Asylum seekers in hotels are not told refugee status

Home Office 'initial accommodation' rules hold up decisions

- LIZZIE DEARDEN HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR

Thousands of asylum seekers living in hotels cannot be told if they have been granted refugee status, The Independent can reveal.

Rishi Sunak has pledged to “abolish” a record backlog of asylum decisions that has left more than 140,000 people waiting to learn their fate, blaming the figure on a rise in small boat crossings and migrants “exploiting our system”. And the home secretary has accused civil servants of assessing asylum claims too slowly, telling a parliamentary committee: “Frankly, their productivity is too low.”

But The Independent understands that a significant number of decisions have been made but not communicated to refugees because of Home Office rules preventing notices being served to those living in hotels. Official guidance states: “If the claimant is currently in initial accommodation and leave has been granted such as refugee leave, humanitarian protection etc, caseworkers must delay service of the [permit] until they have been moved from initial accommodation.”

The logjam of cases has left Home Offie officials scrambling to find homes through private companies for people with decided cases, prolonging the anguish of Afghans, Syrians and others who do not know their claims have succeeded.

Yvette Cooper, Labour’s shadow home secretary, criticised “yet more ridiculous Conservative bureaucracy” and called the situation “totally ludicrous”. She told The Independent: “This is just increasing the costs to the taxpayer too as thousands of people are stuck in hotels because the Home Office can’t get a grip.”