Recommendation 7

The system of monitoring failed asylum seekers needs a complete overhaul. The Home Office told us, in relation to asylum seekers who have been processed through the system and had their application rejected and appeals rights exhausted, it knows “where some of them are”, but that individuals “not complying with their bail conditions” would be treated as absconders and that the department would “seek to trace them”. The Home Office also admitted that it does “not count absolutely everybody out of the country” and therefore does not know with certainty who has 7 left the country and who has not, while claiming that it knows where the “vast majority” of people are through its enforcement contact regimes. This is a shocking and unacceptable state of affairs. recommendation The Home Office should write to the Committee alongside its Treasury Minute response to this report with its best estimate of how many failed asylum seekers are in the country and what proportion it is actively engaged with. That letter should include: • the timescale in which it estimates it will deport most of them; • for how many of the remainder the Home Office does not know where they are, and what steps it is taking to trace and deport them; • the further steps the Home Office will take, through biometrics and regular reporting, to ensure that it can trace failed asylum seekers, and the penalties that will be imposed; • its plans for speeding up the deportation process; and • details on how the Home Office will improve its work with other government departments and local police forces to tackle illegal working by failed asylum seekers and sanction employers. 8 1 Leadership, governance and reform of the asylum system Introduction