The fatal failings of the UK asylum system

The Guardian – Last weekend, three members of a family jumped together to their deaths from a Glasgow tower block. It’s said that they were Russians whose asylum claims had been rejected. However, most deaths among asylum seekers don’t make national news, as is made clear by a report compiled by Harmit Athwal for the Institute for Race Relations in 2006.

Driven to Desperate Measures catalogued the deaths of 213 asylum seekers, refugees and migrant workers who had been murdered in racist attacks or died in accidents since 1989; 57 had killed themselves, and – a little-known, appalling fact – nine of these had set themselves on fire, mostly in public places; and 11 died at their own hands in immigration detention centres or holding centres. But most of the suicides took place in the community, which can be a cold place for fugitives from horrors most of us will never have to face.

I rang Athwal to ask if there had been more suicides since her grim dossier came out. She opened a file and counted up to 39, although this, she said, wasn’t a comprehensive figure. She is the only person keeping count, getting details from asylum seeker and refugee networks, NGOs, charities, campaigners, social workers and local papers.

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Glasgow deaths raise concern over treatment of asylum seekers

Ekklesia – A charity has expressed concern at the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers after three people plunged to their deaths from the 15th floor of a block of flats in Glasgow.

The tragic incident took place on Sunday morning, 7 March 2010.

Police have been investigating the deaths of two men and a woman at the Red Road block of flats in the Springburn area of Glasgow, reports Independent Catholic News (http://www.indcatholicnews.com/).

The identity of the three has not been confirmed, but neighbours believe they may be asylum seekers from Kosovo whose applications were rejected.

Robina Qureshi, the director of Positive Action in Housing (PAH), said: “The Red Road flats has housed hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers. We are concerned because [many] of our clients who are from refugee communities were living in the area. They live their daily lives under extreme pressure for years because their lives are on hold while they wait to hear if they will be granted leave to remain by the UK Borders Agency.”

Qureshi added: “As staff, we are daily confronted with the reality of asylum seekers coming into the office crying and upset because they have just been told they must leave the country and their money and housing is stopped a week later. It’s a big shock, having nowhere to live, no money for food, and being forbidden to work, and it’s like this for years, then they are faced with their biggest terror, destitution, disappearing or being detained.”

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Minister attends immigration debate in Wakefield

UKBA – Stakeholders in Wakefield had the opportunity to discuss immigration matters with the Minister for Borders and Immigration, Phil Woolas, at a regional ‘immigration debate’ event last week.

The minister joined Jeremy Oppenheim, the UK Border Agency’s regional director for the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber, for the question-and-answer session in Wakefield Town Hall. With them on the panel were Councillor Olivia Rowley, a Wakefield Council cabinet member and chair of the Regional Migration Partnership, and UK Border Agency deputy chief executive Jonathan Sedgwick.

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Detainees beaten: UKBA bosses to be quizzed

The Guardian – Senior Home Office officials will be questioned this week over allegations that women inside Yarl’s Wood immigration detention centre were assaulted by staff using riot shields.

The Observer has gathered a series of testimonies from detainees inside the Bedfordshire centre who claimed they had witnessed women being beaten and injured during a disturbance this month.

One image, taken inside Yarl’s Wood on a mobile phone, reveals extensive bruising to a woman’s shoulder and legs allegedly caused by staff during the incident on 8 February, days after dozens of asylum seekers instigated a hunger strike over the length of their detention. Another image shows injuries to a detainee’s finger after a guard had allegedly slammed a window on her hand.

On Tuesday, Lin Homer, chief executive of the UK Border Agency, and John Vine, the agency’s chief inspector, are expected to be questioned by the home affairs select committee over the claims, which are denied by staff.

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Women fast-tracked to asylum denial

The Guardian – The UK Border Agency has published a report today showing that targets to speed up the asylum procedure are unachievable. The chief inspector, John Vine, said that the agency deals with vulnerable people and “we should remember that, first and foremost, this is about people’s lives”.

But how do hundreds of women, including vulnerable ones with complex cases, end up in a Kafkaesque procedure known as the detained fast track (DFT) which is designed for straightforward cases with a quick resolution?

That’s the question posed in a new report by Human Rights Watch published this week, Fast-Tracked Unfairness: Detention and Denial of Women Asylum Seekers in the UK.

Our research has shown that women with complex asylum claims – often based on family violence, rape or trafficking – are now being shunted through this fast-track system, even though their cases are inherently not capable of quick resolution.

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Codes of practice for sponsored skilled workers

UKBA – The quarterly updates to the codes of practice for sponsored skilled workers have been published today.

If an employer wants to sponsor a migrant worker from outside Europe under Tier 2 or Tier 5 of the points-based system, they must use the codes of practice to:

• check the skill level and appropriate pay for that job; and
• find out where the job must be advertised in the UK before it can be offered to a migrant worker.

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Immigration and asylum statistics released

UKBA – Quarterly statistics covering immigration and asylum were published by the Home Office today.

These statistics include asylum applications, total removals for those illegally in the UK and migration from eastern Europe for the period October to December 2009.

Figures show that applications for asylum have dropped in the fourth quarter of 2009 to 4,765 – a 30 per cent reduction compared to the same quarter in 2008, and the lowest level since the second quarter of 1992.

Decisions on asylum cases have also risen 36 per cent compared to the same quarter in 2008, with the grant rate for asylum falling to 13 per cent.

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Huge rise in unresolved asylum cases revealed

The Guardian – Labour’s record on tackling asylum faces a fresh onslaught today over figures that show a new backlog of 30,000 cases and a warning by the government’s immigration watchdog that its targets are currently “unachievable”.

John Vine also makes clear that a special five-year exercise which began in 2006 to clear the legacy of 450,000 unresolved asylum cases is now unlikely to meet its July 2011 target completion date. The setbacks mean that despite progress the Labour government will go into the ­general election campaign unable to claim that the asylum system has been fixed after John Reid famously declared the Home Office’s immigration directorate “unfit for purpose” in May 2006.

The report from Vine, his first on ­asylum as the UK Border Agency’s independent inspector, says there is no belief among frontline immigration staff that their official target of resolving 90% of new asylum applications within six months by the end of next year is achievable.

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Fewer asylum seekers and immigrants arrive in UK

The Guardian – The number of new asylum seekers coming to Britain has plummeted by 30% in the past year and the flow of central and east European migrants, including from Poland, has also continued to decline, according to the 2009 immigration figures published today.

However, the Office of National Statistics said there was little change in the pattern of long-term migration to Britain with 518,000 people coming to the UK to live, work or study in the year to June 2009 and 370,000 leaving to live abroad.

This gives a net migration figure of 147,000 for the year to June 2009 — a decline from the net migration figure of 168,000 the previous year and further undermining claims that Britain’s population will hit 70 million by 2029.

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Rules change for foreign students to be debated

Free Movement – The Lib Dems have tabled an objection to the latest Immigration Rules changes, covered earlier here on the blog. Under the ’scrutiny-lite’ negative resolution procedure by which the rules become law there will therefore, unusually, be a debate in Parliament on the new rules. Although on past form probably not until after they have taken effect.

I can only assume that the educational lobby is behind this, rather than any point of principle the Lib Dems have suddenly fixed on. As discussed earlier, universities are being very hard hit on two fronts right now. Central government is slashing direct funding, while UKBA has also slaughtered the cash cow that were foreign students. Part of the cut-backs to the numbers of foreign students is no doubt deliberate, but a lot of it also seems to be through accident and incompetence.

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