British Parliamentary committee concerned over Tamil asylum seekers

Keith Vaz, the British MP, who is a staunch backer of the Tamil lobby in Britain, recently headed a Parliamentary committee that carried out a quarterly review of the work of the Border Agency. Here is a highlight of its report released on Friday:

"The Committee is also concerned about the quality of decision making. So far this year 13 people have been granted asylum in the UK following rejection of a previous claim and removal to their country of origin. Poor decision making may result in people being returned home where they face persecution and torture. The Committee is particularly worried about the plight of Tamils being returned to Sri Lanka and calls on the Agency to push for a re-evaluation of the risks posed to Tamil asylum seekers on return."

This report also focuses on new asylum cases, enforcement and issues connected to immigration detention.

The Agency's backlog is growing at an alarming rate - it has increased by more than 25,000 cases since the first quarter of this year. The backlog consists of: The Migration Refusal Pool These are records of individuals without leave to remain in the UK, and cannot be traced The pool has grown by 24,000 records since the first quarter of this year-it now totals 174,000 Little progress is being made in deporting ex-foreign national offenders quickly at the end of their sentence. There are 3,954 ex-FNOs living in the community whilst deportation action against them proceeds, 63% of these have been released for more than two years. This backlog will continue to grow -- 94% of the individuals released from prison in the second quarter of this year still had their cases outstanding at the end of the quarter.