Child Refugees 'Disappear' Under Home Office Watch

Child refugees have disappeared – sometimes permanently – from hotels under the watch of the Home Office, according to a damning new report into the UK’s immigration and asylum systems.

Unaccompanied minors have been placed in hotels by immigration officials, resulting in an “unknown number” escaping or being taken from state care, prompting calls from a cross-party group of MPs for Home Secretary Priti Patel to take “urgent” action.

The home affairs select committee’s report, published on Monday, found the “glacial pace of decision-making” in processing asylum claims – on average 550 days for a child and 449 for adults – meant many felt compelled to “leave a life in limbo” and take matters into their own hands.

Read more: The National, https://rb.gy/f1ue0s

Human Trafficking Case Correctly Handled With “Anxious Scrutiny”

The Court of Appeal has dismissed an Albanian woman’s judicial review challenge to a finding that she was not a human trafficking victim, holding that those deciding her case had handled it with the correct level of “anxious scrutiny”. The case is R (LM (Albania)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 977.

The facts: LM is an Albanian national who entered the UK in 2017 on a false ID. On 25 April 2018, she was found by the police in a distressed state, her hands bound with duct tape and her body covered in bruises and scratches. She claimed to have suffered horrific experiences at the hands of traffickers, including kidnap, forced prostitution and physical abuse.

When interviewed under caution, LM admitted that every aspect of her earlier account had been untrue, and she had taped up her own wrists, but maintained that she had been a victim of trafficking. The National Referral Mechanism (NRM) made a negative reasonable grounds decision, i.e. LM was probably not a genuine victim. She was also prosecuted for perverting the course of justice and dishonestly making false representations, and sentenced to 19 months’ imprisonment.

The NRM agreed to reconsider following LM’s release from prison. This time the reasonable grounds decision was positive, i.e. officials suspected but could not prove LM was a victim of modern slavery.

Read more;Freemovement, https://rb.gy/qhxccm

Supreme Court Pronounces on “Unduly Harsh” Deportation Test, Again

In what I calculate to be the fifth Supreme Court case addressing the meaning of the words used in Theresa May’s 2014 reforms of deportation law, the justices have rejected three linked Home Office appeals seeking to reinstate deportation orders. The previous cases were, in reverse order, SC (Jamaica), Sanambar, Rhuppiah and KO (Nigeria). That’s not to mention Hesham Ali on the forerunner 2012 reforms. So much for adding clarity to the law: I count 25 blog posts on Free Movement mentioning just KO (Nigeria).

The latest addition to this pantheon of perplexity is the case of HA (Iraq) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] UKSC 22. The judgment is given by Lord Hamblen with the agreement of the rest of the panel.

The main focus of the case is the meaning of the words “unduly harsh” in section 117C(5) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 as amended. Broadly, these words form part of the test for whether a foreign criminal is exempted from deportation. If the impact on the person’s partner or child would be unduly harsh then the person should not be deported.

Read more;Freemovement, https://rb.gy/9hy0tm

How Accurate are EU Settlement Scheme Decisions?

The EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) opened in 2018 and had issued almost 6.5 million decisions by the end of June 2022. The sheer scale of the scheme is a remarkable achievement for the Home Office. The department took on a momentous task when the UK government decided that everyone who lived in the UK under EU free movement law needed to apply for new immigration status after Brexit.

But the success of the scheme can only be determined by the number of people who have been provided with the correct status. Understanding the number of EUSS decisions that have been challenged, and the success rate of such challenges, is therefore at least as important as the raw number of decisions issued.

Read more;Freemovement, https://rb.gy/rgzhfs

Ministers Knew About UK Passport Helpline Firm’s Poor Performance a Year Ago

Warnings about the “unsatisfactory” performance of the private firm running the beleaguered Passport Office advice line were made to government ministers more than a year ago, it can be revealed. Teleperformance, a French-owned multinational, failed to meet targets for responding to calls and emails as early as May 2021, according to official documents seen by the Observer.

They show that a review of its performance last summer concluded that it needed improvement. But instead it worsened over the following months, prompting officials to pledge that they would work with the firm to improve standards. The revelation comes amid a mounting crisis at the Passport Office, with thousands of people unable to travel for holidays, weddings, funerals and family emergencies due to application delays. MPs were told last Wednesday that around 50,000 Britons had been waiting more than 10 weeks for their passports, with 550,000 applications in the system in June.

Read more: Shanti Das, Observer, https://rb.gy/b73mw0