ASYLUM STATISTICS



As we have all heard, since the end of last year the number of people seeking asylum in this country has fallen greatly. The government claims that this is the result of measures they have taken: the refusal of support to anyone who has not applied for asylum immediately on arrival, and the posting of immigration officers at airports overseas to detect people with false documentation and prevent them from travelling. However, the number of asylum seekers has fallen throughout the EU, though rather less that in Britain, so other factors are also at work.



The top ten countries from which people have come to seek asylum in the last quarter for which statistics for this are available (April to June 2004) are Iran, China, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Sudan, in that order.



In the first quarter of 2004 the Home Office gave full refugee status to just three per cent of those who applied for asylum, and humanitarian protection or discretionary leave to remain to a further eight per cent. This means that there was a nearly ninety per cent refusal rate, a very much higher proportion than a year ago. Either the Home Office has moved the goal posts, or the wrong people are being excluded by the government’s initiatives to reduce the numbers seeking asylum.



This is particularly disturbing because the possibility of appealing successfully against a first decision has also been reduced:



The amount of legal aid for appeals has been cut so much that many good solicitors have withdrawn from asylum work knowing that they cannot do a proper job within the new legal aid limits. The Refugee Legal Centre and the Immigration Advisory Service are in a slightly better position, suggesting that the Home Office knows that the legal aid cuts are too great.



The second tier of the appeal process has been removed. It is no longer possible to appeal to the Tribunal if an appeal before the Adjudicator is lost.



It is far more difficult to obtain a judicial review of a decision to refuse asylum.



As we have pointed out in previous issues, first decision-making by the Home Office is poor. It will no longer be possible to test it properly because of the reduced appeal procedures, and we are unable to see that there are any effective plans to improve it. Many cases of injustice will inevitably arise from these changes. Some people will receive the wrong decision and will be returned to danger and persecution.

ASYLUM-SPEAK



I.



In response to our concerns about the abolition of the second tier of the Appellate Authority, we received the following replies:



“Under provisions outlined in the Bill, appellants will have a single appeal to a new Tribunal. Appellants will have one appeal hearing before the Tribunal. Most appeals will be heard by a single judge, but exceptional cases will be heard by panels. This flexible approach in the new Tribunal will ensure appeals will receive the right level of judicial consideration before a decision. The decision of the Tribunal will be final, but there will be a very limited power of review exercised by senior judges within the Tribunal to correct a decision that depends on an application of the law that is clearly wrong” (Beverley Hughes MP, Minister of State in the Home Office, letter dated 10 February 2004).



This is nonsense. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines a tribunal as “a board appointed to adjudicate in some matter, esp. one appointed by the government to investigate a matter of public concern; a court of justice.” A board is, by definition, a group of people. Most of those who are refused asylum will have their cases examined by just one person, a lower standard of justice than is afforded to those involved in employment disputes, which are always heard by three people.



Moreover, the seriousness of the appeal is prejudged in this procedure.



II.



A further response to the same concern about the reduction of appeal rights received the following reply:



“The unification of the appeals structure is not the abolition of the current tribunal but a merging of the adjudicator and tribunal tiers” (Fiona Mactaggart, MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Home Office, letter dated 25 May 2004).



Some cynics have suggested that the reduction in the appeals procedure has been specifically designed to provide a cover for the poor quality of first decision-making.



We would have to point out that both the Tribunal (when it existed) and the judicial review process sometimes brought to light serious failings in the decisions made by both adjudicators and, on occasion, by the Tribunal.



III.



Some months ago it was discovered that the Home Office had sent back to Mogadishu a group of Somalis who had been refused asylum. Whereas the north of Somalia is relatively well-ordered and peaceful, the southern area, especially around Mogadishu, the capital and site of the only airport in the country, is the scene of on-going conflict and is very unsafe. Accused of having carried out these removals in secret, the Home Office’s response was that they were not done secretly, they had simply been unannounced.

THE END OF THE PROCESS?



Normally asylum seekers who have been refused and have reached the end of the appeals process can expect to be removed back to their country of origin. The government is very anxious to increase the number removed so as to show they are on top of the situation.


When someone has reached the end of the road, support given by the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) comes to an end. The person is evicted from their accommodation and is no longer eligible for any form of support. They are driven to sleeping rough and relying on soup kitchens because they are not allowed to work either.

Of course, this may mean that the Home Office is unable to remove them because rough sleepers have no address and may be difficult or impossible to trace.

Moreover, some refused asylum seekers cannot be removed. It is not safe to send refused asylum seekers back to Zimbabwe, for instance, as the Home Office discovered when it tried to do so in 2002, and those who were returned were tortured and imprisoned.

Others have no travel documents and their embassies fail to provide them with documentation when asked to do so by the Home Office. They then cannot be returned; no airline will carry undocumented passengers.

CamOak has been given a videotape about evicted asylum seekers in Glasgow, the only Scottish city to offer accommodation to asylum seekers. Louise Scott, niece of Elspeth Hutchison, one of our supporters, was involved in the production of this tape, and it is Louise and Elspeth who have given it to us. We hope to arrange a showing to be followed by discussion. Scotland’s response to what Westminster has ordered is very interesting and provides much food for thought. The comments by the Chief of Police and a Glasgow City Councillor are particularly interesting. The problem exists in England as well, of course, and is largely hidden.

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REMARKS BY KOFI ANNAN, SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE UN, IN A SPEECH TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, JANUARY 2004.

‘Migrants are part of the solution, not part of the problem. They should not be made the scape-goat for a vast array of social ills.

‘People migrate today for the same reasons that tens of millions of Europeans once left your shores – they flee war or oppression, or they leave in search of a better life.

‘Those forced out of their homes – the refugees who flee in fear for their safety – are our collective and moral responsibility.

‘The vast majority of migrants are industrious, courageous and determined. They don’t want a free ride. They want a fair opportunity. They are law-abiding. They don’t want to live apart. They want to integrate while retaining their identity . . . A closed Europe would be a meaner, weaker, older Europe. An open Europe will be a fairer, richer, stronger, younger Europe – provided you manage migration well.’

ILLEGAL WORKERS – WHO BENEFITS?

Recently a large group of people were brought to Oakington prior to their being deported. It seemed that all had Brazilian passports, though few, if any, were Brazilians. Some had paid large amounts for their passports. They were found working in a food-processing plant in Corby. This was not selling direct to the public; it was preparing food for supermarkets. The three names which these workers could remember were Asda, Somerfield and Marks and Spencer.

These men were picked up on Thursday and were due to be paid on Friday. However, the pay they were expecting to receive was not the pay for the week just completed, but for the previous week. They were always paid in arrears like this. It is not clear how much they were earning, but their pay was not generous. Most had no money by the time they reached Oakington.

Some stayed in Oakington for some time because they had no proper documentation and it proved difficult to discover their countries of origin and arrange for them to be documented.

So who benefits?

The workers themselves may have benefited, though perhaps only to a small degree. Many illegal workers can earn so little at home in their own countries that even pay below the national minimum wage may be welcome.

The supermarkets certainly benefit. As they constantly boast to us, they are driving prices down so that we can have cheap food and they can make large profits.

We, the customers benefit. Our food prices are lower than in many other EU countries.

But do we want to benefit from this sort of arrangement?

As we all now know, some immigrant workers such as the cockle-pickers, legal or illegal, are exploited and endangered.

Other illegal immigrant workers are grossly underpaid, very poorly housed, and if ill have no recourse to medical services.

Farmers are tempted to employ them through gang-masters because it is not longer possible to find British seasonal workers. The supermarkets push the prices down so low that employers are driven to using underpaid foreign workers. These are often illegal immigrants.

We welcome legislation to license gang-masters, but that will not deal with the whole problem. Illegal migrant workers are also employed in the catering and hotel trades, in the construction industry and elsewhere, and not always through gang-masters. Our economy has become skewed by the exploitation of illegal workers. Straightening it out would cost us all something.

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STOP PRESS

Cambridge Action Network is holding a Cambridge Immigration and Refugee Forum in the Bharat Bhavan Cambridge (the Old Library on Mill Road just before the railway bridge) on Wednesday 6 October, 7.30 – 10.00 p.m. All welcome.