UK immigration leave to remain rules relaxed to clear backlog
October 09 2009 by Liam Clifford
Minister for UK immigration Phil Woolas denies relaxing immigration laws "quietly."
It
has emerged that the UK immigration service loosened the immigration rules for
asylum seekers wishing to live in the UK in order to clear a backlog of
cases.
Phil Woolas, the UK immigration minister, signed off a memo
suggesting that asylum applicants from countries with poor human rights records
should be granted leave to remain in the UK if they have been living in the UK
for just 4-6 years.
Previously the rules stated that they must have been
living in the country for 10-12 years before being granted leave to remain
indefinitely.
Woolas stated that the lenient approach was not tantamount
to an amnesty, “there is no amnesty,” he stated. “Our guidelines were updated to
provide case workers with a simple framework to judge cases, and to avoid long,
drawn-out court battles. Less than 40 per cent of cases are being granted.”
As a result of the changes, some 40,000 immigrants who had moved to the
UK from Iran, Zimbabwe and other troubled countries have been told they can stay
in the UK. UK immigration officials made the changes as it was deemed too
expensive to go through the long cases involved with deporting immigrants to
countries with questionable human rights records.
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