This from the Telegraph today

Migrants given asylum despite being accused of sexual offences, whistleblower claims
Home Office worker says she was disciplined for rejecting the case of Afghan arrested for indecency

Migrants who have been accused of sex offences and other crimes are being granted asylum anyway, a whistleblower has claimed.

A senior caseworker has told The Telegraph that Home Office staff can approve claims from asylum seekers charged with crimes, as long as the offence for which they are being prosecuted does not merit a prison sentence of 12 months or more.

She cited a case where she said she was disciplined after refusing to approve an Afghan man’s application because he had been arrested several times for indecently exposing himself in a children’s play area.

The caseworker, who we are not naming to protect her identity, decided to speak out because she believed migrants were being allowed to remain in the UK when they should be deported.

She alleged caseworkers were under pressure to hit targets that incentivised them to approve more claims, and that applications from some countries, such as Eritrea and Sudan, were fast-tracked with less scrutiny than those from other nations.

She said even when asylum seekers’ applications were rejected by immigration tribunals, migrants could still make “further submissions”, often introducing new evidence such as psychiatric, sexual or religious claims, which delayed or prevented their deportation.

The whistleblower said: “It’s a carousel, just going round and round and round. We’re just browbeaten. That’s how we feel in asylum. We feel browbeaten because we read in the press that we’re rubbish. It’s not us. The ones at the coalface are doing the best we possibly can. We’re in a lose-lose [situation].”

Her comments come ahead of a major shake-up of the asylum system to be announced by Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary. She will toughen rules on criminality, curb the rights of asylum seekers to appeal against refusals on human rights grounds and overhaul the asylum appeals system.



Ms Mahmood, who has admitted the Home Office is “not yet fit for purpose”, has pledged to do whatever it takes to secure the UK’s borders and deport migrants with no right to stay in the UK. She plans to strip all migrants with convictions for sexual offences of the right to claim asylum.

A record 111,000 asylum applications were made to the UK in the year to June, up 14 per cent on the previous year. It has been partly fuelled by Channel small boat arrivals, with 37,000 crossing so far this year, up 17 per cent on the same point last year.

Concerns over crime by migrants have been brought to the fore by recent high-profile cases such as that of Ethiopian asylum seeker Hadush Kebatu, who sparked nationwide protests after he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl. He was deported last week after being released from jail by mistake.

The arrest of Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu
The case of Hadush Kebatu sparked nationwide protests after he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl Credit: PA
On Thursday, it emerged that a second migrant sex offender who should have been deported five years ago had been mistakenly released from prison.

Ibrahim Kaddour-Cherif, 24, an Algerian national, was released in error from HMP Wandsworth in south-west London a week last Wednesday but the Met police were only told he had been freed on Tuesday this week.

A manhunt for Kaddour-Cherif, a convicted sex offender and serial thief, has been launched by the Met Police which expressed frustration that he had a “six-day head start”. Cherif was identified by the Home Office more than five years ago as an illegal visa overstayer who should have been removed from the UK.

Home Office guidance states that where an asylum seeker faces a “pending prosecution”, a caseworker can decide an outstanding claim ahead of any criminal proceedings where the potential sentence does not meet certain thresholds.

These thresholds include a prison sentence of 12 months or more, a series of “minor” offences indicating they were a persistent offender, being a danger to national security or that their presence in the UK would be “not conducive to public good”.

Conservative peers this week tried to give ministers powers to remove any migrant from the UK if they were sentenced to any prison term of any length. Labour rejected the amendments because it said they would breach human rights and refugee conventions which dictate asylum seekers can only be deported for “serious” crimes.

‘I believed he posed a threat’
The whistleblower said caseworkers’ hands were tied by the rules, citing the Afghan arrested for indecent exposure. She said: “I said, ‘I’m refusing. He’s a wrong ’un’. And my senior manager said we can’t refuse an Afghan, we’ve got to grant. And I said I wouldn’t do it because a man who exposes himself in front of kids – well, where’s that going to end?

“And they said you’ve got to make the decision on the basis of the claim – he can’t be returned because he says he was politically active in Afghanistan against the Taliban.

“I was refusing that man because... I believed he posed a threat to children, but he was never going to receive a jail sentence for indecent exposure, he was just getting repeated warnings. So they gave his case to someone else who was prepared to say ‘yes’.”

She claimed caseworkers were under pressure to hit targets of six interviews or decisions a week on asylum claims, with limits of two and a half hours on interviews. This meant staff were less likely to meet their targets if they had to refuse claims because of the extra work to ensure the decision was legally watertight, she said.

She added: “More corners [are] being cut every day by everyone because it’s not feasible to do the numbers they want us to do, and do a good job.”


'One in, one out' migrant who sneaked back to Britain is deported… again
Read more
She said the Labour Government had tightened the rules on decision-making. Where before some asylum seekers from countries with high grant rates for claims were done solely on paper, the new system required staff to conduct half-hour interviews to confirm they were from the country they claimed to be, she said.

However, she said this was still not a full two-and-a-half hour asylum interview, and could be prepped for by applicants as it involved basic questions about a country’s geography, politics, laws and economy. She alleged there had been cases of Ethiopians claiming to be Eritreans to boost their chances of asylum.

She said rejected asylum seekers are able to make further submissions, often based on new information, even after their appeals have been rejected by an upper tribunal. They could change the basis of their asylum claim from risk of persecution due to their political beliefs to their sexuality or Christian faith, she claimed.

She said: “So for example, an Iranian will say, I’m claiming asylum because I was politically active against the regime. There’s no evidence to prove that, and we feel like it’s safe for them to return.

“Then they’ll lodge further submissions and say well I’m a Christian convert now. If there’s a live claim lodged, it’s a barrier to removal, and we still have to house them and fund them. Now, they’ll go through the whole process again till they get to appeal rights exhausted and they’ll lodge another claim to say: ‘Well, I’m homosexual now.’”

‘We are changing the law’
A Home Office spokesman said: “We take all allegations seriously and are committed to addressing any concerns appropriately. However, we do not accept the characterisation of these concerns as presented.

“The integrity of the UK immigration system is paramount. We operate within a robust framework of safeguards and quality assurance measures to ensure that all claims are thoroughly assessed, decisions are well-founded, and protection is granted only to those who meet the established criteria.

“We are changing the law so individuals convicted of sexual offences cannot be granted asylum in the UK.”

The Home Office denied that asylum caseworkers had to prioritise speed and volume and said standards of decision-making were maintained through robust quality assurance measures.

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said: “It is shameful that illegal immigrants charged with criminal offences are getting given asylum. No foreign criminal or illegal immigrant should be able to claim asylum. They should be deported immediately. We will need to exit the ECHR to do this – but our country’s safety demands it.”