The UK’s asylum questionnaires plan has inflamed left and right alike. All the while, lives remain in limbo

Napier barracks in Folkestone, Kent, where asylum seekers are sent to be housed while the Home Office considers their claims. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

The range of media and political responses to the government’s plans to reduce the asylum backlog by replacing some interviews with questionnaires – in English – is striking. For most, the aim is a good one. But sceptics believe it may lead to people getting permission to stay in the UK without their asylum claim being properly examined. At the other end of the spectrum, it’s seen as an asylum crackdown, with people subjected to a process that fails to see the “face behind the case”.

One thing that is clear is that the current asylum backlog is untenable. Ali, a claimant who escaped religious persecution and arrived in the UK in summer 2021, has now spent more than 18 months in a hotel. “To be honest, being in the asylum process is like being in a prison, just without walls,” he says. “It’s like being in limbo, and while you can’t make decisions about your future, that makes you depressed.”