UK: Asylum refusals soar
01 January 1995
Figures released by the Refugee Council at the end of November 1994 confirm what those on the ground have been saying for some time: that the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act which came into force in 1993 marked a dramatic turnabout in the Home Office's treatment of asylum-seekers. While those recognised as refugees dropped from 7 per cent to 5 per cent of applicants, those allowed to stay on "exceptional leave" dropped from 77 per cent to 20 per cent. This meant that the total of those refused and vulnerable to removal rose from 16 per cent of all applicants to 75 per cent.
The category of "exceptional leave to remain", or ELR, is a humanitarian category which is given to those fleeing conditions which do not amount to persecution within the definition of the Geneva Convention. This includes those fleeing war, civil war or anarchy, or ecological disaster. In the years leading up to the Act, refugee groups and supporters claimed that ELR was being used as a kind of second-class refugee status, to deny rights, such as family reunion and home student grants for education, which would flow from recognition as a refugee. People granted exceptional leave had to wait four years before being eligible to send for their families or to get other rights. Thus, 97 per cent of applicants from Sri Lanka (almost all Tamils), and 66 per cent of applicants from Turkey (mostly Kurds) were granted ELR in 1992-93, while 1 per cent and 20 per cent respectively were given full refugee status.
As the 1993 Act progressed through parliament, ministers claimed that ELR was granted to asylum applicants, not because of the strength of their cases or the dangers they faced on their return, but solely because of the length of time applications had taken to process, during which time people had put down roots in the UK. (This argument was derided by observers who recalled that the Home Office routinely deports people who have been in Britain for many years and have children born here). So, the ministers maintained, the new, streamlined asylum procedures would render the grant of ELR unnecessary in most cases.
They have been as good as their word. The average time taken to process an asylum claim has been cut from years to months. And now, only 16 per cent of asylum-seekers from Sri Lanka are allowed to stay, compared with 98 per cent before the Act; 21 per cent of people from Turkey may stay, as opposed to 86 per cent before the Act; 17 per cent of Chinese applicants may stay, compared with 57 per cent before the Act. While improved conditions in some countries, such as Ethiopia, account for the dramatically increased rate of refusal for their nationals, improvements in most of the other countries covered by the figures are hard if not impossible to detect.
The conclusion, which is confirmed by those working with asylum-seekers, is that the Home Office is returning many people to conditions of terror and turmoil, and is justifying its actions by reference to the strict wording of the refugee Convention. In this it is acting in concert with other European states. In common with Sweden, Switzerland Germany and other western European states, Britain is attempting to repatriate various groups to their homelands, including Tamils to Sri Lanka, Albanians to Kosovo and Bosnians to Croatia.