Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how they determine whether asylum seekers who arrive in the UK without documentation are genuinely from a country not on their list of safe countries.

The Home Office employs various processes to establish the identities of asyum claimants, in circumstances where it is not sufficiently evidenced in reliable documentation. These processes include checks of all relevant Home Office databases (such as biographic and biometric checks of previous visa applications), biometric checks with partners in the United States and other countries, and – where there are concerns about a person’s claimed origin - robust nationality testing may be carried out during a substantive asylum interview. The checks and the testing employed during interview may be applied to any person claiming asylum, including those from the ‘safe country’ list.

If any documents are presented by claimants in support of either their identity or their claim, the reliance to place on them is assessed in the round, alongside these checks and wider evidence in the case, in line with our published guidance: ‘Assessing credibility and refugee status’.