Latest report on the work of the Immigration Directorates highlights problems deporting EU criminals
Parliament's Home Affairs Committee has today published its latest report on the work of the Immigration Directorates.
Image credit: UK GovernmentYou can read it here in PDF or here in HTML format.
The report drew particular attention to the "continued failure" to remove some 13,000 Foreign National Offenders (FNOs), with many being housed in prisons at great expense.
With the top 3 nationalities being EU countries (Poland, Ireland and Romania), the Committee warned it could undermine the public's confidence in Britain's EU membership.
"The clear inefficiencies demonstrated by this process will lead the public to question the point of the UK remaining a member of the EU," the report said.
BBC News reported that Home Secretary Theresa May said in response that foreign criminals "should be in no doubt of our determination to deport them".
"Last year we removed a record number of foreign national offenders from this country, including a record number of EU criminals," she was quoted as saying.
The Home Affairs Committee report also drew attention to what it called the "extraordinary" decision by the Home Office to deport thousands of students on questionable or insufficient evidence of English test fraud in the wake of the 2014 BBC Panorama programme on language test centres run by ETS.
Committee Chair Keith Vaz MP noted how the "arrests, dawn raids and aggressive deportations of students from outside the EU" stood in "stark contrast" to the failure to deport EU offenders.
"The Home Office appears not to have investigated English language testing fraud allegations themselves before undertaking heavy-handed action. Recent legal cases, with their damming criticisms from senior Judges, have opened the door to a mass of expensive and damaging litigation," Vaz added.
On the subject of asylum, the Committee said: "We welcome UKVI's achievement in greatly reducing the number of asylum applications where a decision has been pending for more than six months. However, over the same period, there has been a sharp rise in asylum cases requiring further review. The Home Office must explain the reasons for this rise."
In addition, the Committee was concerned over the high number of successful appeals against asylum decisions in respect of Eritrean nationals, saying it raises serious questions over the approach taken by the Home Office and the country guidance produced by the UK Government. The guidance was withdrawn on 20 May, pending the publication of new guidance.
The Refugee Council noted that the Committee's report also called for applications for family reunion to be decided much more quickly after finding that a quarter of applications had been outstanding for more than a year.
Refugee Council Head of Advocacy Lisa Doyle said: "Whether it’s by returning people who came alone to the UK as children to dangerous countries, using dodgy evidence to refuse to give people asylum, or simply not taking decisions to allow families to be reunited, it’s clear from the Committee’s report that the Government is preventing refugees and asylum seekers from being safe in the UK."