Graham Peebles, Director of The Create Trust, a UK
registered charity, has written an informative article on the Dissident Voice website that is worth quoting from.
“The numbers of asylum seekers (people fleeing conflict and
persecution of one kind or another) arriving in the UK are small, tiny in fact
– in 2014, according to UNHCR, a total of 31,400 people applied for asylum in
Britain. At the end of 2014, UNHCR relates, ‘refugees, pending asylum cases and
stateless persons made up just 0.24% of the UK population.’”
[Scarcely the swarm Cameron describes or the flood the media
depicts it - SOYMB]
Of the 25,870 decisions on asylum reached in 2014 (note:
these were decisions not applications) over 60% were refusals. This, however,
is not the end of the road for the unsuccessful applicants, but a bureaucratic
hurdle on a long, stressful journey that sees asylum seekers treated as
outcasts and criminals, thrown into poverty and social isolation. The arduous,
long-winded process is roughly as follows: Apply for asylum – receive £35.96
per week and some tatty accommodation, if refused, appeal (66% of appeals were
refused in the year ending March 2015, and only 29% allowed) – continue to
receive the cash and a roof over your head. If the appeal fails but new
evidence is forthcoming, or a change in the law has occurred, make a ‘fresh’
claim, and continue to collect the asylum support, which as well as
accommodation includes access to the National Health Service. If this fails,
appeal one last time. Refusal can lead to deportation – voluntary or forced.
In 2014, 3,568 people sought asylum in the UK from
Eritrea. This is double the previous
year’s total. They flee the country because of intense religious and political
persecution, and to avoid a lifetime of military service – for men and women –
in a country where human rights are virtually non-existent. According to Human
Rights Watch (HRW) the most common patterns of abuse include: “forced labor
during conscription; arbitrary arrests, detentions, and disappearances; torture
and other degrading treatment in detention; restrictions on freedoms of
expression, conscience, and movement; and repression of religious freedom.” Eritrea
also holds the title for highest levels of child labour in the world as well as
the greatest levels of media censorship. People sent back face the wrath of the
ruling regime. A detailed report published by the UN in June 2015, reveals that
returnees “are often arrested and detained for up to three years,” during which
time they are “systematically ill-treated to the point of torture.” In March
2015 the UK government issued new, and flawed, ‘guidance’ on Eritrean asylum
seekers, stating it was safe for them to be returned to their country of
origin. The Home Office responded swiftly and the percentage of applicants
being granted leave to remain plummeted from 73% in the first quarter of 2015
to 36% in the second. In light of the UN report and widespread outrage this misguided
‘guidance’ is now under review.
Despite the government’s aim to process appeals within two
months of an initial decision, it can take years before asylum seekers receive
a final decision. Home Office figures state that as of March 2015, 21,651
applications “received since April 2006… were pending a decision” – positive or
negative. That’s ten years. And these vulnerable people – many of whom have
been through hell – can do nothing but wait; living in poverty under a cloud of
intense suspicion.
They cannot work: a nonsensical, politically motivated
regulation makes it illegal for asylum seekers to be gainfully employed; they
cannot claim state benefits; and are completely reliant on asylum support of
either £35.39 cash per week (under section 95 of the immigration act), or an
Azure payment card topped up weekly, with £35.39, and no cash (under section
4). As of March 2015 there were 15,000, failed asylum seekers and their
dependents in receipt of support; almost 5,000 were being supported under
Section 4.
The Azure card is a humiliating, deeply flawed system. The
cards are only valid in specified retailers and can only be used, the Red Cross
report, to “buy food, essential toiletries, clothing and credit for mobile
phones.” It was launched in 2006, costs £1.5 million a year to run and has been
widely criticized: “users struggle to provide enough food for their children
and other dependents”; it further stigmatizes asylum seekers, who are already
socially marginalized, and living in poverty.
School trips are not covered, nor are travel costs, making
“getting to essential appointments, such as medical and legal ones ……a huge
problem.” And because not all supermarkets accept the card, some people have to
walk long distances to get to a participating retailer. In desperation for
actual money, people are forced to sell the card for a fraction of its value,
ending up with less cash and no food. The Red Cross states the card “does not
allow refused asylum seekers to meet their basic needs and live with dignity.
It creates unnecessary suffering for people who are already in desperate
situations,” and is calling on the government to scrap the system.
If, after wading through the maze of applications and
exhausting all options, asylum is refused, people are given 28 days to leave
the country – voluntarily or be deported. Those who cannot return to their
country of origin for ‘reasons beyond their control’ — e.g., it’s not safe for
them to do so, are allowed to stay in the UK until the risk has diminished and
it’s safe for them to go home.
Given the desire to limit the already small number of asylum
seekers arriving and settling in Britain there is a political predisposition
towards denial. A political strategy that both feeds off, and strengthens, an
intolerant, misinformed nationalism amongst certain sections of the population.
In the year ending March 2015, according to government figures, 12,498 failed
asylum seekers were removed. The Home Office do not release the average time
between a claim being refused and removal; it can be years. Some people are
thrown into immigration detention centers prior to removal; prison-like
complexes condemned by a range of bodies, including the All Party Parliamentary
Group on Migration whose report recommends that these institutions are closed
down immediately.
The majority of asylum seekers do not have travel documents,
and the country of origin may well refuse to provide passports. Some nations,
the BBC relates, “do not allow the forced return of individuals, or demand
proofs of nationality that are almost impossible to meet.” Such bureaucratic
obstacles make some people un-returnable, and trapped in a nationless no-man’s
land of poverty and exclusion – no matter what decision is reached on their
asylum claim.
The Home Office (H.O.) removes people on commercial flights
or chartered planes. Between 2001 and 2014 “nearly 800 chartered flights” were
booked, at huge cost, to return failed asylum seekers to their countries of
origin. From the beginning of 2014 to June 2015 the H.O spent around £14
million on chartered flights, including, The Telegraph reports, “one plane at a
cost of £250,000 to return just one Moroccan deportee”. During this 18-month
period over 54 private jets were hired, carrying “an average of 53 passengers
per flight…in one instance, just 11 Afghan illegal immigrants were sent home in
one aircraft. On another occasion, a 265-seat plane was used to carry only 25
Nigerians.” In addition to flights for
actual deportees, according to Home Office accounts, “the Government spent
£1.58m [in 2014] on deportation flights which were booked before individuals were
granted the right to appeal and were then cancelled.”
Forced removal is expensive; the most up to date figures are
from 2005, when it cost £1,000 to deport someone who went voluntarily, but ten
times that to enforce it. This is another reason why the government makes
staying in Britain as uncomfortable as possible, so they will give up and leave
of their own free will – thereby saving the state a tidy sum. And it is the
motive behind a trial scheme to pay asylum seekers to leave.
Following a consultation paper on support for failed asylum
seekers, The Guardian reported that Conservative “Ministers have said they want
to take a more hardline approach to failed asylum seekers who have exhausted
all of their appeal rights, as part of a drive to demonstrate to those trying
to come to Britain that it is not “a land of milk and honey”. Such insulting
terminology, which is also blatantly false – asylum seekers cannot claim
benefit, nor are they allowed to work – casts doubt over asylum seekers’
motives and distorts the public discourse over asylum, and immigration more
broadly. Asylum seekers are men, women and children fleeing persecution, and
have the right to be treated with dignity and compassion, not intolerance, as
is so often the case.
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