GETTY An official report revealed that 10,000 cases have dropped off the Home Office radar

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An official report revealed that 10,000 cases have dropped off the Home Office radar or gone on the run and their whereabouts are currently unknown. And caseworkers told official inspectors that 30,000 asylum seekers had also stayed here long after their last avenue for appeal was exhausted. The 10,000 asylum-seekers with which the Home Office has lost contact include people awaiting a decision on their claim and others who have stayed in Britain after their application was refused. The authorities were “reluctant” to try to trace the missing people by visiting last known addresses because “this work was not a priority and was considered a drain on resources”, said the borders watchdog report. UK Independence Party deputy leader Paul Nuttall MEP said: “It is staggering that the Home Office has lost almost as many people as would fit into Wembley Arena. “Worse still it doesn’t think it is worth their while to make the effort to check.

“And that is before we even consider the 30,000 people who having failed in their application are still in the country. “That’s a reasonably sized town - illegal and off the books. “Home Secretary Theresa May and her department talk a good game but they are clearly not fit for purpose.” Alp Mehmet, vice chairman of MigrationWatch UK, said: “This report shows clearly that illegal immigration, including failed asylum seekers who have no legal right to be here, continues apace and the number of illegal migrants is not coming down. “It is not a new problem. “I find it extraordinary that the Government is still failing to deal with it.” David Bolt, the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration whose report revealed the shambles, wrote: “Failure to deal with asylum cases in a timely manner was inefficient as well as ineffective.

GETTY Theresa May and her department talk a good game but they're not fit for purpose, says Mr Nuttall

GETTY The Home Office has lost track of 10,000 asylum-seekers and their whereabouts are unknown

It is staggering that the Home Office has lost almost as many people as would fit into Wembley Arena Paul Nuttall MEP

“The more time an asylum case took to resolve, the more likely barriers to removal would arise from the formation of relationships, the birth of children and other community ties. “It also meant individuals were left not knowing if or when the Home Office might take action to remove them.” People who are required to report to officials are recorded as absconders when they fail to attend meetings. In a sample of 338 cases inspectors examined, there were 48 people logged as having absconded. Attempts to find them were made in only nine instances, including five visits to last known addresses. Staff at offices where certain immigrants have to report in told inspectors they had been increasingly stretched by the number of individuals on their lists, a total of 47,000 last December. Meanwhile, as of September this year, there were 30,406 failed asylum claims where individuals had neither been deported from the UK nor given leave to stay here, more than two years after their rights to appeal against removal lapsed. Limited bed space in immigration detention centres also meant that some people who repeatedly failed to abide by the rules had got away without being pursued or detained because they were not in “priority categories”.

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The report said poor communication between different Government departments was damaging efficiency. But it acknowledged that an increase in the number of refused asylum seekers who left the UK on voluntary schemes indicated the Home Office’s focus on this area was working. In a separate report, the inspectors said operations to target illegal working had focused on high street restaurants and takeaways, with other sectors possibly neglected, because most information came to the authorities from the general public in “low-level allegations”. Mr Bolt also stressed that enforcement officers were not allowed in some cases to chase suspected illegal workers if they ran off during a raid, nor to arrest unexpected suspects who exercised their right not to answer questions and who wanted to leave. In six cases officers had failed to comply with guidance preventing them from pursuing people leaving the scene whose immigration status they did not know, “raising issues about unlawful detention and/or arrest and officer safety”, said the report. Enforcement activity on the ground had shifted meanwhile from raids to “educational visits” encouraging firms not to hire illegal staff. The Home Office said it had already taken “significant steps” to address problems since the reported inspections took place.

GETTY Mr Nuttall thinks it's 'staggering' that the Home Office have lost track of migrants in the UK

On the “missing” asylum seekers, it insisted: “We expect people with no right to be here to leave the country voluntarily - and we offer help for them to do this - but where they do not, we will enforce their departure. “The report rightly links our efforts to make it harder to stay illegally in the UK with increased numbers of voluntary returns. “Results show that the total number of voluntary returns was over 50,000 during the last two years, including over 27,000 notified and assisted voluntary departures. “In the same period we enforced the removal of over 20,000, giving a total of over 79,000 removals. These numbers include some of the 25,000 foreign national offenders successfully removed since 2010.” Measures such as limiting access to bank accounts and imposing NHS charges make it harder for illegal migrants to stay, while the new Immigration Bill will strengthen powers by creating an offence of illegal working and by enabling illegal earnings to be seized, the spokeswoman said. On illegal working, the Home Office added that the report was largely based on incidents which took place more than a year ago and it had already done a lot to address the inspectors’ findings. A spokesman added: “Although last-minute legal challenges can delay some removals, this Government has legislated to make it harder for people to lodge spurious appeals. We are going further in our new Immigration Bill, currently going Parliament, by extending the use of ‘deport now, appeal later’.”