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The Star
12-05-2025
- Politics
- The Star
AI will help make 'life-or-death' calls in rammed UK asylum system
LONDON: Britain is hoping to clear a record backlog of asylum claims with artificial intelligence (AI), outsourcing life-and-death decisions to dehumanising technology, rights groups say. As global displacement soars, Britain said it would deploy AI to speed asylum decisions, arming caseworkers with country-specific advice and summaries of key interviews. It will also introduce new targets to streamline parts of the overstretched and badly backlogged decision-making process. Migrant charities and digital rights groups say the use of automation could endanger vulnerable lives. "Relying on AI to help decide who gets to stay here and who gets thrown back into danger is a deeply alarming move," said Laura Smith, a legal director at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI). "The government should focus on investing in well-trained, accountable decision-makers – not outsourcing life-or-death decisions to machines," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The governing Labour party has pledged to hire more asylum caseworkers and set up a new returns and enforcement unit to fast-track removals for applicants who have no right to stay. At the end of 2024, the government had 90,686 asylum cases awaiting an initial decision, official data showed. Most asylum seekers wait at least six months for an initial ruling, a scenario that will cost taxpayers £15.3bil (RM87.48bil) in housing over the next decade, according to the National Audit Office, the government spending watchdog. AI biases In a government-run pilot study, less than half of caseworkers who tested the proposed AI summary tool said it gave them the correct information with some users saying it did not provide references to the asylum seeker's interview transcript. Nearly a quarter said they were not "fully confident" in the summaries provided and about 9% of the summaries were inaccurate, the pilot study reported in April. But the government wants to go ahead with AI, as the issue of immigration gains ever more traction with disgruntled voters. "Asylum decisions are some of the most serious that the government makes – the wrong decision can put lives at risk. There are therefore potentially lethal consequences resulting from these faulty summaries," said Martha Dark, founder of tech rights group Foxglove. "While the government claims that a human will always be 'in the loop' when it comes to making the decision, there are still clearly risks if the human is making that decision on the basis of inaccurate information in an AI-generated summary." Digital rights advocates point to the tendency of AI tools to generate "hallucinations" – answers or information that look real but are in fact fabricated – which make them dangerous to use in critical situations such as asylum claims. Automated tools can also reinforce biases against certain groups of people, rights groups say, since AI trains up on old data that can reinforce historic prejudices. In 2020, the Home Office, Britain's interior ministry, scrapped a tool that automatically assigned risk scores to visa applicants from certain countries after a legal challenge. Possible prejudice aside, AI-generated synopses of applicant interviews are also highly dehumanising, said Caterina Rodelli, a policy analyst at tech rights group Access Now. "People have to undergo so much re-traumatisation with these processes ... and then you reduce it to a summary. So that's a testament to the dehumanisation of the asylum system." The Home Office did not immediately respond to requests to comment on its proposed use of AI to process asylum claims and what safeguards it will have in place to ensure human oversight. Record migration Britain has experienced record migration in recent years, with net arrivals hitting 728,000 for the year ending June 2024, most migrants coming legally to work or study. More than 10,000 asylum seekers have also arrived in small boats this year, up about 40% on the same period last year. The Refugee Council said previous efforts to speed up processing times have led to poor initial decisions, more asylum appeals and a bigger backlog in the courts. "The use of AI therefore must be carefully considered before potentially life-or-death decisions become a testing ground for the technology," said Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council. Human rights barrister Susie Alegre said immigration lawyers seeking to challenge asylum decisions could also hit roadblocks if they are "unpicking decisions based on automated outputs". "Lawyers looking at asylum decisions with a view to challenging them will need to know what role AI played in any decision making," Alegre said. Tip of the iceberg As the numbers fleeing war, poverty, climate disaster and other tumult reach record levels worldwide, states are increasingly turning to digital fixes to manage migration. President Donald Trump is ramping up the use of surveillance and AI tools – from facial recognition to robotic patrol dogs – as part of his crackdown on illegal immigration. Since 2017, Germany has used a dialect recognition tool to determine an asylum seeker's true country of origin. Access Now's Rodelli said governments were testing digital tools on migrants and asylum seekers without due accountability, warning of AI's potential mission creep into other areas of public life such as welfare and debt recovery. "These types of applications are just the tip of the iceberg," she said. – Thomson Reuters Foundation
BBC News
28-04-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Migrant workers 'in limbo' over employer licence crackdown
"I've lost everything. Every day I'm stressed."Jamil, a migrant worker from Bangladesh, says he has been left stranded and in limbo after being exploited and then abandoned by a company who recruited him to help fulfil the UK's shortage of care a crackdown from the government, the company he had been working for lost its licence to employ foreign the 30-year-old does not know what to not alone - figures obtained to the BBC under the Freedom of Information Act show the number of times a company had its sponsor licence revoked in the UK rose from 336 in 2023 to 1,514 in 2024 - a rise of 350%. Over a third were in effect has meant migrant workers have been "pushed into destitution", the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants told the BBC, adding that it had seen a huge increase in people seeking their services. 'I paid for payslips' Jamil - not his real name - was approached by the company, which the BBC is not naming, after he completed a business masters degree in the UK."I saw there was a shortage in care workers in the country and I thought I could give something to this country," he completed training, reference checks, and received a visa through the the work never followed. "I had to wait six months," he said. "From the beginning, they were wasting time. If they don't have jobs, why are they recruiting us? I felt something fishy was going on."Jamil said he felt he was exploited by the company as he gave them cash, which he borrowed from friends and family, in return for payslips of less monetary value in order to "keep his documents up to date". After finding out the company's licence had been taken away, the company stopped contacting him. "I've applied for hundreds of jobs but it's so much stress. I've lost everything," he has not received a curtailment notice - a document which formally indicates the Home Office is cancelling or shortening a visa before its original expiry date."Every day I wake up and wonder if I've got any email from them. I can't explain the stress. It's been more than a year. Sometimes I think I should go back home but what could I do from there?"He added: "I have applied for hundreds of jobs but they require driving licence so I'm learning to drive." Rajan - not his real name - is a migrant worker from Bangladesh who was recruited by a care company before arriving in the says he was made to work 14-hour shifts in a care home for 60 days in a row, and his requests for sick and holiday leave were repeatedly denied by the company. "I kept asking my manager to have a break during Ramadan to celebrate and do some prayers. I asked for time off to go to my GP when I was sick. They didn't allow me the break - I was fully controlled by my employer."Although the company lost its licence to employ foreign workers, the 36-year-old said the company continued asking him to work. He says he has been rejected from hundreds of jobs. "I just keep borrowing money from my relatives and friends. I've become isolated, I don't talk to anybody," he told the BBC he had contacted the police and the Home Office but had not received a response. In order to hire a foreign worker in the UK, companies must obtain a sponsor licence from the UK Home 2022 the UK government opened skilled worker visas to overseas care workers, in a bid to tackle record staff shortages in the care Javed, a solicitor at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, believes not enough checks and balances were in place at the time for licence applications to sponsor these overseas care workers."Within that application process, there needed to be greater due diligence and it would seem the Home Office hadn't done that at that early stage," she November last year, the government announced new measures to crack down on visa abuse and prevent include banning companies who flout visa rules or breach employment laws for at least two years from sponsoring oversea workers, and the passing of sponsorship costs to "often vulnerable workers" will be prohibited. 'Months of limbo' More than 39,000 workers in the care sector have been affected by sponsorship licences being revoked since October for Migration and Citizenship Seema Malhotra said there were "serious consequences for those who don't respect our visa system, and treat workers unfairly"."We have already banned companies from charging workers for the cost of their sponsorship, and will be barring employers who repeatedly break immigration or employment laws from hiring overseas workers," she added. "In close collaboration with the care sector, we are also supporting care workers into alternative jobs when their sponsor has had their licence removed."She added: "I urge anyone with evidence of abuse or wrongdoing to come forward and safely report this to us and the relevant authorities so we can thoroughly investigate exploitative criminals." But many are struggling."They've been pushed into destitution, into months and months of limbo and uncertainty, unable to support themselves or their families," said Ms Javed."Finding an alternative sponsor is extremely difficult. You have migrant workers who are forced into destitution because they can't work at all when they are in this limbo state."She added the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants had experienced a three-fold increase in people coming to the Unison advice line on a weekly were also seeing long delays in receiving their curtailment notices, which is not an automated process. When a care provider's sponsor licence is revoked, UK Visas and Immigration write to all impacted workers and signpost them to partnerships for help finding new sponsored Work Rights Centre, a charity that helps migrants access employment justice, is calling on the government to introduce a UK Workplace Justice visa which would protect the immigration status of a victim while they find new employment, and take legal action against their former chief executive, Dr Dora-Olivia Vicol said: "We have a work migration system that puts employers in a position of great power - they hold the keys to a person's immigration status but the system doesn't come with any safeguards for migrant workers."From 9 April, care providers who want to recruit a new worker from overseas now have to first prove that they have attempted to recruit a worker from within England.A change that, for migrant workers, may make searching for a new sponsor company even more difficult.
The Guardian
09-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Thousands on axed Rwanda scheme list to have asylum claims processed in UK
Thousands of people left in limbo since plans to deport them to Rwanda were axed will now have their asylum claims processed in the UK, the government has confirmed. More than 5,000 asylum seekers were on an initial list drawn up by the previous government to be sent to Rwanda under the deal between the two countries. One of the first acts of the Labour government was to scrap the Rwanda scheme, resulting in many of the 5,700 people the Kigali administration had agreed to accept having their claims processed in the UK asylum system. Some subsequently received decisions on their claims, but it is estimated that thousands have remained in limbo. While being forcibly removed to Rwanda is no longer an option they received letters saying that, although their asylum claims would be admitted to the UK, 'if circumstances change or further information becomes available to us to suggest that inadmissibility action under these or other provisions is in fact appropriate we will notify you accordingly'. Asylum seekers who received these letters were fearful that they could be removed to other countries, especially after rumours of government discussions about returns hubs in various countries including in the Balkans. Labour's failure to publish a policy confirming that everyone previously earmarked for Rwanda would now have their claims processed in the UK led to a legal challenge from Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), which claimed that the uncertainty contained in the letters could worsen the trauma many asylum seekers have suffered in their home countries and on their journeys. They called on government to publish a policy confirming that the claims of everyone previously on the Rwanda list would now be processed in the UK. A court hearing was due to take place on Wednesday morning but just hours before this the Home Office published new guidance, stating the department 'has discontinued inadmissibility action and is committed to substantively considering the merits of the asylum claims'. The group affected arrived in the UK between 1 January 2022 and 29 June 2023, many on small boats, and were issued with notices informing them that they may be removed to Rwanda. Taher Gulamhussein, a solicitor at JCWI , welcomed the guidance published by the government. He said: 'The prime minister said on his first day in office that the Conservative party's Rwanda plan was a gimmick and that it was dead and buried. He then promised those migrants that their claims for asylum would finally be processed in the UK. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion 'Shortly after that he went back on his word and told those people that he reserved the right to consider removing them to another third country after all. We challenged that practice. We are pleased that more than an estimated 2,000 of those migrants left in limbo and uncertainty can finally rest that their asylum claims will only be processed in the UK.' The Home Office has been approached for comment.
New European
21-02-2025
- Politics
- New European
The uncomfortable truth about race and Englishness
'He's a brown Hindu, how is he English?' That's the moment, in a discussion about the former prime minister Rishi Sunak, which made a video clip from a YouTube show go viral. The clip has racked up nearly 4 million views on X and its sentiment has been widely condemned, even by some surprising sources. But for black Britons like me, it has thrown up uncomfortable questions about race and nationality. The prime movers in the video are Moscow-born British pundit Konstantin Kisin and Fraser Nelson, no stranger to controversy. In his old role as former editor of the Spectator , Nelson was happy to publish the work of Douglas Murray, the far right commentator who has been frequently accused of Islamophobia and who told the Dutch parliament in 2016: 'Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board'. After stepping down (or being pushed out in favour of Michael Gove) last year, Nelson was the driving force behind a much-criticised Channel 4 Dispatches show about sickness benefits. It will have come as a surprise to some then, that Nelson found himself sounding like a voice of reason when he appeared on Kisin's 'free speech YouTube show and podcast' TriggerNometry, which he co-hosts with Francis Foster, on February 16 Towards the end comes the viral moment, which then was turned into a 20-second clip titled 'Can Immigrants Become English?'. Millions of views followed, Nelson stoking the fire by retweeting it with the quote 'Unexpected controversy!' In a longer interview full of far right talking points on migration, Kisin questions at what point England ceases to be English when the native population is significantly outnumbered – even though this is far from the case in the UK. He says, 'my relatives from Russia or Ukraine or Armenia or whatever, they come to Heathrow, and they go, 'is this still England right now?'' He adds: 'For the vast majority of people in this country, their sense is that when the country ceases to be visually the same as it was, at some point, there is a level when it ceases to be that country.' But the moment that has caused all the fuss comes when Kisin goes on to say that he doesn't consider himself or his English-born son to be English. Nelson counters that rather than colour, nationality should be defined by birthplace and upbringing. He uses as an example the former prime minister, prompting Kisin's 'how is he English?' moment. The pushback since the interview clip went viral has been spectacular. Kisin has been criticised by everyone from the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants to the Mail On Sunday commentator Dan Hodges the far right agitator Laurence Fox. But the funny thing is that someone like me – I was born in London to a mother and father both born in Ghana and all British citizens – can understand why he thinks he and his son are not English. The truth is that lots of black and Asian Britons don't see ourselves as English. Rishi Sunak might call himself English, and it's his right to do so. But I have never heard another black Briton, including my family, say they are English – only is this? I think immigrants and their descendants feel firstly 'British' because of the British Empire, which invited us here to prop up the NHS and other English? We don't fit into the way 'Englishness' looks and we have had years of being told – overtly or subliminally – that we don't qualify. Racism is alive and well in the UK. I keep coming back to a report commissioned by the Guardian in 2018 that found 38% of people from minority ethnic backgrounds said they had been wrongly suspected of shoplifting in the last five years, compared with 14% of white people. Another 43% said they had been overlooked for a work promotion in a way that felt unfair in the last five years – more than twice the proportion of white people (18%) who reported the same experience. As a Black Briton, I have privileges that my Ghanaian cousins do not. A passport pre-Brexit that allowed me entry to most countries with little or no fuss. A health service that I don't need private insurance for. But as a black person, my Britishness also rubs up against institutional bias. The Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which built the British Nationality Act 1981, makes clear that as British citizens with parents or grandparents who were not born in England, we are subject to different rules than our white English peers. Since 2006, the government has been able to withdraw citizenship from dual nationals who act in a manner deemed 'seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of the UK'. In 2014, these powers were extended to foreign-born British citizens without dual nationality. The 2022 Act extended the powers still further. In early December 2022, the New Statesman crunched the numbers and found that the Nationality and Borders Bill could potentially deprive half of British Asians and 39% of Black Britons of their citizenship rights without warning. Governnments might that stripping someone of their citizenship happens only in a very limited numbers of cases, but that is not the point. It is that this punishment exists for some Britons but not others. The Act applies to Britons who have dual citizenship or a migrant background. That's pretty much every person who is not White English. It includes the Jewish community and even dual British-Russian citizens such as Kisin. I wonder if he is aware of this? Not only are Black people, Asians and others not deemed to be English by, as Kisin says, 'millions and millions and millions and millions' of people, but we are also deemed second-class citizens by our own government. Non-white Britons find themselves being pushed down a decidedly steep and slippery slope. We've been on it for years – it was as long ago as 1978 that Margaret Thatcher talked about how 'people are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture… if there is any fear that it might be swamped people are going to react and be rather hostile to those coming in.' That's why Kisin has stumbled on an uncomfortable and distressing truth, and why I'm forced to agree with him. English as an ethnicity is seen as white and maybe there's nothing wrong with that. But what happens when people born in England who consider themselves British are told with increasing volume that they are neither English or British? Unfortunately, it seems like we are about to find out. Samantha Asumadu is an investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker. She has written for the Guardian, the Telegraph, Open Democracy, New Statesman.
