24/01/2013

Report Finds 10-Year Border Agency Backlog

A UK Border Agency backlog of more that 16,000 applicants has been described as "completely unacceptable" by the chief inspector of borders and immigration.

John Vine found that some of the cases date back 10 years and includes 14,000 people who are married to British citizens, whose appeals were put on hold while UKBA sorted out a policy to deal with them.

When the chief inspector carried out his inspection last September the marriage backlog was rising at the rate of 700 a month.

It is understood that the backlog of cases were discovered in boxes that had been transferred last March from a UKBA unit in Croydon to their offices in Sheffield, they had not been dealt with at the time of the inspection.

The disclosure follows the chief inspector's reports last year revealing a 150,000-strong backlog of cases of migrants who had been refused permission to stay in Britain but whose whereabouts had not been traced. It was also revealed that more than 100,000 items of post about outstanding asylum cases had at one stage been left unopened.

The chief inspectors report will be published today.

(H/GK)




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