Loophole ‘used to expel skilled migrants’
Exclusive: Officials used small mistakes to bar skilled workers and label them ‘national security risks’
The Home Office is using a clause designed to deport people deemed national security risks to expel highly skilled migrants for minor tax mistakes. Campaigners believe thousands of people may have been affected after officials refused them the right to remain in the UK because of missed tax deadlines or minor errors. The disclosure follows the Windrush scandal, which cost Amber Rudd her job. Evidence seen by The Telegraph shows caseworkers discussing whether minor infringements could be used against applicants.
THE Home Office is using a clause designed to deport national security risks to expel highly skilled migrants for minor tax mistakes, it emerged last night.
Campaigners believe thousands of people could be affected after officials refused their right to remain in the UK because of missed tax deadlines or minor errors. The disclosure comes in the wake of the Windrush scandal, which cost Amber Rudd her job as Home Secretary over her “hostile environment” policy towards immigrants.
Evidence seen by The Daily Telegraph shows caseworkers discussing if minor infringements could be used against applicants, prompting fears that the policy has been targeting people who are “easier to remove”. Around 600 highly skilled doctors, engineers, IT professionals and others who have jobs and families and have lived in the UK for years are known to be affected, but the number could be higher.
Almost 1,000 applications for indefinite leave to remain, mainly from skilled migrants, have been refused in similar circumstances in just a year, according to a Freedom of Information request. The issue involves clause 322(5), which allows the Government to refuse migrants on national security grounds if they believe applicants have attempted to deceive. Officials are using the clause, meant to remove terrorism suspects and criminals, to demand highly skilled migrants leave because of minor tax mistakes – errors which in some cases had been corrected.
Paperwork seen by this paper reveals a conversation in which a caseworker asks whether an applicant’s decision to correct a mistake on a previous tax return could be used against them.
They said: “[This] concerns a tax return for 10/11 which he admits to amending. Could we also say this casts doubt on others?” The exchange ends with the caseworker telling a colleague: “We could argue previous error casts doubt on current [tax returns]”. Some of those affected have left the UK. Others are going through the courts to plead to remain after paying thousands of pounds in taxes. They fear they will be unable to return or enter other countries if they are deported because of a refusal on national security grounds.
Mustafa Ali Baig, a compliance officer who has lived and worked in Scotland for 12 years, is being threatened with deportation over a tax mistake he made in 2010, which he corrected. He said: “This was a minor error, the same type of thing Jeremy Corbyn has done, but he’s national leader and I’m a threat to national security.” Labour will use parliamentary procedure to attempt to force ministers to hand over correspondence regarding the Windrush scandal today.
Sajid Javid, the new Home Secretary, has signalled a break from the regime under Ms Rudd and Theresa May, distancing himself from the use of the phrase “hostile environment”.
The disclosure raises more questions over whether the Prime Minister’s pursuit of a plan to cut net migration may have prompted officials to scrutinise applications like those of Windrush and highly skilled migrant groups.
Alison Thewliss, the MP who raised Mr Baig’s case with the Prime Minister, said: “The Home Office saw fit to classify Mr Baig as a threat to national security. This is absurd and a truly wicked way to treat someone who has lived here for so long, obeyed the law, and contributed a great deal. It is abundantly clear to me that individuals are being unfairly targeted using paragraph 322(5) of the immigration rules.”
Victims of the Windrush injustice received an apology from an immigration minister yesterday. Caroline Nokes said the treatment of people with West Indian heritage was an “appalling scandal”, adding: “I wish to put absolutely and formally on record how sorry I am that this has happened on my watch.”
♦ A report yesterday claimed 7,000 foreign students may have been deported amid claims they cheated on tests, when in fact software used to detect such behaviour had failed.