Home Office ‘chaos’ as at least 55,500 asylum seekers stuck in new Rwanda backlog

Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. open image in gallery Rishi Sunak has pinned his hopes on the government’s Rwanda policy to deport migrants from the UK Charities said that asylum claims were being put in a “deep freeze” by the Home Office, “leaving refugees stuck in a never-ending limbo”. It has previously been reported that the Home Office had paused their cases, with one official telling The i: “They haven’t decided what to do with them yet, that’s why we are not processing their claims.” As of 28 December 2023, there had been around 33,100 asylum claims made since 20 July 2023, the bulk of which were likely to be from people who had arrived irregularly, the report said. He explained: “At the moment, we do not have a safe country of return for the vast majority of those individuals, so they are here on bail, pending the conclusion of the Safety of Rwanda Bill and the movement forward of our relocation agreement with Rwanda.” open image in gallery Labour’s shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock says the government has ‘replaced one asylum backlog with another’ Marley Morris, associate director for migration at IPPR, said: “Chaos in the home office has led to tens of thousands of asylum seekers stuck in a perma-backlog, unable to get on with their lives and costing the taxpayer millions. “They should instead deliver our plan to end the crossings with a new cross-border police force, faster processing, and a new returns unit to speed up the safe-country removals of those who fail in their asylum claims.” A Home Office spokesperson repeated the contested claim that the department had cleared the legacy asylum backlog, saying: “We met the prime minister’s pledge to clear the legacy backlog of asylum cases made before 28 June 2022 and all of those cases have been reviewed.