UK immigration system is ineffective

United Kingdom, February 9: A latest report has warned that UK’s immigration system is not functioning effectively.

The system smacks of several administrative faults, says Ann Abraham, the Parliamentary Ombudsman, while unveiling the discrepancies in hundreds of cases undertaken by the UKBA (United Kingdom Border Agency) in the recent past.

Hence, delays and incompetency in the functioning of the agency was causing huge losses to the country, claimed Ms. Abraham. And the public of Britain is left with no option but to pay for supporting several asylum seekers in the country in the wake of their unresolved claims. 

The incompetence was prevalent at almost every step of the immigration and the asylum process. There was a huge backlog of immigration applications waiting to be processed and the numbers were around several thousands, warned Ms. Abraham.  

She made no bones while revealing the maladministration of UK government after investigating into the agency’s functioning following several complaints by the public. 

At present, UKBA has a backlog of nearly 400,000 asylum cases. And there were nearly 33,000 cases piled up in the backlog of the agency as these migrants had paid huge application fees to stay in the UK permanently. 

The worst thing to have been discovered during investigations by Miss Abraham was that any attempts to fix such huge backlogs in the asylum cases had created new blockages in the immigration system of the UK. Hence, another backlog of nearly 77,000 applications from European nationals was created. 

Miss Abraham had received nearly 1300 complaints in a period less than three years from MPs out of which 97 percent were upheld. 

By causing unnecessary delay in resolving of applications, the agency is not only causing great losses to those concerned but the people of Britain. Hence, it (UKBA) was facing an imminent risk of losing the faith of applicants, the public and the related organization, cautioned Ms. Abraham. 

Sustained and consistent progress to meet the service standards backed by planned working was crucial to bring desired improvements in the agency’s working.