The Department’s failure to develop an end-to-end understanding of the immigration system leads to problems which it could avoid. At present, there are gaps in its digital and paper trail, and it is likely these have an impact on Immigration Enforcement’s ability to remove individuals from the UK. The Department says that there is now an “active conversation” with Ministers around improving its ability to move cases through the system. In 2019, the Department released 62% of immigration detainees it intended to remove from the UK, an increase from 56% in 2018. The Department believes this rise reflects abuse of asylum claims and other protection routes, but it did not provide any systematic analysis to support this. Given the strong passions seen on all sides of the immigration debate, a Government Department making unsupported claims of this kind risks inflaming prejudices against legitimate immigrants and bona fide asylum seekers. It did, however, accept our suggestion that direct engagement and better quality legal advice at an earlier stage may influence its ability to ensure returns are successful. Recommendation: The Department needs to develop a joined-up approach across the full end-to-end immigration system to ensure that people get the right support at the right time. It should record and assess how people move through the immigration system to understand where and how problems arise. This should include evaluating whether earlier access to good quality, affordable legal advice Immigration enforcement 7 might help to reduce the number of late claims. The Department should write to the Committee within six months of this report, setting out progress in this regard.