Foreign criminals and asylum seekers will only get one chance to appeal against deportation

'One stop shop' system will stop those being removed from making multiple attempts to overturn decision and dragging out legal process

Foreign criminals and failed asylum seekers will only get one chance to appeal against decisions to deport them under a major Home Office shake-up, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.

Under the new “one stop shop” system every legal attempt to appeal a deportation ruling would need to be submitted at the same time in a drive to reduce backlogs.

It will mean people being removed from the country cannot make half a dozen individual attempts to overturn the decision, which happens at times now and drags out the legal process.

The proposal is just one of a string of policy changes being put out to consultation later this month in what is being dubbed the biggest asylum system reform for a generation.

Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, wants to quicken the deportation process after being alarmed by backlogs, which have worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Home Office analysis suggests that due to the backlog there are around 40,000 people in Britain rejected for asylum who have not yet been contacted to leave the UK.

One proposal is to tighten the definition of modern slavery in the 2015 Modern Slavery Act amid concerns people who should be deported are using it for spurious appeal attempts. Such a change would likely trigger opposition not just from Labour but Theresa May, the former Tory prime minister who championed the law and has campaigned against modern slavery.

A second idea is to make it harder for people whose asylum claims have been rejected to appeal, with only those able to show “exceptional circumstances” allowed to proceed. Similarly a tighter definition will be proposed for what amounts to “human rights grounds” for people who have been rejected asylum but want to appeal.

A third area of changes will be around the ability of foreign criminals to put off deportation, such as making them unable to launch appeals in the 14 days before they are due to leave the country.

 A government source familiar with the plans said: “You get all sorts of claims from people [to overturn deportations]. In the future you will have to bring them all at one go.

“It means that all grounds for protection will be raised up front, which helps migrants and the courts by not having a long, drawn-out process. It also helps the taxpayer by saving money and freeing up judicial space.

“Sometimes people have seven, eight, nine appeals. In the future we will say ‘bring it all in one go’.”

Ms Patel’s reforms come after she ordered Home Office officials to get “under the bonnet” of the asylum system to understand how it can be improved.

The Telegraph reported yesterday that the Home Secretary wants people who arrive illegally in the UK to claim asylum to be removed from the country so their applications are processed abroad.

Both Gibraltar and the Isle of Man yesterday ruled out acting as processing sites to hold people seeking asylum in the UK despite reports they were being considered as locations.

Mr Johnson insisted that a mooted policy to send asylum seekers abroad to be processed was "a humanitarian one" intended to combat actions by "traffickers and gangsters".

"The objective here is to save life and avert human misery," he told a Downing Street press conference.

Mr Johnson also appeared to back the idea of granting an amnesty for migrants who illegally came to Britain a long time ago.

He said: “When people have been here for a very long time and haven’t fallen foul of the law, then it makes sense to try to regularise their status. That actually is pretty much what already happens under the existing rules.”

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