A day of reckoning

On the 26th of March, 2013 Home Secretary Theresa May announced to parliament that the Home Office will abolish the UK Border Agency (UKBA). The agency will be split into two operations dealing separately with visas and law enforcement, under the auspices of the Home Office. The Border Agency has faced intense scrutiny from government officials for several years, and condemnation from immigrants subject to its ineffective, often Kafkaesque visa system. A search of the news over the past three years reveals an astonishing number of failures:

Thousands of anecdotal stories support the news reports; found throughout online forums, comments on news articles and the personal experiences of friends and family of individuals in the UK. The agency’s shortcomings seemed compounded by a shortage of staff with subsequent outsourcing of work to consultancies, IT firms and private security groups. In one such example, as a new law requiring biometric visas (identity cards) for migrants came into effect, the UKBA issued printed bar code references during application. At ad hoc locations across the country workers scanned the bar codes during biometric enrollment; however they were frequently unreadable and needed, often repeated, reissue. A private firm handled biometric rollout; applicants bore the brunt of the government’s poor commissions.

The failings of the Border Agency can not, of course, be entirely attributed to internal mismanagement. Constant, disruptive change to immigration policy led to a flood of new applications and renewals. Biometric card requirements, higher application fees, stringent university criteria, and the closing of settlement routes — against a backdrop of frenzied determination by the coalition government to drastically reduce immigration numbers — pushed hundred of thousands into an untenable backlog that the agency, already deemed “not fit for purpose”, was never capable of handling. A successful visa grant was largely and arbitrarily dependent on a case worker’s understanding of the rules in place at the time of application.

Only time will tell if the decision to close the Border Agency will result in anything more than a bureaucratic reshuffle. Immigration policy in the United Kingdom requires extensive reform: better opportunities for those seeking education and skilled employment with a sustainable route to residency, supported by sensible government practice.

Previously: