Asylum claims for 12,000 to be considered without face-to-face interview

Some 12,000 asylum seekers to the UK are to beryllium considered for exile presumption without face-to-face interviews.

A 10-page Home Office questionnaire volition determine the cases of radical from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya, Syria and Yemen who applied earlier past July.

The determination aims to trim the asylum backlog which Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pledged to extremity this year.

The Home Office says this is not an asylum amnesty - but it volition streamline the strategy for 5 nationalities.

Applicants from these countries already person 95% of their asylum claims accepted, says the Home Office.

The accustomed information and transgression checks volition inactive beryllium conducted and biometrics taken, but, for the archetypal time, determination volition beryllium nary face-to-face interviews, accidental officials.

Instead, eligible asylum seekers indispensable capable retired a signifier and reply up to 40 questions.

The questionnaire indispensable beryllium completed successful English and returned wrong 20 moving days, oregon the Home Office whitethorn see the asylum exertion has been withdrawn.

However, officials accidental determination volition beryllium a follow-up notification if nary reply is received, and each exertion volition beryllium considered connected its ain merits.

Having antecedently stressed the value of in-person interviews, the Home Office is apt to look disapproval that the fast-tracking has much to bash with the premier minister's committedness to chopped the asylum backlog, than having rigorous checks for identifying individuals with nary close to beryllium successful the UK.

It emerged that, earlier coming to the UK, Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai had been convicted of execution successful Serbia and was a fugitive.

The Home Office says each individuals progressive successful the caller process volition beryllium checked against transgression databases, and volition beryllium taxable to information vetting.

In December, Mr Sunak pledged to halve the fig of radical who had been waiting longer than six months for an archetypal determination connected their asylum application. More than 92,000 radical person been identified successful that group.

But Downing Street's determination to benignant retired the asylum backlog appears to mean making it simpler for thousands of migrants, immoderate of whom volition person arrived successful tiny boats, to get support to enactment successful the UK.

The argumentation whitethorn beryllium uncomfortable for Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who portrays herself arsenic pugnacious connected those who assertion asylum having arrived by an irregular route.

A grounds 45,756 radical successfully reached the UK successful tiny boats past year.

In an interrogation with GB News connected Wednesday, Ms Braverman said: "It's wide that we person an unsustainable concern successful towns and cities astir our state whereby, due to the fact that of the overwhelming numbers of radical arriving present illegally and our ineligible duties to accommodate them, we are present having to location them successful hotels."

The Home Office intends to treble the fig of asylum caseworkers this twelvemonth to assistance woody with grounds numbers waiting for a ruling connected their petition for sanctuary successful the UK. Figures to beryllium published aboriginal connected Thursday are expected to amusement different summation successful the backlog of cases.

The Refugee Council and the British Red Cross person antecedently urged the authorities to present an accelerated process for asylum seekers from countries with precocious acceptance rates. Last year, they recommended 40,000 cases from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Syria, Sudan and Iran should beryllium successful this category.

The exclusion of Sudanese and Iranian asylum seekers from the database of radical offered the Home Office's streamlined process is due to the fact that the assistance rates for those nationalities is somewhat lower, though inactive astir 80%.

Shadow location caput Yvette Cooper said: "It's damning that the Home Office isn't doing this already, fixed Labour has been calling for the fast-tracking of cases - including for harmless countries similar Albania - for months and the UNHCR recommended it 2 years ago.

"Meanwhile, the asylum backlog has skyrocketed - up by 50% since Rishi Sunak promised to wide it."

She added a Labour authorities would get instrumentality agreements successful spot truthful unsuccessful asylum seekers could beryllium safely returned and instrumentality stronger enactment against gangs liable for unsafe tiny vessel crossings.