"often delay making a claim because they are exhausted and traumatised after a long journey, unaware of procedures or fearful of dealing with the authorities"

I never heard such a pathetic apology of an explanation. Is that really the best you can do to try to denigrate a long-overdue and totally fair and rational policy.

If you want asylum here, you bloody well ask for it when you arrive. Any delay at all must cast doubt on your motives.

Surely, unless there is something devious in your mind, that first meeting with a UK customs man is what youve been longing for.

Do I call an ambulance and hide from the ambulance man ?

How can this Law possibly be RACIST ? Does it not apply to all asylum seekers ? Is there a clause stating how race is to be determined (skin colour tests , I suppose) and how different races are to be treated differently ?

I can accept you might fear that discretion may be given to the police or immigration officials, and you might suspect that this discretion may be used with racial prejudice, but that is not a feature of the new Law itself unless it includes racist clauses.

Please get your thoughts a bit clearer, and try to understand that the responsibility for not being blinded by prejudice lies not only with the government, but with each of us too.

By blindly attacking apparently reasonable legislation you weaken your credibility, and make it less likely you will be taken seriously when there is something you SHOULD attack. And there is much.

I haven't read this law - maybe you have. Maybe there is indeed something unacceptable in it - if so it is not highlighted in your posting.

Try again ?

"If you want asylum here you bloody well ask for it when you arrive".

OK, you ignorant twat- imagine; you're in the back of a truck; either your trafficker orders you to get off, or you jump out when the vehicle stops to avoid getting caught and confronted by the driver. You don't speak English.

Where would YOU go to claim asylum, now you've "bloody well arrived"? The police? OK- once you've managed to find a station and the courage to go in - they MIGHT call Immigration- or they might tell you to piss off cos they can't be arsed or they don't believe you.

IF they call Immigration, IND MIGHT come out to interview you. Or they might tell the coppers to piss off because they can't be arsed, or they don't believe the story.

In short, you'd be fucked. So why not learn a couple of basic facts before embarrassing yourself with your ill-informed spray of luke-warm shit?

Please could you outline the procedure for claiming asylum on arrival in the UK?

Don't know? Then maybe you can explain how a refugee fleeing for their life from another country is supposed to.

“a long-overdue and totally fair and rational policy.”

Interesting that you label the law such, without having read it, or anything about it.


“Do I call an ambulance and hide from the ambulance man?”

I spoke to a 15 year old girl from Burundi 2 days ago. I was trying to help her access help from Social Services, who were reluctant to help without the Police first having interviewed her, despite the clear duties set out in the Children Act. She was on her own, just arrived in the UK, left in the city by a trafficker.

She was scared out of her wits. In her country, if you need protection, the last people you go to for help is the authorities. In the course of the interview, it emerged that her father had been murdered by policemen, and that she had been raped by policemen. She had been told that the UK was a safe country, but how does she know this when she arrives? How does she know who to trust? Refugee support organisations can help people overcome these fears, but not always immediately.

If your father has been murdered by a policemen, and you, as a child, have been recently raped by policemen, would you call the Police as soon as you arrived in a strange country? If all you know is a life of oppression, where all authority figures have the potential to abuse, rape or murder you, how can you trust a uniformed Immigration Officer or Police Officer?

And can you imagine how it feels to live in a country where you arrive at the decision that the safest bet to protect your child’s life is to sell everything you own to pay someone to take her away, having to trust that they will actually deliver her to a place of safety? Can you imagine how that feels? And if you were in that situation, how would you feel if someone called you a scrounger?


“How can this Law possibly be RACIST ? Does it not apply to all asylum seekers ? Is there a clause stating how race is to be determined (skin colour tests , I suppose) and how different races are to be treated differently?”

It only applies to people from outside the EU. Perhaps reactionary, cruel, xenophobic, pandering to the far-right would have been better choices of words. It is an attack on the basic rights of non-EU citizens. It just happens that the vast majority of these people do not have white skin. These people are treated differently because they have no right to support themselves or seek help from the state while they pursue an asylum application.

There is another aspect to this law. It was created as a reaction to the racist outpourings of the mainstream media, an attempt to appear tough on the asylum “problem”. In fact, there is no problem. This country takes a tiny percentage of refugees, less than 2% of the world total, and around 3% of refugees in Europe. If you consider global refugee and asylum seeking populations in relation to the host country's size, population and wealth, the UK ranks 32nd. Taking the greatest burden are Iran, Burundi and Guinea.


”I can accept you might fear that discretion may be given to the police or immigration officials, and you might suspect that this discretion may be used with racial prejudice, but that is not a feature of the new Law itself unless it includes racist clauses.”

Discretion is given to 10 people employed by the Home Office in Croydon. If support is withheld, no reason is given, and there is no right of appeal. This means that a person is told that, unlike everyone else in the country, they are not covered by the Human Rights Act. They do not qualify as human beings with the right to life. They have no entitlement to food or clothing or shelter, or to the means to support themselves. They are banned from working, and banned from any state support. They are not banned, however, from seeking asylum. The government accepts that 65% of these people would, if allowed to pursue their application, be accepted as refugees, that is, accepted as people genuinely fleeing persecution.

For more information on breaches of human rights, see:
 http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/press/press-releases-2003/asylum-destitution-law-liberty-challenge.shtml


“I haven't read this law - maybe you have. Maybe there is indeed something unacceptable in it - if so it is not highlighted in your posting.”

It is obvious that you haven’t read the law. I didn’t expect many people to have read it, hence the links. I have the read the law. I have followed its passage through parliament since the unveiling of the White Paper in February 2002.

It is obvious that this law is not designed to prevent abuse of the asylum system, as the Home Office readily admits that 65% of people seeking asylum in-country will eventually receive a positive decision on their claim, that is, the government will accept that they have a “well-founded fear of persecution”, as defined by the 1951 United Nations Convention relating to Refugees, and the 1967 protocol which extended this convention to countries outside of Europe.

But how are you supposed to keep in touch with solicitors, attend Home Office interviews to present your case etc, when you are living rough on the streets?

My post was the reporting of a new law that withdraws the basic human rights of thousands of people, based on their country of origin, ie, if they originate from outside of the EU. It included my opinion of the law, which was an explanation of why I thought it may be of interest to other users of imc, followed by links for people who are interested to find out more information.

Perhaps if you bothered your arse to follow the links then you would be able to form an opinion yourself, or does your brain only have the capacity to regurgitate the opinions of the Daily Mail?

I read no newspaper.
I form my own views.
The prime document I need to read to have a more informed view about this law is the text of this law itself. This I am willing to do, but I don't have time to go search for it.
I have clicked on your links, and I find many links giving views, which I have not time to read. There may be a link to the official text of the law in amongst them, but it is not clear which it is, nor do you even give me, that I can easily see, the exact name and date of this legislation in case I have time to search for it (which I don't).
I am perfectly willing to believe that if I do get to read it I may take just as strong an objection as you do. The point is that you have not succeeded in presenting here any precis which allows me to perceive what the objection may be.
I can't accept that because a policy happens statistically to affect people of one race more than another, that this means it has racist intent. I would very much like to take over the care of my young son who lives with his mother in one of the channel islands. There are signs she may not wish to care for him much longer, but if this happens the only way I can care for him is if he leaves his Island, his home, and his school. I cannot get a permit to live there, parental relationship or no. Almost all countries limit immigration, many admitting only people who were born there. If the territory happens to be single-race, and one that exists little elsewhere, then their entire policy is excluding people of other races. Does this make it racist ? To be fair, you do half-admit that you used this word inappropriately. But I think that in this it is you that is more guilty of unthinking knee-jerk reactions.

Of course, asylum seeking has its own special rules, and of course the stories you recount are heart-rending.

But I have to ask, if we exclude the extreme case of a completely ignorant minor dumped here with no consent, knowledge or briefing - to whom do the arrivals imagine they will appeal for this longed for safety ?

Can anyone rational imagine for a moment that it will not be necessary to make this appeal to a representative of the authorities. Would a person who equated the actions and responses of our authorities with those of the country they are fleeing have any reason to come here ? I think not.

Has someone led them to believe that they can obtain the asylum they seek via the medium of some secret, non-governmental organisations? If so, they have been terribly abused, and we must do all we can to get the word out that this is not so. It would seem that this law, and word of it getting abroad, might go some way toward reducing this abuse.

If you want me to take you seriously, please give me a straightthrough link to the official text of the law you object to. And tell me in a few clear sentences why you object, not using loaded words like "racist", but saying what practical bad things it will lead to in cases other than the most extreme.

Reading through you postings one more time, they seem to be the product of a closed and bigotted mind.
Why on earth do you waste our time with rubbish like:

"It only applies to people from outside the EU......... It is an attack on the basic rights of non-EU citizens."

Of course it doesn't apply to people inside the EU. They don't need to apply for asylum. They can all come and live here whenever they like, and vice versa ! Is this a criticism of the new law ? Is my exclusion from residence the United States an attack on my basic rights ?

As for all that junk someone posted about how no-one could know who to approach, and how the police would tell you to get lost. Well really ! You approach anyone who seems to be in authority. Even a postman would pass you on, wouldn't he ? And if you couldn't speak a word of English you certainly wouldn't be ignored. I would draw you a little map of how to get to the police station in no time. Walk into a bank. Sit in a farmers front porch, gesturing that you need help and passively refusing to leave. He'll soon get the local bobby.

Apparently it only says "as soon as practical" not "instantly or you've had it". And as you report it, it doesn't apply retrospectively, only to new arrivals. Presumably we are taking steps to publicise this as widely as possible. And surely the people who go off and dp other things for weeks only do this because someone has advised them it is OK. It's not a natural thing to do. Remember - avoiding the ambulance man ?

Come on - convince me. I am perfectly convinceable. You just aren't making any points I find logical.

I still haven't read it, of course. Link ?

Of all your points, I find this one only comes to me with some force:

"But how are you supposed to keep in touch with solicitors, attend Home Office interviews to present your case etc, when you are living rough on the streets? "

Certainly, the withdrawal of support from those who fail to apply promptly should not be done retrospectively, and should be enforced only with discretion during a run-in phase until we are sure it has been well-publicised, particularly to the traffickers so that they give the correct advice, and to the caring organisations, so that they do not collude in delays.

Presumably the purpose of the law is to discourage people from just "disappearing" and only applying when this strategy fails them.

Would I be naive to imagine that the proportion of genuine refugees might be significantly smaller amongst these "late appliers" than amongst the "prompt appliers"? Be strange if it wasn't, since surely only those less confident in their case would feel the need to "disappear"?

Doubtless to you this seems right-wing prejudice. To me it seems like common sense, and in some matters I am pretty left-wing.

For a short video of the demo outside the home office on the 8th, follow this link....

 http://uk.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=50288&group=webcast