The dismantling of asylum
01 November 2003
The Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill passed its second reading on 17 December, scathed only by a small but passionate rebellion of 28 Labour back-benchers (of a total of 78 who voted against). The Bill, which is expected to be law within six months, will result in profound changes in the legal and constitutional landscape of Britain as well as stripping asylum seekers of further legal and social rights. The Home Affairs Select Committee, reporting on the Bill on 9 December, joined a large number of concerned groups and individuals, including the Immigration Lawyers Practictioners’ Association (ILPA), JUSTICE, the Law Society and London mayor Ken Livingstone in expressing serious concerns about its provisions. The Committee also objected to the haste with which the Bill was being rushed through, complaining that it ‘has been introduced with insufficient advance information to enable proper consultation or prior parliamentary scrutiny of the principles involved.’ To add insult to injury, the Commons was given only six hours to debate it on second reading.
The Bill – Labour’s third on asylum since 1997 – further criminalises asylum seekers by creating offences for those arriving with no documents or refusing to co-operate with removal; introduces electronic tagging for asylum seekers; gives immigration officers more arrest, search and seizure powers; withdraws all asylum support from families who don’t leave ‘voluntarily’ when their asylum appeal is dismissed; extends the definition of ‘safe countries’ and removes appeal rights – the provision of the least interest to the press, and of the most concern to organisations representing asylum claimants.
Penalising undocumented asylum seekers
Clause 2 of the Bill makes it a criminal offence to arrive undocumented. A non-EEA national who is unable, without reasonable excuse, to show a valid passport or other travel document to an immigration officer on arrival, for him- or herself or for dependent children, may face up to two years’ imprisonment (six months in the magistrates’ court), and an unlimited fine.
Very few asylum seekers have their own passports – in fact, possession of one’s own passport is taken by immigration officers to mean that the holder is not a genuine refugee, since (they argue) the authorities of a persecuting country are unlikely to issue their opponents with the means of escape. Agents bringing asylum seekers to the UK generally provide them with false travel documents which they need to board the aircraft, ferry or train bringing them here, and tell their charges to destroy or dispose of them (to cover the agents’ tracks). But under the Bill, being instructed by an agent to destroy or dispose of travel documents is not a ‘reasonable excuse’.
JUSTICE and the Law Society expressed concern that the proposals will contravene the UN Refugee Convention. Article 31 of the Convention, recognising the difficulties genuine refugees are likely to face in reaching safe countries, bans the imposition of penalties on refugees who enter the country illegally, provided they claim asylum promptly and ‘show good cause’ for their illegal entry. In 1999, the High Court denounced the immigration, police and prosecuting authorities for their contravention of Article 31, and the government was forced to pay compensation to hundreds of asylum seekers who had been sent to prison for terms of six to nine months for entering the UK on false documents. In response to the High Court criticism, the government enacted legislation which provided a defence to the charge of possession of false documents. Now, that experience seems to be forgotten in the rush to deter yet further asylum seekers.
Beverley Hughes, the renamed Minister of State for Citizenship, Immigration and Counter-Terrorism, says the principal purpose of Clause 2 is to “break the hold of the criminal facilitators”. She told the Home Affairs Committee that the positi