Free Movement Weekly Immigration Newsletter #67

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter!

Last week I saw an asylum refusal letter that referred to the wrong country of origin. Most lawyers will have seen one of those. So I do understand the “it can’t possibly be worse than current decision making” responses to last week’s announcement that the Home Office is turning to AI to assist with casework. I think worse is always possible with AI though. 

We have all seen AI disaster stories by now, for example where lawyers have been caught out by fictitious case citations. There is a website out there that steals and rewrites Free Movement posts using AI, referring to the Home Office as “Dwelling Workplace” throughout. So I have very low expectations for anything positive to come from its use in asylum decision making. 

There is data suggesting that the use of AI simply generates different work which then reduces the amount of time supposedly saved. Even if this is not the case here, I am not convinced that the reported saving of one hour is worth the risks involved, given these are often cases where lives are on the line. Over the past couple of years in particular, the Home Office has prioritised speed over the quality of decision making, which is part of why the tribunal backlog is in the state it is in. It is notable that the report on the AI pilot states that there was no impact on decision quality, so it appears that the aim here is solely to make poor decisions faster.

Report stage of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill is on Monday 12 May. Rumours of government amendments to the Bill, as well as the contents of the imminent White Paper, are rife but as of 2 May the amendment paper does not have any government amendments listed, meaning that parliamentarians will have little time to scrutinise proposed changes. 

On the blog, today Alex Piletska has taken a look at the discrepancies in the suitability requirements for Electronic Travel Authorisations and the visitor visa requirements. We also published an explainer on the immigration rules that apply to the armed forces.

We updated our posts on refugee family reunion and youth mobility visas and also took a look at a new report from The Unity Project highlighting the issues that people are experiencing with eVisas not accurately showing whether or not they are entitled to claim public funds.

For everything else on Free Movement and elsewhere, read on.

Cheers, Sonia

What we’re reading

Legal aid crisis shows how utterly impossible the UK’s asylum system really is: ‘It’s so depressing’ – Big Issue, 30 April

UK access to EU crime and illegal migration data reportedly denied – The Guardian, 5 May

Fresh blow for Starmer as Labour grandee hits out at government on immigration – Independent, 1 May

UK migrant centre sees sixfold rise in a year of staff sacked over failed drug tests – The Guardian, 5 May

Linking skills with visas: why the UK must not repeat Australia’s mistakes – Kingsley Napley, 25 April

Care worker visa crackdown as Labour tries to stop ‘vanishing’ migrant scam – The i Paper, 1 May

Labour targets international students claiming asylum after election losses to Reform – The Guardian, 3 May

The EU Free Market Does Not Extend to Citizenship – Verfsassungsblog, 30 April

UN judge jailed in UK after forcing woman to work as slave – The Guardian, 2 May

Border Security Contracts linked to small boat Channel crossings – Channel Crossings, 29 April