Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 11:00 am on 11 January 2017.
I agree. There are many ways in which verification becomes quite difficult when countries have been in a state of chaos.
I have one of the largest immigration case loads in Scotland in my constituency of Glasgow Central, and I regularly have asylum seekers at my surgery who are in dire straits as a direct result of Home Office policy. One constituent who came to me had fled political persecution in Sri Lanka in 2013. On claiming asylum in 2014, she was detained in Dungavel detention centre, where she was sexually assaulted by another detainee. She is now destitute and relies on charities for support. That bright young woman could be using the qualifications in business, which she gained, as it happens, from a UK further education college, to get a job and support herself. Instead, she has been so emotionally ground down by her experience of the system that she is deeply fearful for the future. Her heartbreaking case is part of a pattern of behaviour by the Home Office that in many cases treats those fleeing persecution with contempt.