Workers' Daily Internet Edition: Article Index :

No One Is Illegal!

Refugee Council: Government Asylum Measures are "unprincipled, unworkable and expensive"

Refugee Council Condemns Government Extension of "White List"

Joint NGO Letter to Prime Minister on World Refugee Day

Public Meeting: No Forced Returns! Defend Kurdish and Afghani Refugees!

European Union leaders on Thursday declined to back the plan put forward by the British government to set up so-called "safe areas" or "zones of protection" in or near conflict zones and outside the EU before claims for asylum are considered. EU member states like Germany and Sweden launched a fierce attack on the plan, saying this would break the Geneva Convention on Refugees. Nevertheless, the EU summit did agree to put extra funds towards ensuring that "illegal immigrants" are not able to pass through the EU’s external frontiers. This suggests that the EU leaders’ policy is not one of principle, but one of differences as to how the issue of refugees is to be handled. For example, Germany is sensitive to plans which carry with them the accusation of setting up "concentration camps", while at the same time is fearsomely exploiting its own "guest workers".

"This proposal has troubled most EU nations," Greek government spokesman Panos Beglitis told reporters. "Europe must remain a democratic area which provides asylum and does not have concentration camps."

It was reported that Britain may now try to pursue its asylum plans on a bilateral level with other member states – potentially the Netherlands, Denmark, Austria and Ireland, which backed the plans.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said that Britain would continue to push for the EU – together with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – to help poor countries create so-called "protection zones" for refugees in regions of conflict.

Meanwhile, the government announced on June 17 that it is closing the door to asylum seekers from another seven countries which are deemed to be "safe". For the first time the so-called "white list" of countries from which asylum applications are unlikely to succeed will include states in South America, Africa and the Indian subcontinent.

It is known that Britain and other leaders of the "old Europe" apply a fundamentally racist attitude on the question of immigration. Their policy is also driven by requirements of cutting back on social spending, while driving down the wages of working people. In the conditions of the growing crisis and having to compete in the globalised world market, both are factors affecting the immigration policy. There is a need for the British and other EU governments to divert working people’s attention from the causes and characteristics of the crisis, while at the same time the way they treat "asylum seekers and illegal immigrants" is at the forefront of their attacks on the human rights of the majority of their populations. While all countries have their immigration policies, the slogan "No One Is Illegal" encapsulates and highlights this widespread violation of human rights carried out by the British and other governments in the name of combating "illegal immigrants" and "asylum seekers".

Part and parcel of this racist policy is an attack on the notions of citizenship and identity – the insistence by the British government that to become citizens of Britain, immigrant and national minority communities must adopt "British values" and become assimilated in the "host community". This racist policy is being stepped up in the context of the "war against terrorism", which also seeks to divert attention from addressing real solutions to society’s problems by focusing on the "terrorist" issue, as well as seeking to create further divisions among the people through the spurious identification of particular groups of immigrants, particularly Muslims, as being "terrorist".

The British working class and people must oppose the racist and anti-human policies of the government on immigration and asylum, as well as the policies summed up in the phrase "Fortress Europe", and all policies which seek to violate the human rights of immigrants and asylum seekers. They must recognise that it is the neo-liberal programmes, aggression and the legacies of colonialism that are uprooting peoples and impoverishing the world’s populations in the first place. That the state is seeking to criminalise whole sections of the people is unacceptable and the struggle against this programme must be stepped up.

In the week leading up to the EU Heads of State summit in Thessaloniki, Greece, the Refugee Council published a report "Unsafe Havens, Unworkable Solutions" criticising new British plans to process all asylum seekers outside the EU. On June 16, the government announced that it no longer intended to pursue its plans to set up "transit" camps "outside", or "on the border" with the EU.

However, still on the table are plans by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The UNHCR's approach to addressing asylum at the EU level advocates detaining those people whose asylum applications are deemed "manifestly unfounded" – that is, people from so-called "safe" countries – in similar camps to those planned by Britain only inside, rather than outside, the EU.

The British proposals are "unprincipled, unworkable, legally problematic and expensive", says Margaret Lally, acting Chief Executive of the Refugee Council. These critical areas are outlined in the report.

Unprincipled
Poorer countries will be expected to shoulder the responsibility for sheltering asylum seekers while their claims are being processed
The camps are likely to be operated as detention centres, meaning people who have not committed any crime – including women and children – will be locked up.
It is unclear how the basic human rights of those in the camps will be protected.

Unworkable
The consequence of the implementation of these proposals will be the creation of "super-Sangattes" – enormous centres which are likely to expand uncontrollably as removals fail to keep up with new arrivals.
As with Sangatte, the camps may well be a target for people smugglers, and thus hinder the government's attempts to crack down on this activity.

Legal concerns
Legal safeguards in place in the UK system will not be present in these camps, and access to legal advice and representation will be severely restricted. This could well result in the wrong decisions being made on people's claims for asylum.
The camps are unlikely to provide conditions and levels of protection necessary to meet the standards required by the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Refugee Convention.

Expensive
The cost of implementing these proposals, which involve moving tens of thousands of people from the UK to have their claims for asylum assessed and then returned to the UK or other EU countries if successful, as well as setting up and running the camps, will be astronomical.
The Refugee Council also raises concerns about alternative proposals being put forward by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Though this approach goes some way to mitigating some of the worst aspects of the government's plans, it fails to address some of the most problematic areas of the British proposals, such as detention. It is also contrary to the principle that no country is safe for all people all of the time.

In response to the government's announcement to extend the list of so-called "safe" countries to include Brazil, Equador, Bolivia, South Africa, Ukraine, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, the Refugee Council's acting chief executive, Margaret Lally said: "This worrying assumption by the Government that asylum seekers are the equivalent of ‘guilty before proven innocent’ could leave vulnerable individuals sent home to face persecution."

Margaret Lally continued: "The inclusion of Sri Lanka on this list proves once again that the Government does not take protection of refugees seriously. The number of asylum seekers from Sri Lanka has reduced significantly as a consequence of greater confidence in the Norwegian-backed peace process, but the situation remains fragile and many individuals are still at risk, as evidenced by the 170 successful appeals in the first three months of this year. Under the new proposals these 170 individuals would have been denied their right to appeal their erroneous Home Office decision within the UK."

Asylum applicants from countries deemed to be safe by the Home Office will have no right of appeal in Britain if their claims are refused and certified as "clearly unfounded". The only right applicants whose claims have been certified have is a "non-suspensive appeal" against the certification, which they can only make from outside Britain.

Failed asylum applicants from countries designated as "safe" are fast-tracked through Oakington reception centre in Cambridgeshire, where people are held under detention powers. The current additions bring the "white list" to a total of twenty-four countries.

The first list of countries from where asylum claims will have no right of appeal in Britain if their claims are refused was announced on October 7, 2002. The list consisted of the ten EU accession countries: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia.

The second list was announced on February 6, 2003, and included Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania and Serbia and Montenegro.

20 June 2003

Today, on World Refugee Day, twelve leading refugee and human rights organisations are writing to Tony Blair to highlight their grave concerns about Britain’s asylum proposals ahead of the EU Heads' of States Summit in Thessaloniki, Greece on June 20-21.

Margaret Lally, acting Chief Executive of the Refugee Council, writing to the Prime Minister on behalf of all the organisations, says, "The European Council Summit falls on World Refugee Day and we urge the Prime Minister not to be seen to be letting go of the global safety net that protects the world's refugees. These proposals will be seen as shifting responsibility for asylum seekers and refugees to some of the poorest countries in the world and sends a dangerous signal about the UK's commitment to human rights."

The joint letter raises three main areas of serious concern about Britain’s proposals to establish "Zones of Protection" in regions close to refugee-producing countries, and the plans to return and determine people's asylum claims outside the EU.

The three fundamental questions the organisations ask of the proposals are:

1. Are the proposals lawful?

The organisations question the legitimacy of the proposals, and whether there will be sufficient safeguards in place to ensure the individual right to seek and enjoy asylum, as enshrined within international law, is maintained.

2. Are the proposals necessary and proportionate to the aim?

The proposals seem to ignore that the number of asylum applications to the EU have halved between 1992 and 2001, and risen only slightly since then. A more proportionate approach would be to invest in high quality initial asylum decisions across Europe, which would ensure those in need of protection can quickly begin rebuilding their lives.

3. Are the proposals workable?

The safety of refugee camps, and "safe havens" have frequently been called into question. Refugees in camps in Africa have been subjected to armed attack, sexual violence and forced recruitment into militia groups.

The proposals appear to involve long-term detention of people who have committed no crime, which is both resource-intensive and most probably unlawful.

Signatories to the joint letter to the Prime Minister are:
Kate Allen, Director, Amnesty International UK
Peer Baneke, General Secretary, European Council for Refugees and Exiles
Keith Best, Chief Executive, Immigration Advisory Service
Sandy Buchan, Chief Executive, Refugee Action
Margaret Lally, acting Chief Executive, Refugee Council
Elizabeth Little, Executive Director, Refugee Arrivals Project
Alyoscia D'Onofrio, Director, IRC UK
Habib Rahman, Chief Executive, JCWI
Rick Scannell, Chair, Immigration Law Practitioners Association
Malcolm Smart, Director, Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture
Barry Stoyle, Chief Executive, Refugee Legal Centre
John Wadham, Director, Liberty