Mr Vine said: “The agency needs to improve the quality of its initial decision-making to avoid the cost of unnecessary legal challenges and to reduce the proportion of allowed appeals where its refusal decisions are challenged.”

The inspector’s report also highlighted problems with the agency failing to take into account the rights of children when refusing further leave in the UK.

Mr Vine said children’s rights were given specific consideration in one out of 21 examined cases of applicants refused leave in the UK, while the impact on UK-based children was not considered in any of the 39 overseas cases examined.

In a separate report on customs offences, the inspector found that the policy of using swift removal as an alternative to prosecution was not available in a large proportion of immigration cases.

Some 73% of the individuals covered by the investigation claimed asylum, meaning they could not be removed from the UK until decisions had been made.

Some 36% of cases remained in the UK awaiting the outcome of an appeal or a decision on their initial claim and nine individuals were found to be waiting nearly a year without a decision.