UK: Immigration and asylum: new policies?
01 May 1997
Campaigners are waiting for Labour to make good its pre-election promises to repeal the most objectionable parts of the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996 and to put in place fairer criteria and procedures for asylum-seekers, families and visitors to the UK.
Abolition of "white list"
Since its election, the government has confirmed its intention to scrap the 'white list' of countries deemed safe (currently India, Pakistan, Ghana, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Poland and Romania), whose citizens applying for asylum are subjected to fast-track procedures and restricted appeals under the 1996 Asylum and Immigration Act. It has also confirmed that it will not enforce the Act's employer sanctions, which force employers to make checks on those they hire on pain of fines for employing those without permission to work. In opposition Labour said the measure would deter employers from employing ethnic minority staff.
Removals suspended
One of the new government's earliest acts in taking office in May was to suspend the removal of asylum-seekers to "safe transit countries". The 1996 Act removed the in-country right of appeal from such people, exposing many to the risk of chain deportations on return to France, Belgium and Italy. Labour is pledged to restore this appeal, which had a success rate of over 50% (although the appeal only won the right to have the asylum claim considered in the UK, and did not guarantee that the claim itself would succeed). Refugee workers were dismayed when removals resumed after only 36 hours, but are still confident that the appeal right will be restored soon. Meanwhile, removals to Zaire were suspended and after the overthrow of Mobutu by Laurent Kabila, Zaire was declared a "country of upheaval", which allows its citizens in the UK to claim asylum during the next three months without forfeiting benefit rights. In addition, no asylum-seekers were removed to Algeria after the (mistaken) report of the death of a rejected asylum-seeker who was returned there in late April.
Benefits for asylum-seekers
These are all welcome if small changes. Meanwhile, the government is conducting an urgent review of all asylum procedures, and it is therefore likely that substantial further changes are in the pipeline. The issue which will be the acid test for the new government's bona fides on asylum, however, is the restoration of subsistence benefits. They were removed from in-country and rejected asylum claimants by the Conservative administration by regulation and then, when that was declared unlawful, by adding the measure to the Asylum and Immigration Bill then going through Parliament (now the 1996 Act). Restoration of income support (which acts as a passport to other benefits such as free prescriptions) would be a lifeline for thousands of desperate asylum-seekers. So far, though, there has been no announcement, although in opposition Labour opposed the withdrawal of welfare benefits from asylum-seekers and pledged to restore some form of basic assistance.
A hopeful straw in the wind might be the government's late withdrawal from an appeal pending in the House of Lords. The previous government had lodged an appeal against the Court of Appeal's ruling that withdrawal of benefit was draconian and unworthy of a civilised country, which was due to be heard on 16 June. The Social Security Department under Harriet Harman decided, barely two weeks before the hearing, to pull the plug on it, saying that there was a "wide-ranging review" of all benefits in process.
Meanwhile, however, asylum-seekers are suffering in conditions of utter penury under the previous government's rules. Local authorities are shipping them out to far-flung areas to comply cheaply with their duty to feed and house those who are destitute; both Westminster and Camden announced their intention in May of sending their asylum-seekers to hostels in Toxteth, Liverpool, which would be much cheaper than keeping them in Lond