Lessons Not Learned: How asylum decision-making in the UK has repeatedly failed

The Home Office needs an urgent complete overhaul of its systems to avoid another imminent major immigration scandal, according to a report about its approach to processing immigration applications.

The joint new report by Freedom from Torture along with Refugee Council, Refugee Action, Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), UK Lesbian & Gay Immigration Group (UKLGIG), the Jesuit Refugee Service UK, Helen Bamber Foundation, and Survivors Speak OUT, exposed historical and systemic failures of asylum decision-making in the UK.

The report, Lessons Not Learned: the failures of asylum decision making in the UK, focuses on asylum seekers’ experiences when their applications are processed by the Home Office. It analysed 50 reports from 17 organisations, including the UN, parliamentary committees and independent inspectorates. Almost 1,800 cases were analysed with 100 asylum interviews observed or audited.

The report concludes that:

The Home Office fails to deliver fairly on its responsibilities towards people seeking refuge in the UK. This is a legal and a moral failure.
This failure has a human and an economic cost. Those seeking to prove their need for safety have to go through unnecessary, lengthy and often traumatic appeal processes.
These failings can and must be delivered by a systemic overhaul – or radical transformation – of the current system.

Report authors are also asking supporters to sign an open letter to Priti Patel endorsing the report.

Supporters are encouraged to share content in the coming days across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Those who prefer to post your own content, please use the hashtag #LessonsNotLearned.