reached an all-time record level last year, it is hard to keep track of what rights disappeared when. SARAH PARKER investigates the countdown to crackdown. 1993, 1996,1999, 2002. A feat of construction, building on what has already been accomplished." - Steve Cohen, immigration lawyer formerly of Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit. Trive governmens bring in a bar. HE LAST decade has seen succesrage of laws so extensive and so draconian that a summary cannot convey the full picture: readers wishing to explore in more detail are recommended to visit some of the web sites available (see below)
Up to 1993, no specific asylum legislation existed in the UK. Refugees were accepted or not on the basis of interpretation of the United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees of 195l as amended by the 1967 Protocol. Very little was written down about the status and rights of refugees and it was not clear what status the UN Convention had in British law.
The 1993 Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act incorporated the UK's obligation under the |95l Convention into UK law. It allowed asylum seekers whose application was refused to appeal but laid down strict time limits. It forced all asylum seekers including children to be fingerprinted.
This legislation also allowed the detenappeals for asylum seekers from white list countries or whose applications were said by the Home Office to "lack credibility" -because the Home Office refused to believe their story.
The 1996 Act introduced restrictions on employment, and made it an offence for employers knowingly to employ someone with false or no documentation.
It restricted entitlement to housing for asylum seekers and removed welfare benefit for anyone not claiming asylum with an Immigration Officer immediately on arrival.
The most important provision of New Labour's Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 was the introduction of the forced dispersal scheme - compulsory removal to anywhere within the country, to be housed in no-choice housing.
It brought in £2000 fines under carriers' liability for operators of planes, boats and rail and road traffic, thus turning transport operators into immigration police.
Powers were granted to prepare removal directions and deportation notices in advance of a decision of an asylum claim, and new powers were granted to impose residency restrictions on asylum seekers including curfews and accommodation in special hostels.
The 1999 legislation denied local authority care in the community provision to asylum seekers and others subject to immigration controls, transforming social services departments from caring into repressive agencies.
The Terrorism Act 2000 potentially defines all protests and any activity that might affect the health and security of any country as terrorism. It proscribes 21 foreign organisations, and criminalises alleged association with them.
One major effect has been to criminalise whole refugee communities by associating them with alleged terrorist activity here or migrants.
The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 gave a special exemption from the Act for immigration officers, giving them powers to subject 8 ethnic groups to "a more rigorous examination than other persons in the same circumstances" .... ..... The entire state machinery plus the private sector is now engaged in the hounding of migrants .. . .
A number of the groups, especially Kurds, Roma, Tamils and Pontic Greeks are of course unlikely actually to be in possession of passports attesting to their ethnic origin. Immigration officers are therefore forced to rely on personal appearance, means of arrival, country of departure, and other arbitrary criteria as a guide as to whom they should apply these regulations
The Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 200l contains various dra. conian powers including to detain foreign nationals indefinitely without trial if they are alleged to be associated with terrorism (as in the new catch-all definition).
The Nationality, and Immigration Act 2002 brings in a new three stage system: induction centres (for for a two way exchange of immigration A second effect has been to block Detainees in the notorious Campsfield immigration prison near Oxford initial questioning), accommodation centres (open prisons) and finally removal centres (closed prisons).
Those not detained in accommodation centres will be forced to make expensive and inconvenient journeys to reporting centres. Initially, in an experimental phase for 3000 refugees, planned to run from 2005, this system will run parallel to the dispersal scheme.
The Home Office's search for possible sites for these prisons, on top of all the past few years' nonsense in the press, is what is fuelling the protests In Bicester, Sittingbourne, Gosport etc.
The 2002 Act attempts to limit availability of judicial review proceedings in challenging decisions of the Immigration Appeals Tribunal, and abolishes several categories of appeal, including until after the expulsion of any refugee whose claim has been certified by the Home Secretary to be "clearly unfounded". Also appeals about fear of persecution will only be heard after those in fear have been removed (whether or not the asylum claim is considered unfounded).
In the 2002 legislation the White List (a list of countries considered "safe" so that claims will be treated as unfounded) has been re-introduced. List includes the EU accession states, and hence the eastern European countries where Roma people are seriously at risk.
The concept of the "manifestly or clearly unfounded claim" was first introduced at a European level in 1992 by a Council of Ministers Resolution and accepted by UNHCR (a body supposedly working to help asylum seekers) in 1993. The latest legislation is just the British manifestation of a European-wide attack on asylum-seekers.
The Home Office is no longer the sole agency responsible for immigration controls. Instead the entire state machinery plus the private sector is now engaged in the hounding of migrants, immigrants and refugees - with the Home Office operating as the hub of the network.
The 1999 legislation for instance allowed information between the Home Office and chiefs of police, the Director General of the National Criminal Intelligence Service, the Director General of the National Crime Squad, the Commissioners of Customs and Excise, anyone providing statutory support to asylum seekers under the 1999 legislation (such as local authorities providing dispersed housing) ... and anyone else to be specified.
The latest Act consolidates this process and takes it further, for example obliging local authorities - without any request from the Home Office - to report on their own initiative any failed asylum seeker or anyone they consider to be here unlawfully and who attempts to claim the forbidden community care provision.
Since 8 January 2003 the new Act has led to loss of even NASS support to asylum seekers who apply in country and, in NASS's view, have not applied as soon as possible. This is leading to widespread destitution, homelessness, illness, and exposure to racist attacks.
On February 13 a judge in Felixstowe sentenced an Iraqi Kurd to nine months in jail (maximum could have been 2 years) for claiming asylum in a false name.
His barrister said in his defence that he had faced a choice of stealing to survive, or claiming again under a different name in the hope of succeeding and gaining access to food and lodging. His first claim had been turned down, although the situation within Iraq is such that the Home Office cannot even send him back there via an internationally accepted route.
He was caught when his fingerprints were found to match those on another application. The judge commented that such cases are becoming more common. SOURCES: Steve Cohen, Refugee Council (www.refugeecouncil.org.uk), Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (www.jcwi.org.uk). Roma Rights website, and Campaign Against Criminalising Communities website.
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10 soclalist resistance March 2003 • •