Report says Home Office too ready to refuse applications when applicants fail to provide sufficient evidence of their eligibility
In his latest inspection report, published yesterday, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration looked at the Home Office's handling of refugee family reunion applications.
Image credit: UK GovernmentYou can read the in-depth 72-page report here. A response to the report by the Home Office is here.
The inspection report examined how family reunion was working by focusing on the three visa posts (Amman, Istanbul and Pretoria) with the highest numbers of applicants, looking particularly at the five nationalities (Syrians, Iranians, Eritreans, Somalis and Sudanese) that had made the most applications and were most often refused.
The report also looked at the handling of applications by Kuwaiti Bidoon in Amman, as stakeholders had raised concerns over these.
In recent years, the number of overseas applications for family reunion has steadily increased, up from 4,917 in 2012 to 8,403 in 2015.
David Bold, the Independent Chief Inspector, says in the report that he found the Home Office is too ready to reject family reunion applications when applicants don't provide sufficient evidence.
The report stated: "Overall, the inspection found that the Home Office was too ready to refuse applications where it judged that the applicant had failed to provide sufficient evidence to satisfy the eligibility criteria, when deferring a decision to allow the applicant to produce the 'missing' evidence might be the fairer and more efficient option. This was particularly the case when the key piece of evidence was a DNA test establishing the relationship to the sponsor was as claimed, and the Home Office's withdrawal of commissioned and funded DNA testing in 2014 appears to have been a major cause of the increase in first-time refusals for certain nationalities."
It continued: "The Home Office needs to make improvements in a number of areas, and the report makes ten Recommendations. Collectively, these are aimed at helping the Home Office to reassure applicants, stakeholders and others that it recognises the particular challenges surrounding Family Reunion applicants, and that it manages applications not just efficiently and effectively, but thoughtfully and with compassion."
The ten recommendations made in the report were:
"1. In relation to the asylum screening and interview records, ensure that:
• Asylum caseworkers are aware of the importance of capturing details of the claimant's family members; and
• it overhauls the process for retrieving interview records, so that they are made available in good time to whoever needs them.
2. Ensure that interviewing of family reunion applicants and/or sponsors is a practicable option for visa sections by improving access to interpreters, and review and provide guidance regarding the use of interviews to ensure best practice is consistently applied.
3. Review its approach to DNA evidence in family reunion cases, including:
• funding for commissioned DNA testing where the Home Office is unable to verify documents provided by the applicant;
• deferral rather than refusal where the absence of DNA evidence is the only barrier to issuing entry clearance; and
• update guidance so that it accurately reflects the approach and applicants are clear in what circumstances they should provide DNA testing results with their application.
4. In terms of decision making in family reunion cases:
• ensure that ECOs give full consideration to all available evidence;
• ensure that evidence relied upon in the decision is either retained or properly evidenced in the issue notes or refusal notice;
• ensure that the case record and/or refusal notice fully explains the rationale for the decision; it overhauls
• ensure that ECM reviews are effective.
5. In relation to family reunion applications, review, issue clear guidance, and ensure consistent application by decision makers of:
• 'General grounds for refusal' (paragraph 320 of the immigration rules) that might apply; and
• 'exceptional circumstances' or 'compassionate factors', in particular (but not limited to) when considering applications from spouses under the age of 18.
6. Reconsider whether assurance based on a 'Review to Risk' approach gives sufficient weight to the potential humanitarian protection consequences of family reunion refusals. In particular, ensure trends and issues associated with particular nationalities are identified and monitored.
7. Review its internal processes, in particular the 'hand offs' between different functions, to reduce the time taken to deal with family reunion applications.
8. Ensure that family reunion applications are not wrongly recorded as 'complex' when delays are of the Home Office's making.
9. Reduce the number of family reunion appeals and reapplications by ensuring that guidance to applicants clearly signposts what evidence they should provide with their application, and getting the decision 'right first time'.
10. In relation to those Kuwaiti Bidoon family reunion applications from 2013 to 2015 where the Home Office has not implemented the Judges' ruling or its own undertakings to issue entry clearance, ensure that it responds quickly when reasons for the delay are sought by those affected and that it provides as much information as it reasonably can, bearing in mind the sensitive nature of the investigation."
In its response to the report, the Home Office accepted all ten recommendations.