New Changes to Asylum Procedure

On the 14 October 2009, following a decade of continuous changes to asylum procedure, the Home Office announced yet another change.

Following developments such as only allowing asylum claims to be made in person and no longer by post (announced February 2003) and the introduction of the ‘New Asylum Model’ (NAM) which aims to render a decision on an asylum claim within a month of it being made in six easy steps (introduced April 2007), the Home Office have announced that in country asylum claims can now only be made in person at the Asylum Screening Centre in Croydon. Further, anyone wishing to make further submissions (those asking the Home Office to re-examine their case on the basis of new information or a change of circumstances after they have exhausted their appeal rights) will be required to make these submissions in person at the newly named Liverpool Further Submissions Unit, if they have claimed asylum before 5 March 2007 and their case is not being managed by NAM, or at a reporting Centre in their region if the asylum claim was made after 5 March 2007.