The Home Office has begun encouraging asylum seekers to return home before officials have considered their cases, the Guardian has learned.
The department’s move is part of the drive to create a “hostile” environment for illegal immigrants in Britain, and comes despite a 14% decline in the number of asylum claims made last year, to 26,350. Germany, in contrast, received approximately 200,000 applications in 2017.
Despite these low numbers, the Home Office is keen to encourage as many people as possible to return home. It has begun providing asylum seekers with contact numbers and information about how they can return home voluntarily before their cases have been considered.
The letter seen by the Guardian from the Home Office Asylum Routing Team informs an asylum seeker that he or she will be sent a date for their main asylum interview where they are required to provide extensive details about their cases.
After this interview, the Home Office official makes a decision about whether to accept or reject their claim. In the same letter, under the heading Help and Advice on Returning Home, there are details of who to contact at the Home Office for asylum seekers who want to go home.
“The team can discuss your return, obtain your travel document and send it to the port of departure, help with the cost of your tickets or provide other practical assistance,” the letter states.
For many years asylum seekers were not given this information until after their application had been rejected.
Freedom From Torture, a charity that supports survivors of torture, expressed concern about the impact of the letter on torture victims who may have embarked on a long and dangerous journey to reach the UK and had not yet had their claim considered.
Sile Reynolds, lead asylum policy adviser at Freedom from Torture, said: “The Home Office is already dogged by poor decision-making that sees many torture survivors wrongly denied asylum and forced to go to appeal before they are able to prove they need safety here. Presenting returns options at the start of an asylum claim will only exacerbate these problems by further embedding the idea that the claim is likely to be refused and causing vulnerable people to even further distrust the system.
“We need an asylum system that prioritises getting decisions right first time, with fair and balanced processes that ensure the right people are given protection here in the UK and vulnerable people are not subjected to further trauma as they navigate a complex and combative asylum process.”
A Home Office spokeswoman said the UK had a proud history of granting asylum to those who needed protection. “We will only remove a person from the United Kingdom where the Home Office and the courts agree there is a safe route to return. Informing asylum seekers at an early stage about their options to leave the country on a voluntary basis has been part of Home Office practice for more than 10 years.
“We want to ensure people are fully aware of all the options available to them as early as possible in the asylum process. The letters state clearly that these options are voluntary.”