Coronavirus restrictions caused failings in Home Office checks of migrants who crossed the Channel in small boats, a watchdog investigation has found.
David Neal, the chief inspector of borders and immigration, said that a Home Office agency had stopped asking migrants how they reached Britain and where they had come from.
Screening sessions for newly arrived asylum seekers were “truncated” by UK Visas and Immigration in an attempt to streamline the process during the pandemic. They were “often rushed” and “incomplete”, a report published yesterday said.
The gaps in the interview process undermined the Home Office’s ability to identify migrants who were victims of trafficking because “questions about somebody’s journey and reasons for coming to the UK were omitted from the interview”. Other signs that
