The number of people waiting longer than the Home Office’s target time for their immigration claims to be processed has soared despite a considerable drop in cases, The Independent can reveal.
The government has been accused of leaving thousands of people in a “state of limbo” as figures show the proportion of UK settlement applications taking more than than six months to resolve has almost doubled in three years.
Sep 29, 2018 - The number of people waiting longer than the Home Office's target time for. Waiting times for UK immigration appeals soar by 45% in a year. Nov 29, 2018 - This 'User Guide to Home Office Immigration Statistics' is designed to be a useful. Office, including that of UK Border Force and UK Visas. Home Office: 0843 504 7190. The Home Office is the umbrella organisation for many different government departments which, together, are said to have three main aims: to cut crime, reduce immigration, and prevent terrorism. In UK Parliament, the Home Office it is represented by a number of MPs who are headed by the Secretary.
People who have lived in the UK for more than a decade say they had been made suicidal by the delays, unable to visit dying relatives or apply for jobs as the Home Office retains their passports throughout the process.
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- Waiting times for UK immigration appeals soar by 45% in a year
- Passports for UK-born children of EU nationals rejected ‘in error’
Lawyers and politicians branded the delays in deciding applications for indefinite leave to remain “unacceptable” and said the fact that waiting times had increased despite a drop in applications indicated a drive to deter migrants as part of the hostile environment.
Data obtained by The Independent through a freedom of information request reveal more than one in 10 applicants – amounting to 8,210 people – waited for longer than the Home Office’s own six-month customer service standard before receiving a decision in 2017, compared with 6 per cent – or 5,627 – in 2014.
This is despite the fact that the number of applications processed decreased by a fifth in the same period, from 95,651 to 74,952.
The Home Office said “occasional” delays arose due to the “complex nature” of certain applications – and said that applicants could obtain their passports “if they chose to withdraw their visa application”.
One man, who has lived in the UK for more than a decade, said he was made to feel suicidal after waiting for more than two years for the Home Office to process his settlement application.
Mushtaque Shah and his wife Sehar, Pakistani nationals who have a British-born daughter, have been unable to visit terminally ill relatives before they died because the Home Office is holding onto their passports.
Describing being unable to see his uncle when he got ill, Mr Shah said: “He raised me until the age of 18; he was like a dad to me. I called the Home Office every month, but the only answer I’d get is it is it’s ‘in progress’.
“He died and I couldn’t see him. I was suicidal in that week.”
In another case, Noory Ahmad, who fled the war in Iraq in 2000, had to wait five years for a decision after claiming for asylum in the UK in 2003. During this time, he was unable to work and claim benefits, meaning he spent long periods of time homeless.
With no passport or status, the 43-year-old was also unable to leave the country, meaning he couldn’t see his parents when they got ill.
“It was a nightmare for me. I lost my dad, and a few years later I lost my mum, and I wasn’t able to see either of them,” he said.
“I wasn’t allowed to work, I had nowhere to live, no support, I wasn’t allowed to study. I had to rely on different friends. I went from house to house, from city to city.”
Once Mr Ahmad was granted indefinite leave to remain in 2008, he managed to move on with his life, and now lives in Coventry with his partner and two children, but he feels years of his life were “wasted”.
It comes amid mounting criticism of the Home Office’s hostile environment policies following the Windrush scandal, which exposed that thousands of Commonwealth citizens had been wrongly targeted by immigration officials, with some detained and deported.
Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott condemned the government for ”not prioritising the delays at the Home Office despite the reduction in the number of applications being processed”.
“It is unfair and unacceptable to leave applicants waiting for long periods, concerned for their futures,” she added.
Immigration barrister Jan Doerfel told The Independent the figures were “of considerable concern” and raised the question over whether the delays were being used to deter valuable migrants as part of the hostile environment.
“The human costs of delay in terms of stress and uncertainty on applicants and their families is enormous and the Home Office service standards of six months to determine applications is already unacceptably long,” he said.
“The reduction of delays should be rendered a priority and not be used to deter migrants who make a valuable contribution to the UK as part of the hostile environment.”
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The data shows that in the first six months of 2018, one in 20 people (2,618) who received decisions had waited for more than a year in 2017, compared with 1,792 (1.9 per cent) in 2014.
A total of 221 decisions took more than two years, with 13 claimants waiting for more than a decade and one case taking 29 years.
The Home Office said the majority of delays occurred on “non-straightforward” or “complex” cases, but experts said the department was increasingly using this reason to delay decisions for long periods of time.
Satbir Singh, chief executive of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), said: “We’re seeing the waiting time go up in all manner of immigration cases. It’s all too common to see people waiting for two years or more on these applications.
“Saying the case is ‘complex’ is often used as a convenient way to delay them for long periods of time.
“We’ve seen people who are changing jobs or have been on maternity leave unable to get back into the workplace because they don’t have the right papers. These people are also unable to access public funds. It’s an entirely unnecessary waste of not only time, but people’s lives.”
Chai Patel, legal director of policy at the JCWI, highlighted that the delays were causing people to face separation from loved ones and to return to deadly danger, and the destruction of the friends, family groups, and homes they’ve found in the UK.
He continued: “It’s very easy to be bored by delays and missed targets in the Home Office. You have to remember that in each case a person – a father, a mother, a child – is waiting in limbo for a decision that will alter the course of their whole life and potentially that of their family as well.
“Every additional day of waiting is agony, and the Home Office needs to wake up to that.”
To obtain UK settlement – which grants the right to remain in the UK without a time limit – a person must usually either have lived in the country for more than five years or have a close family member settled in the country. The cost of applying is £2,389.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “While it appears that a small number of cases have waited a significant amount of time for their case to be resolved, the reality is that these are outliers caused by data errors and the way our system records applications. It is not true to say someone has waited over 20 years for a decision on their application.
“We decide 99.5 per cent of cases within the service standard for straightforward indefinite leave to remain applications, which account for the majority of these cases.
“However, immigration cases can be complex and the public would expect that when granting a person the right to remain in the UK indefinitely we rigorously check the information submitted; as a result, some applications can take longer than others.”
2 Marsham Street, the headquarters of the Home Office | |
| Department overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 27 March 1782; 237 years ago |
| Jurisdiction | United Kingdom (but in respect of most policing and justice matters: England and Wales only) |
| Headquarters | 2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF |
| Annual budget | £8.9 billion (current) and £500 million (capital) in 2011–12 [1] |
| Minister responsible | |
| Department executive |
|
| Website | www.gov.uk/home-office |
The Home Office (HO) is a ministerial department of Her Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom, responsible for immigration, security and law and order. As such it is responsible for policing in England and Wales, fire and rescue services in England, and visas and immigration and the Security Service (MI5). It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs, counter-terrorism and ID cards. It was formerly responsible for Her Majesty's Prison Service and the National Probation Service, but these have been transferred to the Ministry of Justice. The Cabinet minister responsible for the department is the Home Secretary.
The Home Office continues to be known, especially in official papers and when referred to in Parliament, as the Home Department.[2]
- 1Organisation
- 2People
- 4History
- 7Devolution
Organisation[edit]
The Home Office is headed by the Home Secretary, a Cabinet minister supported by the department's senior civil servant, the Permanent Secretary.
As of October 2014, the Home Office comprises the following organisations:[3]
Non-ministerial government departments[edit]
Inspectorates/accountability[edit]
- Independent Office for Police Conduct and other oversight bodies
Divisions[edit]
- Police Services (England and Wales)
- Fire and Rescue Services (England)
Non-departmental public bodies[edit]
Operations[edit]
In October 2012, a number of functions of the National Policing Improvement Agency were transferred to the Home Office ahead of the future abolition of the agency.[4]
These included:
- Use of the Airwave communications system by police forces
- The Police National Database
- The National DNA Database
- Legislative powers regarding police employment
- Forensics policy
- The National Procurement Hub for information technology
People[edit]
Ministers[edit]
The Home Office Ministers are as follows:[5]
| Minister | Rank | Portfolio |
|---|---|---|
| The Rt Hon. Sajid Javid MP | Secretary of State | Overall responsibility for the work of the department; including security and terrorism; legislative programme; expenditure issues. |
| The Rt Hon. Caroline Nokes | Minister of State for Immigration | Immigration and border policy; foreign national offenders; resettlement policy; implementation of the Immigration Act 2016; UK Visas and Immigration; immigration enforcement; Border Force; Her Majesty’s Passport Office; Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration; Home Office immigration transparency data; net migration statistics. Attends Cabinet. |
| The Rt Hon. Ben Wallace MP | Minister of State for Security and Economic Crime | Implementing the strategic defence and security review; counter-terrorism; investigatory powers; communications data legislation; communications capabilities development; security industry engagement; single infrastructure policing; aviation security; firearms; chemical biological radiological nuclear defence (CBRNE) and science and technology programme management; small and medium enterprises; serious and organised crime strategy; criminal finance and asset recovery; cyber crime and security; National Crime Agency oversight; UK anti-corruption policy; better regulation; animal testing. |
| The Rt Hon. Nick Hurd MP | Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Services | Police finance and resourcing; police reform and governance; police representative groups; police pay and pensions; police workforce; Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC); Policing and Crime Bill; police integrity and transparency; emergency services collaboration; crime statistics; national fire policy; Chief Fire and Rescue Adviser; national resilience and fire programmes; localism and reform; workforce pay; pensions and industrial relations; extradition; mutual legal assistance; EU criminal justice; Interpol; foreign criminality. |
| TheBaroness Williams of Trafford | Minister of State for Countering Extremism | All Home Office business in the House of Lords; countering extremism; hate crime; integration; devolution; data strategy; identity and biometrics; Better Regulation; animals in science. |
| Victoria Atkins MP | Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Crime, Safeguarding, and Vulnerability | Disclosure and Barring Service; drugs; alcohol; countering extremism; hate crime; crime prevention; anti-social behaviour; gangs, youth crime and youth violence; knife crime; wildlife crime; child sexual exploitation and abuse; online child sexual exploitation; mental health; modern slavery; honour-based violence; female genital mutilation (FGM); violence against women and girls; missing people and children; sexual violence; prostitution and lap dancing; domestic violence. |
| This article is part of a series on the politics and government of the United Kingdom |
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Priorities[edit]
The Department outlined its aims for this Parliament in its Business Plan, which was published in May 2011 and superseded its Structural Reform Plan.[6] The plan said the department will:
1. Empower the public to hold the police to account for their role in cutting crime- Introduce directly elected Police and Crime Commissioners and make police actions to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour more transparent
- Cut police bureaucracy, end unnecessary central interference and overhaul police powers in order to cut crime, reduce costs and improve police value for money. Simplify national institutional structures and establish a National Crime Agency to strengthen the fight against organised crime (and replace the Serious Organised Crime Agency)
- Help the police and other public services work together across the criminal justice system
- Deliver an improved migration system that commands public confidence and serves our economic interests. Limit non-EU economic migrants, and introduce new measures to reduce inflow and minimise abuse of all migration routes, for example the student route. Process asylum applications more quickly, and end the detention of children for immigration purposes
- Reverse state interference to ensure there is not disproportionate intrusion into people‟s lives
- Keep people safe through the Government‟s approach to counter-terrorism
- Help create a fair and flexible labour market. Change culture and attitudes. Empower individuals and communities. Improve equality structures, frontline services and support; and help Government Departments and others to consider equality as a matter of course
The Home Office publishes progress against the plan on the 10 Downing Street website.[7]
History[edit]
On 27 March 1782, the Home Office was formed by renaming the existing Southern Department, with all existing staff transferring. On the same day, the Northern Department was renamed the Foreign Office.
Uk Immigration Office
To match the new names, there was a transferring of responsibilities between the two Departments of State. All domestic responsibilities were moved to the Home Office, and all foreign matters became the concern of the Foreign Office.
Most subsequently created domestic departments (excluding, for instance, those dealing with education) have been formed by splitting responsibilities away from the Home Office.
The initial responsibilities were:
- Answering petitions and addresses sent to the King
- Advising the King on
- Royal grants
- Warrants and commissions
- The exercise of Royal Prerogative
- Issuing instructions on behalf of the King to officers of the Crown, lords-lieutenant and magistrates, mainly concerning law and order
- Operation of the secret service within the UK
- Protecting the public
- Safeguarding the rights and liberties of individuals
Responsibilities were subsequently changed over the years that followed:[8]
- 1793 added: regulation of aliens
- 1794 removed: control of military forces (to Secretary of State for War)
- 1801 removed: colonial business (to Secretary of State for War and the Colonies)
- 1804 removed: Barbary State consuls (to Secretary of State for War and the Colonies)[9]
- 1823 added: prisons
- 1829 added: police services
- 1836 added: registration of births, deaths and marriages in England and Wales
- 1844 added: naturalisation
- 1845 added: registration of Friendly Societies
- 1855 removed: yeomanries and militias (to War Office)
- 1858 added: local boards of health
- 1871 removed: local boards of health (to Local Government Board)
- 1871 removed: registration of births, deaths and marriages (to Local Government Board)
- 1872 removed: highways and turnpikes (to Local Government Board)
- 1875 added: control of explosives
- 1875 removed: registration of Friendly Societies (to Treasury)
- 1885 removed: Scotland (to Secretary for Scotland and the Scottish Office)
- 1886 removed: fishing (to Board of Trade)
- 1889 removed: Land Commissioners (to Board of Agriculture)
- 1900 removed: matters relating to burial grounds (to Local Government Board)
- 1905 removed: public housing (to Local Government Board)
- 1914 added: dangerous drugs
- 1919 removed: aircraft and air traffic (to Air Ministry)
- 1919 removed: use of human bodies in medical training (to Ministry of Health)
- 1919 removed: infant and child care (to Ministry of Health)
- 1919 removed: lunacy and mental health (to Ministry of Health)
- 1919 removed: health and safety (to Ministry of Health)
- 1920 added: firearms
- 1920 removed: Representation of Britain abroad in labour matters (to Ministry of Labour)
- 1920 removed: mining (to Mines Department)
- 1921 added: elections (from the Ministry of Health)
- 1922 removed: relations with Irish Free State (to Colonial Office)
- 1923 removed: Order of the British Empire (to Treasury)
- 1925 removed: registration of trade unions (to Ministry of Labour)
- 1931 removed: county councils (to Ministry of Health)
- 1933 added: poisons
- 1934 removed: metropolitan boroughs (to Ministry of Health)
- 1935 added: Civil Defence Service
- 1937 removed: road accident returns (to Ministry of Transport)
- 1938 added: fire services
- 1938 removed: Imperial Service Order and medal (to Treasury)
- 1940 removed: factory inspections (to Ministry of Labour)
- 1945 removed: workmen's compensation scheme (to Ministry of National Insurance)
- 1947 added: infant and child care (from Ministry of Health)
- 1947 removed: regulation of advertisements (to Ministry of Town and Country Planning)
- 1947 removed: burial fees (to Ministry of Health)
- 1947 removed: registration of building societies (to Treasury)
- 1948 removed: Broadmoor hospital (to Lunacy Board of Control)
- 1949 added: Civil Defence Corps
- 1950 removed: structural precautions for civil defence (to Ministry of Works)
- 1950 removed: minor judicial appointments (to Lord Chancellor)
- 1953 removed: slaughterhouses (to Ministry of Housing and Local Government)
- 1954 removed: markets (to Ministry of Housing and Local Government)
- 1956 removed: railway accidents (to Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation)
- 1969 removed: reservoirs (to Ministry of Housing and Local Government)
- 1971 removed: child care in England (to Department of Health and Social Security)
- 1971 removed: child care in Wales (to Welsh Office)
- 1972 removed: Northern Ireland (to Northern Ireland Office)
- 1973 removed: adoption (to Department of Health and Social Security)
- 1992 removed: broadcasting and sport (to the new Department of National Heritage – later the Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
- 2001 removed: Crown Dependencies (to Lord Chancellor's Department – now Ministry of Justice)
- 2007 removed: criminal justice, prisons & probation and legal affairs (to new Ministry of Justice)
- 2007 added: counter-terrorism strategy (from the Cabinet Office)
- 2016 added: fire and rescue services in England (from the Department for Communities and Local Government)
The Home Office retains a variety of functions that have not found a home elsewhere, and sit oddly with the main law-and-order focus of the department, such as regulation of British Summer Time.
Anonymous attack[edit]
On 7 April 2012, hacktivist group Anonymous temporarily took down the UK Home Office website. The group took responsibility for the attack, which was part of ongoing Anonymous activity in protest against the deportation of hackers as part of Operation TrialAtHome. One Anonymous source claimed in their tweet it was also launched in retaliation for 'draconian surveillance proposals'.[10]
Union action[edit]
On 18 July 2012, the Public and Commercial Services Union announced that thousands of Home Office employees would go on strike over jobs, pay and other issues.[11] However, the PCSU called off the strike before it was planned it claimed the department had, subsequent to the threat of actions, announced 1,100 new border jobs.[12]
Location[edit]
Until 1978, the Home Office had its offices in the what is now the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Main Building on King Charles Street, off Whitehall. From 1978 to 2004, the Home Office was located at 50 Queen Anne's Gate, a Brutalist office block in Westminster designed by Sir Basil Spence, close to St. James's Park tube station. Many functions, however, were devolved to offices in other parts of London and the country, notably the headquarters of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate in Croydon.
In 2005, the Home Office moved to a new main office designed by Sir Terry Farrell at 2 Marsham Street, Westminster, SW1P 4DF, on the site of the demolished Marsham Towers building of the Department of the Environment.[13]
For external shots of its fictional Home Office, the TV series Spooks uses an aerial shot of the Government Offices Great George Street instead, serving as stand-in to match the distinctly less modern appearance of the fictitious accommodation interiors the series uses.[14]
Research[edit]
To meet the UK's 5-year science and technology strategy,[15] the Home Office sponsors research in police sciences including:
- Biometrics – including face and voice recognition
- Cell type analysis – to determine the origin of cells (e.g. hair, skin)
- Chemistry – new techniques to recover latent fingerprints
- DNA – identifying offender characteristics from DNA
- Improved Profiling – of illicit drugs to help identify their source
- Raman Spectroscopy – to provide more sensitive drugs and explosives detectors (e.g. roadside drug detection)
- Terahertz imaging methods and technologies – e.g. image analysis and new cameras, to detect crime, enhance images and support anti-terrorism
Devolution[edit]
Most front-line law and order policy areas, such as policing and criminal justice, are devolved in Scotland and Northern Ireland but the following reserved and excepted matters are handled by Westminster.
Scotland[edit]
Reserved matters:'[16]
British Home Office Immigration Rules
- Extradition legislation, but the Scottish Ministers (through the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service) have executive responsibility for all aspects of mutual legal assistance
- Most aspects of firearms legislation, but Scottish Ministers have some executive responsibilities for the licensing of firearms. Further powers are transferred under the Scotland Act 2012
- Immigration and nationality
- Scientific procedures on live animals
The Scottish Government Justice and Communities Directorates are responsible for devolved justice and home affairs policy.
Northern Ireland[edit]
Excepted matters:[17]
- Extradition (as an international relations matter)
- Immigration and nationality
The following matters were not transferred at the devolution of policing and justice on 12 April 2010 and remain reserved:[18]
- Security of explosives
The Home Office's main counterparts in Northern Ireland are:
- Department of Justice (policing, public order and community safety)
- Northern Ireland Office (national security in Northern Ireland)[19]
The Department of Justice is accountable to the Northern Ireland Executive whereas the Northern Ireland Office is a UK Government department.
Wales[edit]
Under the Welsh devolution settlement, specific policy areas are transferred to the National Assembly for Wales rather than reserved to Westminster.
Criticism[edit]
In March 2019 it was reported that in two unrelated cases the Home Office denied asylum to converted Christians by misrepresenting certain Bible quotes. In one case it quoted selected excerpts from the Bible to imply that Christianity is not more peaceful than Islam, the religion the asylum-seeker converted from.[20] In another incident an Iranian Christian application for asylum was rejected because her faith was judged as 'half-hearted' as she did not believe that Jesus could protect her from the Iranian regime.[21]As outrage grew on social media, the Home Office distanced itself from the decision, though it confirmed the letter was authentic.[22] The home secretary admitted that it was 'totally unacceptable' for his department to quote the Bible to question an Iranian Christian convert's asylum application and ordered an urgent investigation into what had happened.[23]
The treatment of Christian asylum seekers chimes with other incidents in the past, like the refusal to grant visas to the Archbishop of Mosul to attend the consecration of the UK’s first Syriac Orthodox Cathedral.[24] In a 2017 study, the Christian Barnabas Fund found that only 0.2% of all Syrian refugees accepted by the UK were Christians, although Christians accounted for approximately 10% of Syria's prewar population.[25]
In 2019, the Home Office admitted to multiple breaches of data protection regulations in the handling of its Windrush compensation scheme. The department sent emails to Windrush migrants which revealed the email address of other Windrush migrants to whom the email was sent. The data breach concerned five different emails, each of which was sent to 100 recipients.[26] In April 2019, the Home Office admitted to revealing 240 personal email addresses of EU citizens applying for settled status in the UK. The email addresses of applicants were incorrectly sent to other applicants to the scheme.[27] In response to these incidents, the Home Office pledged to launch an independent review of its data protection compliance.[28]
In 2019, the Court of Appeal issued a judgement which criticized the Home Office's handling of immigration cases. The judges stated that the 'general approach [by the home secretary, Sajid Javid] in all earnings discrepancy cases [has been] legally flawed'. The judgement relates to the Home Office's interpretation of Section 322(5) of the Immigration Rules.[29]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^Budget 2011(PDF). London: HM Treasury. 2011. p. 48. Archived from the original(PDF) on 1 May 2011. Retrieved 30 December 2011.
- ^Department of the Official Report (Hansard), House of Commons, Westminster (9 June 2008). 'Hansard – Oral Questions to the Home Department – 9 June 2008'. Publications.parliament.uk. Retrieved 19 June 2010.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
- ^'Departments, agencies and public bodies - GOV.UK'. Gov.uk. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
- ^'Where have NPIA products and services moved to?'. National Policing Improvement Agency. 2012. Archived from the original on 18 January 2013. Retrieved 10 February 2013.
- ^'Our ministers'. GOV.UK. Home Office. Retrieved 17 June 2017.
- ^'Business Plan'. Home Office. Home Office. Retrieved 12 April 2012.
- ^'Business Plan:Home Office'. Home Office. 10 Downing Street. Retrieved 12 April 2012.
- ^'Changes to Home Office responsibilities'. Casbah.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 9 July 2011. Retrieved 19 June 2010.
- ^Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, Volumes 23-24, Longmans, Green, 1950, page 197
- ^'Anonymous takes down the UK Home Office website'. Rt.com. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
- ^'Home Office staff vote to strike over jobs and pay'. BBC News. 18 July 2012. Retrieved 28 July 2013.
- ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on 24 March 2014. Retrieved 24 March 2014.CS1 maint: Archived copy as title (link)
- ^New Home Office buildingArchived 26 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine
- ^'History of 1 Horse Guards Road - GOV.UK'. www.gov.uk. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
- ^'Police Science and Technology Strategy: 2004 – 2009'(PDF). Homeoffice.gov.uk. Archived from the original(PDF) on 5 February 2007. Retrieved 27 September 2010.
- ^'Scotland Act 1998, Schedule 5, Part I'. Opsi.gov.uk. Retrieved 19 June 2010.
- ^'Northern Ireland Act 1998, Schedule 2'. Opsi.gov.uk. 4 November 1950. Retrieved 19 June 2010.
- ^Northern Ireland Assembly Information Office. '''Policing and Justice' motion, Northern ireland Assembly, 12 April 2010'. Niassembly.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 16 December 2010. Retrieved 19 June 2010.
- ^'About the NIO'. Nio.gov.uk. 12 April 2010. Archived from the original on 17 September 2010. Retrieved 19 June 2010.
- ^'Home Office refuses Christian convert asylum by quoting Bible passages that 'prove Christianity is not peaceful''. independent.co.uk. 20 March 2019. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
- ^''Illiterate' Home Office quotes Jesus in asylum rejection letter'. 27 March 2019. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
- ^'Rejecting Asylum Claim, U.K. Quotes Bible to Say Christianity Is Not 'Peaceful''. nytimes.com. 21 March 2019. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
- ^'Home Secretary orders urgent investigation into asylum rejection letter which criticised Bible'. 2 April 2019. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
- ^'Britain bans heroic bishops: Persecuted Christian leaders from war zones refused entry'. 4 December 2016. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
- ^'UK government discriminates against Christian refugees from Syria'. Barnabas Fund. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
- ^'Windrush: Home Office admits data breach in compensation scheme'. BBC News. 8 April 2019.
- ^'Brexit: Home Office sorry for EU citizen data breach'. BBC News. 11 April 2019.
- ^'Home Office to launch independent review of data protection compliance'. Civil Service World. 12 April 2019.
- ^'Court castigates Home Office over misuse of immigration law'. The Guardian. 16 April 2019.
External links[edit]
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to Home Office. |
- Records created or inherited by the Home Office, Ministry of Home Security, and related bodies—gives a history of responsibilities of the Home Office, including which functions were merged into or transferred away from the Home Office