Labour Policy Watch: Immigration and Asylum

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Immigration and Asylum
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	Under the Tories, it became increasingly difficult for those fleeing persecution in other countries to obtain their right of refuge here e.g. if they came from a white list of safe countries or could be deported to a safe third country. Those who claimed asylum after arriving in the UK or who used their right to appeal against rejection were barred from getting benefits. Asylum seekers also lost many civil liberties, e.g. they could be detained without being accused of any crime or have premises searched without a warrant. Employers, benefit offices, local authority housing departments, medical staff and even headteachers were expected to check people's immigration status.
	Labour policy was:
	1	To place no restrictions on asylum seekers reaching the UK
	2	To place no restrictions on their rights once here including appeal rights
	3	To respect their civil liberties, e.g. opposing fingerprinting
	4	Consideration of their cases should be fair and based on natural justice
	5	To ban the use of unregulated private security firms in deportations
	6	To comply fully with the 1951 Geneva convention on refugees
	7	For a non-racist immigration policy which would not inflame racial tensions
	8	Not to discriminate against the immigrant population of Britain
	In fact under New Labour:
	1	Many asylum applicants never got here, being vetted at embassies abroad or stopped at borders, and there were targets for reduced numbers applying
	2	Rights to benefits were replaced by a support system later reduced to �5 per day, the ban on work was extended from 6 months to indefinitely, and there were new restrictions on judicial review and appeal rights
	3	Civil liberties were further eroded, e.g. Amnesty estimated that 25,000 were locked up in 2004, and this included babies and children
	4	Some clues to the fairness of the system: numbers refused because of problems with the application form - before any consideration of the facts - rose from 1085 in 1999 to 23,795 in 2000; and success rates for asylum claims fell from 34% in 2002 to 11% in 2004
	5	Private firms still deported "failed" asylum seekers, provided most of the accommodation and ran the detention centres
	6	Some of the above policies breached the Geneva convention, and Britain proposed revising it to allow further restrictions on rights
	7	Immigration decisions were specifically excluded from race relations laws, found to be racist for Czech Roma and alleged to be so for Zimbabwe. The police, UN and European bodies expressed concern that speeches on asylum were followed by increases in racial attacks
	8	Some immigrants were refused some basic social care services and social workers had to carry out immigration checks on people asking for help
	In addition:
		Dispersal left many applicants in condemned properties, with hostile neighbours and no local legal advice
		Many foreign workers, e.g. in agriculture, worked illegally and were criminally exploited by bad employers while good ones lobbied for a change in the rules
		As the asylum system tightened, Blunkett said he could see no limit on the amount of immigrant labour Britain needed, we welcomed 600,000 from the EU's new accession countries and the census found that a million more Britons had emigrated than we had thought
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