Less widely reported were other serious issues of concern at the Border Agency: the poor quality of decision making, the increasing detention of children and use of force against them, detainees “falsely imprisoned and subject to inhuman and degrading treatment … despite a clear and documented history of mental illness and against the advice of mental health professionals”, and so on.

Although it highlights some issues of real, pressing concern, this report in fact hardly touches on the human misery perpetuated by a Border Agency more concerned with targets than human rights, legal process or even it’s own rules. The focus, as always, is on bureaucratic ineptness, the scandal of missed targets.

Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP, Chair of the Committee, said “entering the world of the UKBA is like falling through the looking glass. The closer we look the more backlogs we find, their existence obscured by opaque names… They need to get a grip.”
 
Contrariwise, just imagine how it must feel for those who live their lives on the wrong side of the looking glass.
 
That the agency is allowed to just carry on like this, year after year, inquiry after inquiry, causing so much suffering and never really held to account – that is the real scandal.

Read the report here