- Figures show 11,988 asylum seekers failed to turn up to first meeting
- Comes after watchdog warned that more than 10,000 are missing
- Warnings over the cost of delayed applications and tracking them down
More than 11,000 asylum seekers failed to turn up to their first meeting with border authorities, sparking costly attempts to track them down.
The Home Office is being thwarted from dealing with the large numbers of migrants claiming refuge in the UK due to their failure to arrive for the interviews.
Figures released today show that of the 77,000 asylum seekers whose applications are currently being processed, 11,988 did not attend their first meeting.
A failure to turn up to the meeting means their application is withdrawn and has to be resubmitted, causing costly delays to the already drawn-out process.
The skipped meetings also means the Home Office has to send out its tracing team to attempt to track down those who have disappeared.
The Home Office has not revealed how many of the 11,988 failed to turn up to subsequent meetings, but figures released by the official immigration watchdog in December stated that more than 10,000 asylum seekers have fallen off the radar.
Conservative MP Charlie Elphicke told the Daily Express: ‘It’s very concerning that some 12,000 asylum seekers failed to turn up for interview.
‘We need to know if the Government has lost track of them. We must be sure we don’t have a situation where vulnerable people are dragged back into the black economy and become victims of slavery.’
H/t reader kevin a.
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