The broken immigration system is much more than one person. Amber Rudd may have gone but the problem that the Government faces is its own policies and an inefficient Home Office that appears never to be accountable for its mistakes. Although appeals have been slashed, the proportion of successful appeals still stands at 40% and is indicative of the fact that there is a significant lapse in effective decision making. What has happened to the Windrush generation is just the tip of a very deep iceberg. The problem is that the Government lost their humanity a long time ago. Remember the bus that went round the country telling people they had to go or Capita given a contract to harass individuals on a daily basis?
What is worrying is the process that is currently followed in relation to perfectly legal applicants. The Home Office has become a business, albeit a poorly run one, in which premium fees are paid to fast track applications that are not fast racked at all.
The guidance provides a list of documents that should be provided in support of applications yet applications are routinely refused for reasons that are purely in the mind of the officers concerned and could not have been anticipated. The drive to decide without requesting evidence is routine in this Department. There is more than a suspicion that applications are refused, with no accountability by senior Managers, in order to attract fresh fees. What is particularly worrying is the fact that applications for Entrepreneurs, our much needed investors, are refused for petty reasons in some cases following interviews by inexperienced officials. The success rate of such applications has plummeted on the basis that this category is “abused” although there is no concrete evidence produced of this. One suspects that this is in order to soften up the case for getting rid of this category completely. There is a serious disconnect between what the Government says it wants, ie more investment and what the Home Office does.
Another area of concern which is a bubbling volcano concerns sponsor licences. Officers who attend visits of employers in order to decide whether they are compliant with the regulations take it upon themselves to make value judgments about what employers should or should not do, often with very little experience of business or an understanding of cultural issues which do exist in business run by Asians. The system is geared towards shutting down smaller businesses and it works very efficiently in doing its job. The worst aspect of this are the allegations that employers are “cheating” the system because they have not followed practices akin to bigger businesses. The only recourse for employers is judicial review which has a high bar. It cannot investigate the merits but merely the reasonableness of the decision. It is an expensive and time consuming process and employers do not want the costs or distraction of proceedings.
As for visitors, there is no process at all to review a wrong decision other than through judicial review. Not even an administrative review. Bad decision making is allowed to continue with impunity.
And so the list goes on. Until the next scandal. And the next. And the next.
Maria Fernandes Vaz is an Immigration Lawyer at the Fernandes Vaz Solicitors.
