Scotsgait - the independent community for Scotland

The high-rise flats where a Russian family jumped to their deaths are, for many, the last stop before deportation.

Positive Action in Housing, a charity which supports refugees, said it currently had records of five families living in Block 63 who were facing imminent deportation. "The state of the flats is appalling," said the charity's director Robina Qureshi. "They're damp, run-down, awful places to live in – they're depression hell-holes.

"We have so many families in that area who have come into our offices crying and telling us they're thinking of ending it all. This case raises serious questions about the way the UK asylum system operates. Members of the public have a right to know if we have a fair asylum system, or one which terrorises vulnerable people to the point they would kill themselves."

Another asylum seeker, from the Republic of Guinea, who did not wish to be named for fear of jeopardising his Home Office case, said: "99 per cent of people here live in fear of being deported. Every day the threat is here because the Home Office are bullies – they treat us like animals. They build up hope but then just tell you lies. These people, they knew that if they are going to be sent home then they face being thrown in prison where they will be tortured or starved on one meal a day. They know they are going to die over a long time, maybe months or years, so they take a shortcut and kill themselves here quickly."

Cynthia Ayorinde, from Nigeria, has been in the UK for six years and has lived in the Red Road flats with her two children for the past six months.

"I have thought about taking my life and my children's lives," she said. "We share flats with drug addicts.

"My family and I spent two months in the Dungavel detention centre in July, but now, because I can't take living like this any longer, I have applied for assistance to go home to my country. I know it is a huge risk but I can't stay here, waiting until we lose hope."
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/...on-hope-1918347.html

If this is the best we can do for people seeking asylum, would it not be far better to drop the pretence entirely, and simply proclaim loudly and clearly to the rest of the world that asylum seekers from now on should not apply to come to Britain, because Britain does not want them?

Robin T Cox wrote:
If this is the best we can do for people seeking asylum, would it not be far better to drop the pretence entirely, and simply proclaim loudly and clearly to the rest of the world that asylum seekers from now on should not apply to come to Britain, because Britain does not want them?

I have a counter-proposal: Why don't we have a more secure grasp on who's entering the country under the auspices of asylum, then we can better afford to treat the deserving cases with more dignity and assistance?

dws wrote:
I have a counter-proposal: Why don't we have a more secure grasp on who's entering the country under the auspices of asylum, then we can better afford to treat the deserving cases with more dignity and assistance?

Exactly right. We have a duty to help the genuine cases but to do that effectively we need to be firm and fair in deporting the fakes without delay. There can be NO reason for letting people coming from France or any other European country claim asylum since they should have claimed it in the first safe country the came to. Far too many crooked lawyers are becoming millionaires by latching onto the chancers who want to stay in the UK because we shower them with benefits and free health care. We can't afford it.

It's pretty apparent that the British asylum administration is not fit for purpose. Instead of dealing with this problem, the UK government have simply tried to dump it as far away from Westminster as possible, and hide it from public scrutiny. Mary Dejevsky's piece in yesterday's Independent sets out the facts.

... despite all the commitments, targets and clean-start principles introduced in the wake of the 2006 figures, a new backlog of 30,000 asylum cases has built up – even though the number of claims, according to official figures, has been falling. The secret to this apparent contradiction lies in the number of reviews and appeals that follow the initial request. There now seems not the slightest chance that either the original, or the new, backlog will be eliminated, as intended, by 2011.

www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentato...purpose-1918375.html

She suggests the following changes:

The first is a narrowing of the practical definition of asylum, as applied by the UK. No country can admit everyone who claims a justified fear of persecution. Perhaps some of the campaigners who believe Britain is too mean might sponsor the legal settlement of those they believe to be hard done by, rather than encouraging their eternal, taxpayer-funded, appeals.

The second is the abbreviation of that same appeals process. Better advice for new arrivals would reduce the number of justified appeals. Only a minority succeed even then, but one success encourages others to try and the process can go on for years. Which is why there needs to be a third change. All who claim asylum should be detained until their case is resolved. A target deadline of a month would concentrate minds on both sides and eliminate the need for "dispersal". The three Kosovans would have known their fate much sooner.

At present, cases take so long that, even though the majority are refused, it is by then at least as cruel to threaten deportation as it would have been to deny asylum at the start. Such summary justice would inevitably draw protest. But would it be any less humane than what passes for an asylum system now?

If it's hard for an old imperial power to admit that Britain can no longer afford to be either the world's policeman or the world's first port of call for refugees, then it might be part of a welcome return to reality.