According to The Guardian, the Home Office is planning to fast-track claims from Iraqi and Iranian asylum seekers. A leaked letter shows that up to 20,000 individuals from these countries could be asked to fill out a detailed questionnaire.
The current understanding is that these questionnaires must be filled out in English and then returned within 30 working days. The Home Office will then either grant asylum or arrange a personal interview to obtain further details before making a decision. It is estimated that these targeted interviews will be approximately 30 minutes to 2 hours long. However, failing to comply with this process if asked to, could lead to the Home Office withdrawing an individual’s claim.
By June 2022, there were a total of 92,601 asylum claims in the UK that had not yet been concluded. Rishi Sunak has pledged to clear this backlog by the end of 2023. These cases are referred to as “legacy cases”. This new proposed fast-track application process is a part of Rishi Sunak’s pledge to clear this legacy backlog and will only apply to asylum claims that had been registered prior to June 2022.
At the end of 2022 there were 11,698 Iranian cases and 8,909 Iraqi cases in the legacy backlog, out of a total of 132,000 applications. The grant rate for Iranian claimants is 80%, whilst for Iraqis it is 54%.
The Guardian article reports that:
In a letter sent to stakeholders on Monday, the Home Office said it was launching “a new phase in the programme to clear the legacy backlog” by grouping the remaining outstanding legacy claims together into cohorts, which will allow claimants to “either be called for a substantive interview or be sent a questionnaire and called for a targeted or shorter interview”.
It said: “As part of this approach, the first cohorts we will prioritise are legacy claimants from Iran and Iraq, as these are the two highest nationality cohorts of outstanding claims. Iranian and Iraqi legacy claimants who have not yet been substantively interviewed will begin receiving questionnaires which will be tailored to their circumstances over the next few weeks, helping to reduce the duration of any subsequent interviews.
According to the Institute for Government, by the end of 2022 the number of people waiting for a decision on their asylum claim totalled 166,261 cases. This included those awaiting an initial decision, those ‘pending further review,’ and those appealing against initial decisions.
This process would expand the Home Office’s fast-tracking scheme that opened in February this year, which has a similar process for legacy asylum claimants from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Syria, Yemen, and Libya. To date, 12,000 claimants from these countries have been asked to complete an 11-page document. However, a recent report from the Times, has found that only 10% have been completed correctly.
If you believe that this information is relevant to yourself, then please do get in touch with our experienced immigration team. Our team can assist you with your asylum claim, and if you are asked to complete the questionnaire, we can assist you to ensure that it is completed correctly and in the correct time frame to prevent the Home Office withdrawing your claim. Our members speak Arabic and Kurdish and can help you to navigate the UK asylum system.
Contact us today for more information at 0208 995 3556 or info@descartessolicitors.co.uk.
By Tiffany Carpenter
18/05/2023