Tens of Thousands of Iraqi and Iranian Migrants to Have Asylum Claims ‘Fast-Tracked’ by Home OfficeKurt Zindulka 17 May 2023
In the latest amnesty-style scheme from the Conservative government to cover over its failures to deal with the ever-growing asylum backlog, tens of thousands of Iraqi and Iranian migrants will have their asylum claims “fast-tracked” by the Home Office.
Following a similar scheme launched in February to ‘streamline’ the right for thousands of migrants from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya, Syria, and Yemen to remain in the country after just filling out a questionaire rather than actually being interviewed by an immigration official, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government is looking to do the same for up to 20,000 alleged asylum seekers from Iraq and Iran in the coming weeks.
Driven in large part by illegal boat migration across the English Channel, the asylum backlog in Britain has soared in recent years, with the current backlog — those applications submitted before June of last year — sitting at 92,601, although thousands more have applied since then. According to The Guardian, at the end of 2022 there were 8,909 Iraqi and 11,698 Iranian cases in the backlog.
In a letter seen by the left-wing paper, the Home Office said that it would be launching “a new phase in the programme to clear the legacy backlog” in which migrants will be grouped by nationality and will “either be called for a substantive interview or be sent a questionnaire and called for a targeted or shorter interview”.
However, the Guardian reported that if a decision can be made upon the questionaire and other evidence provided, the migrants may not need to be interviewed. Those that are required to have an interview are only expected to be grilled for 30 minutes to two hours before a decision on whether they are deserving of asylum status will be determined.
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https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/05/17/tens-of-thousands-of-iraqi-and-iranians-to-have-asylum-claims-fast-tracked/
