By Vivienne Russell | 4 November 2011
MPs have slammed the UK Border Agency for abandoning more than 100,000 asylum and immigration cases.
In a hard-hitting report issued today, the home affairs select committee criticised the ‘dramatic increase’ in the number of files transferred to the agency’s ‘controlled archive’ in the past six months. This archive was little more than a ‘dumping ground’ for cases where contact with immigration applicants had been lost, the MPs said.
In March this year, there were 40,500 of these cases but by September this had more than trebled to 124,000.
Committee chair Keith Vaz said: ‘The so-called “controlled archive” has become a dumping ground for cases where the UK Border Agency has lost track of the applicant. From 18,000 files last November, it has now grown to 124,000 – the equivalent of the population of Cambridge.’
The committee also criticised the agency’s failure to clear the backlog of asylum applications, which was first identified in 2006. The then Labour Home Secretary John Reid had promised this would be cleared within five years, but the committee found 18,000 cases still await a final decision.
The committee made a series of recommendations to improve the working of the agency. Among these were a detailed investigation into financial waste, such as overpayments to staff and asylum seekers and failure to collect civil penalties.
The MPs also urged the agency to improve its legal representation so that it did not lose so many immigration appeal tribunals.
Responding to the report, immigration minister Damian Green said: ‘The immigration system we inherited was chaotic and this government is working to fix the mistakes of the past by making better decisions, ensuring cases are properly tracked, improving intelligence and speeding up removals.
‘I am determined to deal with the historic asylum cases left by the last government and we are making real progress tackling the archive to trace these individuals.’
Green added that the number of failed asylum seekers deported within one year of application had almost doubled, while almost two-thirds of new cases are decided now within a month.
