Failed Bangladeshi asylum seekers in the United Kingdom will be deported under a fast-track returns deal between the two countries.
Bangladesh and the UK have held their first-ever Joint Working Group meeting on Home Affairs in London at the British Home Office and signed the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) on Returns.
British Minister for Countering Illegal Migration James Tomlinson-Mynors KC, and Bangladesh High Commissioner in the UK Saida Muna Tasneem opened the JWG meeting on Thursday and witnessed the signing of the SOPs between the two countries, reports UNB.
The Bangladesh-UK SOPs on Returns is a successor to the earlier signed Bangladesh-EU SOPs of 2017, the procedure that used to be followed before the UK’s exit from the EU for returning Bangladeshi overstayers from the UK, according to a press release on Friday.
Nearly 11,000 Bangladeshis entered Britain on visas last year only to lodge asylum claims within 12 months in an attempt to stay permanently, reports The Telegraph, a UK-based newspaper.
The migrants came on international student, worker or visitor visas in the year to March last year in an attempt to exploit a “back door” to Britain by claiming asylum. Just 5 per cent of Bangladeshis’ initial asylum claims are successful, according to a report it carried out Thursday.
The newspaper said Tomlinson signed a fast-track returns deal with Bangladesh to streamline the deportation of not only failed asylum seekers but also foreign national offenders and individuals who have overstayed their visas.
The returns agreement will streamline the returns process by removing a mandatory interview for cases where there is good supporting evidence for removal.
However, both countries committed to strengthening their partnership and intensifying cooperation on economic, cultural and social issues.
Visas grant permission to stay in the UK for a set period – usually just a few months. But by claiming asylum applicants are highly likely to remain here indefinitely because the Home Office faces huge obstacles to deporting them, including human rights laws.
Official documents – leaked last month and covering the year to March 2023 – show a record 21,525 asylum claims were made by visa holders, a 154 per cent annual rise.
It means one in every 140 people who entered on a visa went on to claim asylum. During the past decade, more than 102,000 applied to stay after being allowed in only temporarily.
Pakistan was the largest nationality among claimants, with nearly 17,400 cases, followed by Bangladesh at 11,000, India (7,400), Nigeria (6,600) and Afghanistan (6,000).
Last year, 26,000 people who had no right to be in the UK were returned to their home countries, 74 per cent more than in 2022.