New inspection report finds initial implementation of the Immigration Act 2014's provisions for tackling sham marriage was problematic
The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Bolt, yesterday released an inspection report examining how efficiently and effectively the Home Office had implemented the new provisions in the Immigration Act 2014 for tackling sham marriage.
The 44-page report is here, and a 5-page Home Office response to the report is here.
In January 2013, the Home Office estimated that between 3,000 and 10,000 applications to stay in the UK per year were made on the basis of sham marriages. In 2014, the then Immigration Minister, James Brokenshire, said that the new Immigration Act would provide "a much stronger platform for effective, systematic action to disrupt and deter sham marriages and civil partnerships."
The Chief Inspector found that initial implementation of the new provisions for tackling sham marriage was problematic, stating in his report: "The new approach had not been communicated effectively, and some registrars interpreted the fact that Immigration Enforcement and Compliance (ICE) teams were no longer attending register offices to prevent ceremonies from going ahead as the Home Office being less interested in sham marriage. Staff in the new Marriage Referral Assessment Unit (MRAU) felt deskilled as they struggled with heavily administrative processes, fragmented IT and limited operational support from local ICE teams. Cases were not being determined within 70 days."
He continued: "Managers intervened to devise a new process (Operation Equal), with ICE teams taking on responsibility for investigations. A pilot, which began in January 2016, produced encouraging results in terms of cases completed to time. However, a high proportion of couples were determined to be genuine, raising questions about profiling (which excluded consideration of nationality despite statistics showing certain nationalities to be prominent in sham marriages), and the ability of interviewers to expose sham couples who had prepared well or been coached by facilitators."
In terms of numbers, the report found that for the period March to August 2016 inclusive, a total of 23,948 marriage notices were referred to the Home Office's Marriage Referral Allocation Unit (MRAU). Of those couples, 17,818 were allowed to marry at 28 days, while the remaining 6,130 were extended to 70 days and ICE teams were asked to undertake investigations.
The report provided details from investigations carried out by three pilot ICE teams in Scotland, the West Midlands and West London from January to August 2016.
The majority of investigations by two of those teams, Scotland and the West Midlands, resulted in a determination that the marriage was 'non sham' (60.4% and 52.3% respectively), while the West London team determined a majority of its investigations were sham marriages and only 28.8% were found to be non sham.
Teams from Scotland and the West Midlands told the Chief Inspector that they felt many of the couples they interviewed were too well-prepared to be caught out giving answers that did not tally, even when interviewed for four hours.
The Chief Inspector made the following recommendations to the Home Office in the report:
1. Where a marriage is determined to be sham but is allowed to proceed because the couple has been compliant with an investigation, ensure that the couple is informed in writing of the determination to act as a deterrent.
2. Recommunicate the aims of Part 4 of the Immigration Act 2014 to registrars and provide more feedback on the outcomes from referrals.
3. Ensure that staff are provided with:
• interview skills training and development to enable them to deal effectively with well-prepared sham couples; and
• sufficient understanding of the experiences of potentially duped and of vulnerable partners to inform effective questioning.
4. Seek Ministerial agreement to add certain nationalities to the profiling approach.
5. Ensure that data is collected in relation to sham marriage in a form that enables an accurate and comprehensive evaluation of the outcomes from the Immigration Act 2014 changes and provides Ministers and Parliament with a clear picture of the threat and how it is being met.
In its response, the Home Office said it accepted all of the Chief Inspector's recommendations.