Asylum-seekers 'will have to prove their language'
Thursday 14 February 2013
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EmailAsylum seekers will have to convince language analysts that they are from Kuwait, Palestine or Syria under new rules.
Immigration Minister Mark Harper said today he was giving the UK Border Agency powers to use language analysts' testimony in judgements relating to those nationalities.
Asylum-seekers could be asked to sit a half-hour interview with analysts familiar with the dialect and region, with the resulting report used to decide their case. Refusing the interview could count against them.
But Asylum Aid's Dr Russell Hargrave said the Home Office was still "looking in the wrong direction." The department's own figures showed courts accepted more than one in four asylum cases on appeal.
"Good lawyers need time and space to work with asylum-seekers so that Home Office officials get the full story and get their decisions right first time."
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