Comment: Moving the asylum system offshore is not the answer
By Philippa McIntyre
Following Cameron, Clegg and Cooper's speeches last month, outlining a hard new line on immigration policy across parties, Conservative MP Julian Brazier has waded into the debate with controversial new proposals for cutting numbers.
One of the suggestions in his pamphlet An Overcrowded Land? is to introduce offshore processing centres for asylum seekers.
His rationale is that this would prevent non-EU economic migrants or students who have been refused entry or have overstayed their visas from claiming asylum as a way of avoiding deportation, and so that they can appeal while in the UK. There is no evidence to suggest this would happen. If their claim is unsubstantiated (as presumably, for example, claims from Australian people would be) these people will be quickly refused asylum anyway.
In addition, if Brazier believes this would also solve the 'asylum issue' and that offshore processing centres would help reduce numbers of people in the UK, he is mistaken. The numbers of asylum seekers in the UK are relatively small and make up a tiny percentage of the immigrant population. People fleeing conflict and persecution will continue to come to the UK or other safe countries via different routes, risking their lives to get to a place of safety by boat or over land, often at the hands of smugglers, as they currently do now.
It also sounds logistically problematic. Brazier's proposal is that we make deals with, I quote, "Third World countries with plenty of space", which neighbour countries that refugees flee from, such as Kenya. It would be interesting to see what the Kenyan authorities think of this, considering they are already host to most of the region's refugees, including the world's largest refugee camp of nearly half a million people.
The idea is that they will provide processing centres for Somali refugees before resettling the 'genuine' refugees in the UK. This presumably means refugees who arrive in the UK would need to be flown out to this centre to be processed, and then flown back to the UK if granted refugee status. The cost of this would be enormous.
But it is the human cost that concerns us most. This policy puts the need to prevent economic migrants from taking advantage of the asylum system first, and the UK's international obligation to protect people who are seeking safety in the UK second.
Brazier is clearly unaware of the situation facing people seeking asylum in Europe – he believes people should claim asylum in the first country they come to, but there is nothing in international law that says they should. He implies that people are making choices about where they claim asylum – again there is no evidence for this, as Refugee Council research Chance or Choice shows.
Brazier goes on to state asylum seekers should remain in Greece – perhaps he is unaware of the fact the European court of human rights has stated that the conditions for asylum seekers in Greece are inhuman and degrading, and that the UK government has accepted this.
Brazier himself notes the benefits immigrants have brought to our country – to entrepreneurship, broadcasting, culture and sport. Much has been said about the benefits refugees have brought to our communities, and the contributions they make to our society. If integration is one of Brazier's key concerns, surely it makes sense to allow children to get a head-start at school and learn English while their asylum claim is processed, so that they can more easily integrate when they are given permission to stay?
At the start of April, Theresa May disbanded the UK Border Agency, in the hope that bringing the immigration and asylum system within government and under the scrutiny of ministers will improve the process.
Moving the system to African countries is hardly in line with this strategy. While the catalyst for this change was the backlog of asylum cases, we believe their priority should be ensuring that the quality of decision-making on current asylum claims is radically improved.
Over a quarter of initial refusals on asylum claims are overturned at appeal, showing that many initial decisions are wrong first time. The cost of making a wrong decision is extremely high – being wrongly refused means being sent back to persecution, torture, or death.
Brazier himself notes that "no decent country returns people to their country of origin to face persecution". Yet this is clearly a serious risk under the current system.
The government's priority should therefore be to ensure people fleeing atrocities and persecution can get the protection they need at this moment. That means ensuring our asylum process is fair and effective, and means making sure decisions on asylum claims are right first time.
This is a solution that would benefit everyone. Creating offshore processing centres in different continents for people seeking safety in the UK would not.
Philippa McIntyre has been advocacy officer at the Refugee Council since 2009, campaigning for the rights of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK.
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