No more Tier Refugee System (for now!)

The Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick announced on 8 June 2023 that the tier refugee system introduced by the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 will be paused from July 2023. The 2 tier approach differentiated between asylum seekers entering the UK by regular and irregular routes. Announcing the forthcoming pause of the policy he said that a new and stronger approach to illegal immigration will be provided by the Illegal Immigration Bill which will tackle the same issue that the 2 tier differentiation policy sought to address. He said that people who had already received the second tier group 2 post 28 June 2022, will have the conditions aligned to group 1 refugees. A policy that was introduced less than one year ago was put on hold and the 2 tier system might have created much work for the Home Office for no good reason.

On 23 February 2023 the Home Office announced a streamlined processing model for a small number of cases of nationalities with high asylum grant rates, namely Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya, Syria and Yemen. The positive decisions in these cases can be taken without the need for an additional interview. No one will have their asylum applications refused without an opportunity for an additional interview. This now will also include claimants from Sudan. This is wonderful news for the Sudanese community who is facing a humanitarian crises. Since the war broke out in April thousands of Sudanese asylum seekers were stuck in the Home Office backlog and they were unable to apply for family reunion visas, so that their family left behind could join them. The latest Home Office quarterly figures show the overall number of asylum seekers in the UK waiting for a decision reached a record high level of 172.758. As of 31 March 2023 reported the Guardian newspaper 5,010 Sudanese main applicants were waiting for the initial decision on their asylum claim.