The Home Office, in a frantic bid to slash a backlog of 450,000 cases, could soon give almost 200,000 asylum seekers the right to stay.
A leaked memo published yesterday revealed that in 40,000 cases applicants will be cleared after spending as little as four years here instead of the usual 12.
And there are a further 144,000 asylum seekers who have been in the UK so long that forcing them to leave would infringe their human rights.
Critics said the situation – already in the spotlight over the growth of immigrants’ camps in Calais – showed that ministers were nowhere near solving the chaos in the asylum system.
Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green said: “The Government should come clean and admit they are creating a stealth amnesty for asylum claimants.
“Their denials that there is an effective amnesty are ringing increasingly hollow.
“This shows the system which John Reid said was not fit for purpose more than three years ago is still in chaos.”
Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, added: “The Government is prepared to quietly relax the rules in the interests of political expediency but still brag about its record on deportations.”
Sir Andrew Green of the anti-immigration think tank MigrationWatch UK warned that giving an asylum applicant the right to stay in Britain meant they could bring their relatives to live here.
He claimed that would bring the total number to more than a quarter of a million. He said: “The Home Office has taken the path of least resistance but the effect is to grant full access to the welfare state to 200,000 people who have done nothing to deserve it.”
Yesterday’s leaked memo revealed that officials backed a proposal to change the rules so that 40,000 people from countries like Zimbabwe, Somalia, Iran, Algeria and China could stay because deporting them would be too difficult.
It was written by Matthew Coats, head of immigration for the UK Border Agency.
It was sent to Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, and Phil Woolas, the Immigration Minister, in July.
But Mr Woolas insisted: “There is no amnesty. Our guidelines were updated to provide case workers with a framework to judge cases and avoid lengthy court battles.
“No law-breaker will be allowed to say and each case is still decided on its individual merits.”
About two million immigrants will not take part in the 2011 census, council leaders warned, meaning that areas with a big influx of foreigners will lose out on millions of pounds of Whitehall funding.
Bron: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/133210/-Secret-amnesty-for-200-000-asylum-cases-
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