Today, Suella Braverman criticized Home Office workers for being overly sluggish to process asylum petitions after revealing that only one was processed every week.
The Home Secretary said colleagues that caseworkers handling asylum cases must expedite their job in order to minimize a 100,000-case backlog and a multimillion-pound hotel cost.
Last week, Rishi Sunak committed to clear this six-figure traffic bottleneck by the end of 2023 as part of his plan to restore the immigration system’s functionality.
Today, in front of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee of the House of Lords, Ms. Braverman stated, ‘There is a great deal of transformation that we want to undertake with regard to asylum casework and related processes.
“I should note, for context, that during my short months at the Home Office, I have discovered that we have vastly different procedures. Our asylum casework staff does an excellent job, but their output is, frankly, too low.
The average number of decisions made per week by decision-makers is one. We must significantly boost that number.
She also declined to exclude out hosting migrants on decommissioned cruise ships in an effort to save costs.
The Home Secretary said colleagues that caseworkers handling asylum cases must expedite their job in order to minimize a 100,000-case backlog and a multimillion-pound hotel cost.
Last week, Rishi Sunak committed to clear this six-figure traffic bottleneck by the end of 2023 as part of his plan to restore the immigration system’s functionality.
More than 400 asylum applicants were illegally imprisoned in immigration deportation centers last month, it was learned.
She emphasized the “very difficult” problem of achieving the goal of placing 100,000 asylum seekers in local authority housing as opposed to hotels, with the current number being 57,000.
“You then inquired about cruise ships; we want to remove the usage of hotels as soon as possible since it’s an intolerable cost to the taxpayer, with hotel use alone costing over £5 million per day,” she stated.
“We will provide a variety of alternative sites, including defunct amusement parks and former student dormitories. I should clarify that we are examining these sites; however, nothing has been confirmed.
“However, we must bring forward thousands of spots, and when it comes to vessels, all I can say is that everything is still on the table and nothing is excluded, as we are in discussions with a range of providers.”
In the summer, when he ran for the Tory leadership, Mr. Sunak offered the radical move as a viable alternative to the daily expenditure of $5 million on hotels.
But its legality has been called into question.
More than 400 asylum applicants were illegally imprisoned in immigration deportation centers last month, it was learned.
According to a line of Home Office emails obtained by the BBC under the Freedom of Information Act, the detention of between 450 and 500 migrants kept as ‘overflow’ from the Manston processing center was defined as ‘no longer legitimate’ at the time.
During an increase in Channel crossings in October, the maximum capacity of Manston, which is 1,600, was exceeded by as many as 4,000 individuals.
Before being transported to housing, new immigrants were anticipated to be taken to the centre, which is designed to temporarily house people for security and identity checks.
However, other individuals were imprisoned for much longer durations due to a shortage of alternative housing.
According to the BBC, the emails reveal that permanent Home Office secretaries were aware of overcrowding problems at the time.
One email stated, “Their custody is no longer legitimate, as they can only be detained until their identity is locked down, and then for no more than five days.”
“The majority have been there for weeks, longer than some Manston instances.” We must relocate them to hotels immediately…’
A representative for the Home Office told a broadcaster that an unprecedented number of small boat arrivals had placed “great pressure” on the asylum system, adding that the department had “worked hard to relocate people into hotels or other housing as swiftly as possible.”
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