Home Affairs Committee

Executive Summary

This article explores the UK treatment of asylum seekers and makes recommendations for change. It begins by establishing the case for describing our current processing asylum seekers as cruel. The word ‘cruel’ is used in the sense of ‘indifference to suffering’ rather than ‘taking pleasure in suffering’. In particular reference is made to the imprisonment of asylum seekers, the administration of asylum applications, travesties of justice, the treatment and destitution of refused asylum seekers, practices around deportation and incidental cruelty.

The article then notes that the cruel treatment of asylum seekers is not particular to the UK but widespread, and comments also on the ‘mirroring effect’ in which the experiences of asylum seekers in destination countries frequently mirror their experiences in their home countries. It is argued from these observations that there are powerful psychological forces at play, intrinsic to the very fact of coming into contact with asylum seekers, which can undermine the humanity and impartiality of those responsible for processing them and result in entrenched patterns of cruelty in their treatment.

By way of understanding the root causes of these patterns the mechanisms of disbelief, dissociation, depersonalisation, disempowerment, distortion (of feelings), devalidation and defamation are examined. It is argued that these psychological defences are a way in which individuals and institutions cope with the high levels of suffering and distress displayed by asylum seekers, and their pleas for help.

Having explored the nature and causes of dis-functionality within the system, suggestions are made for changes in policy to counteract this. These include recommendations around:

• — The better recruitment, training, support and supervision of staff managing the asylum system.
• — The abandonment of all policies leading to destitution.
• — Dramatically restricting the numbers held in detention (and an analysis of the cost and other implications of this, and alternatives to it).
• — Radical reform of UKBA to remove its responsibility for assessing the validity of claims.
• — Decisions around the distribution of asylum seekers to be made at a European level.
• — An idea for monitoring the safety of deported asylum seekers.

These and other recommendations are analysed and the case is made for their viability both financially, without significant expense (and possibly even saving money) and politically—attracting broad public support. By adopting these reforms it is argued that Britain could lead the way in modelling humanity, fairness and compassion towards those seeking sanctuary.

1. Introduction

1.1 The right to seek asylum from persecution is a fundamental human right, first agreed in principle in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights18 and set out in detail three years later in a UN Convention19, to which the UK is a signatory. The principles enshrined in these agreements have saved countless lives over many decades. But the UK’s current application of its commitment, as we shall explore, is marred by cruelty.

1.2 This article is divided into three parts:

Part 1: Makes the case for describing the UK response to asylum seekers as cruel.

Part 2: Explores some of the root causes of the cruelty, and factors that sustain it.

Part 3: Makes recommendations for ensuring a reduction in the cruelty.

1.3 But first it is important to define terms. In popular parlance ‘Refugee’, ‘Asylum Seeker’ and ‘Immigrant’ are often used interchangeably. This can cause considerable confusion and unnecessary alarm. This article therefore uses only the official classifications adopted by the Home Office and judicial system as follows:

Word	Definition	Annual statistics for the UK (2011)1
Refugee	As defined by the 1951 UN Convention2 and referring only to those people who have been officially accepted and given protection from persecution.	4,312 Applicants had their claim for refugee status accepted. A further 1,337 were given exceptional leave to remain.
Asylum Seeker	Those people who have applied to be accepted as refugees (and are awaiting a result).	There were 19,865 Asylum applicants in the period
Refused/Failed Asylum Seeker	All those who have applied for refugee status, been refused, and no longer have an active application	11,731 people were refused in 2011.3
Immigrants	All those who migrate to the UK (including asylum seekers	536,000. Or 183,000 net of emigrants (rounded to nearest thousand)4

1 2011 is the most recent calendar year for which there is complete information. Statistics for the first three categories are found here: http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/migration-uk-asylum

2 Specifically: “Any person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”

3 The figures for refused asylum seekers + refugees + those given exceptional leave don’t add up to the total number of applicants for the year because the statistics only refer to applications made or cases resolved within the year in question (i.e. applications run over from before and after the year.). Nonetheless they give a reliable freeze pane indication of the current situation.

4 http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_288105.pdf

1.4 As can be seen the actual numbers of asylum seekers is very small compared to the total number of immigrants to the UK (less than 4%) and it is this group and what happens to them that concerns us here. In particular we will look at the UK institutions and systems for managing asylum seekers—particularly the UK Border Agency (UKBA) and the National Asylum Support Service (NASS), though references are also made to the immigration courts, prevailing legislation with respect to asylum seekers, subcontracted security firms running the asylum and deportation system and the tabloid press.

1.5 My intention is to understand and explore the underlying roots of the problem in order to conclude with viable, constructive and ethically preferable recommendations which should reduce levels of cruelty within the system without making heavy demands on the public purse (and probably even saving money).

1.6 The word ‘cruelty’ is used in its broadest sense of ‘indifference to suffering’ rather than in the more limited sub category of ‘taking pleasure in another’s suffering’, or sadism, which implies a more deliberate and conscious intention on the part of the perpetrator. Most of the cruelty towards asylum seekers in the UK occurs unintentionally, unconsciously and through indifference. There are examples of deliberate and targeted sadistic attacks on asylum seekers—for instance the violent assaults on them by members of the general public, or in a few instances by staff at Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs) and during the deportation process. But these instances, though highly reprehensible, form only a small part of the overall cruelty towards asylum seekers in the UK and are not our main concern here.20

2.0 Part 1: The case for thinking that the current UK response to asylum seekers is cruel.

2.1 This is explored under the following categories:

The imprisonment of asylum seekers (2.2)

Administration of asylum applications (2.3)

Travesties of justice (2.4)

Destitution amongst asylum seekers (2.5)

Treatment of refused asylum seekers (2.6)

Practices around deportation (2.7)

Incidental cruelty (2.8)

2.2 The imprisonment of asylum seekers

2.21 http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=4&sqi=2&ved= 0CEcQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdetentionaction.org.uk%2Fwordpress%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F 2011%2F10%2FDFT-Parliamentary-briefing-0811.docx&ei=qwwFUYnPBe-Z0QXw1oHoDA&usg= AFQjCNFYeuVaK2L0CdI1X5sx9l9DTsXrfA. The UK immigration detention estate is one of the largest in Europe. During 2011 about 28,000 immigrants were held in detention21. Of these over half were asylum seekers or refused asylum seekers and at any one time around 2,000 asylum seekers and refused asylum seekers are imprisoned in this way. Just over half of the detainees remain for less than two months, the rest can stay considerably longer and between 5 and 10% are held for over a year. There are plans to expand detention facilities further.

2.22 The initial decision to detain asylum seekers and refused asylum seekers is normally taken by an individual immigration officer without a thorough assessment of the nature of their asylum claim thus failing to adequately screen out those who are particularly vulnerable to re-traumatisation through being imprisoned. For instance significant numbers of torture victims or people who have been unlawfully imprisoned in their own country end up being detained in IRCs.22 As there is no requirement for detainment decisions to be subjected to independent review at any stage it isn’t always clear why some asylum seekers end up in detention and others with essentially similar circumstances are allowed to live within the community. Reasons given for detention include: to effect removal, where there is a suspicion that the person might abscond, as part of the detained fast-track (DFT) system (whereby asylum seekers can be detained if their claims are considered straightforward and capable of being decided quickly) and for administrative purposes. There is no absolute limit to the amount of time that persons can be held for, and those imprisoned in this way are held without charge and without being advised how long they will be held for.

2.23 IRCs are a type of prison for migrants. They are well documented as being far from ideal. A series of unannounced Government inspections have exposed significant systemic deficiencies and major on-going concerns about the standards of care.23 Additionally there are frequent reports of riots, outbreaks of violence, escape attempts, arson, bullying and unexplained deaths.24 Figures obtained under the Freedom of information act show that in one year alone (2007) there were 157 incidents of self-harm requiring medical treatment across the ten IRCs.25 The Institute of Race Relations recorded 16 suicides in custody for those immigrants held in custody between 2002 and 200426.

2.24 Those imprisoned in IRCs often end up confused and distressed and struggling to understand the complex asylum procedure in a stressful and sometimes hostile environment. Many will at the same time be trying to cope with traumas experienced in their home country, such as being imprisoned, or difficulties experienced during the process of escape. Many will also be grieving the death of their relatives, or their separation from them.

2.3 The administration of asylum applications

2.31 The consensus amongst those who have worked on behalf of UK asylum seekers for any period of time is that the system here is unfit for purpose. It is grossly inefficient, under-resourced, and lacking in transparency. It is commonplace for letters not to be answered or lost without trace. A number of recent investigations into the UKBA confirm these conclusions. In July 2012 the Home Affairs Committee’s report into the work of UKBA (December 2011-March 2012) found a backlog of 276,460 outstanding immigration and asylum cases which they described as “totally unacceptable”. In November 2012 a report by John Vine, Chief Inspector of Immigration reported that senior UK Border Agency officials had misled parliament by wrongly claiming they had dealt with a backlog of asylum and immigration claims27 when in fact the operation to deal with them was so inefficient and poorly managed that at one point more than 150 boxes of mail, including correspondence from applicants, lawyers and MPs, lay unopened in a room in Liverpool. At its peak this included 100,000 items of post, including 14,800 unopened recorded delivery letters and 13,600 unopened first and second class letters containing crucial information and documents about cases. All of this resulted in the asylum seekers concerned being kept in limbo—for an average of 7 years and in some cases for much longer28.

2.32 These inefficiencies and the huge waiting periods many asylum seekers endure heighten their anxiety, and undermine their hope of ever securing justice and sanctuary. Applicants are frequently blamed for UKBA errors and inefficiencies and have to suffer the consequences of this. For instance if a letter is reported as not having been received by the Home Office it is frequently presumed by the courts that it was never sent, whereas the Home Office may well have mislaid or failed to attend to it. Applicants with valid claims give up in despair of the process, a few commit suicide29 and many ‘go underground’ as a result. Many of those who get refugee status only achieve this after a prolonged and traumatic process.

2.4 Travesties of justice

2.41 Nearly 30% of the initial refusals of asylum are later overturned by the courts each year indicating that there are serious systemic flaws in decision-making by UKBA. For a full and often scathing analysis of the inadequate and sometimes spurious arguments made by officials to justify so many of the initial decisions against asylum seekers the reader is referred to Mark Henderson’s excellent 2003 Independent Law Practitioners publication.30

2.42 The appeal system that follows the initial decision is also stacked against the asylum seeker—applicants often struggle to find any (or competent) legal representation31; and many end up in court without a lawyer or without even knowing their rights. For example a survey in 2011 found that 49% of detainees had no legal representation at the time of their interview for bail and 19% reported never having had an advisor whilst in detention32. Those under the ‘fast track system’ are frequently sent home without being afforded the opportunity to appeal in this country.33

2.43 If and when an applicant eventually gets to court the integrity of arguments used within court by the Home Office is often woefully inadequate (though frequently successful). For instance the ‘wedge technique’ frequently used by the Home Office in which an apparent inconsistency in an appellant’s case is then used to erroneously argue that since the appellant has been found to be inaccurate/dishonest in one aspect of their application then their whole application is thereby rendered unsafe. This fails to take into consideration other explanations for an appellant’s inconsistency—for instance confusion on account of PTSD or inadequate understanding of the language (or poor or biased interpreters). Common examples here are inconsistencies in the spelling of a surname or around dates of birth. The first can be ascribed to translation difficulties across different alphabets and/or illiteracy on the part of the applicant. The second to different cultural systems for recording dates or the fact that in many countries dates of birth are not customarily remembered. Both are regularly used as a basis for undermining a case.

2.44 Even if a person may have deliberately lied in the misguided belief that it might increase their chances of success this does not mean that they did not have a persuasive case without lying—a fact that is rarely acknowledged in court.

2.45 A similar injustice can occur when UKBA argues that offences committed whilst in this country undermine an asylum seekers application. For instance when someone has worked illegally in order to supplement inadequate or non-existent benefits this can be used as justification for dismissing their case—even though the offence has no direct relevance to the application and may have occurred as a reaction to treatment received during the asylum process34.

2.46 Another argument frequently used by UKBA is that if these things really happened then why didn’t the person report them earlier? Allowance is rarely given for the fact that the applicant may have been too ashamed or embarrassed to admit or describe the details of rape or torture with a complete stranger at the point of arrival.

2.47 It is also common for the Home Office to use spurious arguments to undermine apparently high quality evidence. To give one example from my own experience: A Ugandan asylum seeker in the UK heard that there was a wanted notice for him in a Ugandan newspaper. We successfully arranged for a copy of the newspaper containing the wanted notice to be brought out of Uganda to the UK. The notice had been published by the police in The Daily Monitor, one of Uganda’s two leading newspapers. Pleased to have tracked down this evidence, I naïvely thought that it would be a linchpin in the man’s case. However his reputable and effective solicitor advised that to present such evidence might even be counter-productive. She said that the Home Office would say that the notice was the result of a bribe to the paper (even though the man was at the time already in Britain and very poor) and to give them the opportunity to make this allegation would risk compromising his credibility. The fact that it would have been highly risky for the Daily Monitor to be caught accepting such a bribe, thereby giving the country’s ruling regime an excuse to disband them, was not, she said, an argument that could be usefully made. It followed that similar allegations of bribery could be made about a warrant for the man’s arrest (also brought out of the country) and a letter and membership card from the opposing political party that he was involved with. In this way much good evidence may never reach the court, or will be rendered useless or worse if it does, and the Home Office’s stance on such evidence is rarely challenged because of fears that producing such evidence will undermine rather than substantiate an application. But having no evidence is also, of course, a reason for a case to be dismissed. So it frequently becomes a matter of damned if you do (provide evidence) and damned if you don’t.35

2.48 The adjudication of a person’s entitlement to asylum is one the most significant decisions undertaken by of our judicial system since a mistaken verdict can result in execution, torture or unfair imprisonment on the appellant’s return to their home country36. The acid test for discerning the justice of the system is to follow up the fate of returnees. Although such outcomes are largely un-documented, a number of organisations have compiled evidence that the human rights of refused asylum seekers are being violated upon return. Deportees are often arrested, put in prison, and tortured. Some are charged with treason; some disappear altogether. Often the very fact that they have claimed asylum in another country is used to justify persecution on their return. Here are some examples of deported asylum seekers being imprisoned, tortured or executed on return: Sri Lanka37, Iran38, DRC39, Uganda40, Kenya41, General 42. An official review of information on return conditions in home countries43 though unable to get accurate information for a number of significant countries with a likely risk of persecution nonetheless identified accurate information about risks in a number of other countries, for example:

• — Algeria: risk of execution or incarceration,
• — China, risk of imprisonment or torture,
• — Eritrea: arbitrary detention, torture and death,
• — Iran: imprisonment,
• — Somalia high risk of sexual violence towards returned female asylum seekers.

2.49 These are all countries to which refused asylum seekers had been forcibly deported from the UK in 2009, at the time of the report.

2.5 Destitution amongst asylum seekers.

2.51 Despite the long periods they often have to wait for a decision, asylum seekers are not allowed to work. The vast majority are also subject to no-choice dispersal around the UK and forced to rely on very limited cash support from the state to try to meet their essential living needs. Most live in poverty—asylum support rates are less than 70% of income support44—and inefficiency, delay and maladministration mean that many do not even receive the meagre amount to which they are entitled. Numerous research reports by charities show that children, women, older people, those with mental health needs, and survivors of torture and sexual violence are among those living in destitution, vulnerable to further abuse and exploitation.45 Because of this situation some asylum seekers seek unofficial work or break the law out of desperation (eg with theft, prostitution etc). If discovered this then undermines their application for asylum and can prejudice courts to adjudicate against them.

2.52 To give just one example of the detrimental consequences of destitution from the experience of the author. I recently assessed a refused asylum seeker who was applying for admission to Emmaus Oxford46—a charity housing homeless people. The man in question took some time to reach the interview room because he had a very serious limp. It emerged during the course of the interview that the limp was due to frost bite (from having to sleep rough). Several weeks later some of his toes on both feet have not recovered and the medical advice is that he may have to have them amputated.

2.6 The treatment of refused asylum seekers.

2.61 Many refused asylum seekers do not believe that they will be safe if returned to their home country and remain in the UK without being deported47. The precise number remaining in this way is unknown but prior to the Legacy Cases Review was thought to be somewhere in the range 155,000 to 283,00048. Refused asylum seekers are not allowed to work and are deprived of the rights of normal citizens including the usual statutory support safety nets, thereby rendering them effectively stateless and powerless. The few that receive state support (only about £5 per day) and housing49 (usually poor), can only get this if they are prepared to agree in principle to be returned home—something which many are afraid to do. As a result large numbers of refused asylum seekers, including women and children, become destitute and homeless. Refused asylum seekers seeking emergency homeless accommodation (night shelters etc.) are usually refused this as well because they are not entitled to housing benefit.

2.62 The fact that they are not allowed to work means that many refused asylum seekers end up working illegally, often in very exploitative conditions, or they are forced to earn money through prostitution and begging. Refused asylum seekers have to sign regularly with UKBA (often travelling long distances at their own expense to do so). This has the effect of regularly re-sensitising fear of deportation and contributes to many ‘disappearing’.

2.7 Practices around the deportation of refused asylum seekers

2.71 Refused asylum seekers are frequently not given time to put their affairs in order, collect their possessions or say goodbye to their loved ones in this country before they are forcibly deported. Some are illegally gagged or injected with tranquilisers. Deportation methods are frequently extremely violent and the use of racist language by contractors is commonplace. In 2008 a report by Medical Justice50 examined nearly 300 alleged assaults on asylum deportees and led Diane Abbot MP to comment that it was:

“one of the most shocking reports about our immigration system that I have seen in 20 years as a Member of Parliament. The report “Outsourcing Abuse” catalogues the frightening state-sponsored violence that happens to asylum-seekers when they are being deported. … This report suggests a complete failure [by the Home Office] to investigate many of the allegations … This report is distressing and upsetting for anyone to read. But for Ministers it is a damning verdict on their inability to inject even a shred of humanity into a flailing immigration system.”

2.72 Shocking as this report was to some MPs it did not however enable them to stop the practice and two years later in 2010 Jimmy Mubenga was killed whilst being deported. Sadly Mr Mubenga’s case is by no means the only time death has occurred on account of deportation from the UK.51 52

2.73 A year after Mr Mubenga’s death in October 2011 the Guardian reported no improvement in deportation techniques53 and his wife, five children and wider family were advised two years after his death in July 201254 that the Crown Prosecution Service had decided not to prosecute. Violent deportation techniques are still in use because they are an inevitable consequence of compulsory deportation. Despite denials from the UKBA, there are ongoing concerns that guidelines against particular techniques are still being flouted,55 and another case came to light only a few days before this article was completed (February 2013).56

2.8 Incidental cruelty.

2.81 Sometimes the devil is in the detail. Those that work on behalf of asylum seekers encounter myriad examples of incidental cruelty—which whilst not illegal or a direct contravention of human rights nonetheless causes extra suffering to asylum seekers and contributes to making their experience in this country unpleasant. For the sake of brevity I have restricted myself to four out of many examples from my own experience:

• — Asylum seeker who fled to this country in 2001 after being beaten, and tortured in Zimbabwe. He was refused asylum and instructed to return voluntarily. Unconvinced that this would be safe he stopped signing57 and worked for several years illegally. Finding that this was unsustainable with great reluctance and trepidation he eventually reported himself to UKBA and asked to be sent home, justifying it to himself as the lesser of two evils. It took him some time to find the right official at the UKBA to make his request, but when he did he was advised that they weren’t deporting people to Zimbabwe ‘because it isn’t safe there’. When he asked if that meant he could claim asylum, work or get benefits he was advised that he couldn’t because his case for claiming asylum had already been refused.
• — A man with a strong case for making a fresh claim for asylum was advised that he needed to personally bring his application to Liverpool. He could not afford the very expensive fare to Liverpool and asked if he could post the application, but was refused. He enquired whether there was a purpose to the visit—for instance would he be interviewed, or fingerprinted, or anything of that nature, and was advised: ‘No, all we will do is take the letter from you’.
• — Asylum seeker who, though living in Oxford, was asked to sign in London. When I phoned to ask if arrangements for signing could be transferred to Oxford I was advised that this never happened. When I quietly corrected the person—advising her of other instances I knew of in which applicants are allowed to sign in Oxford—she said that the policy on this had changed (not in fact true). I then asked if in that case the asylum seeker could apply to have his expenses paid and she said “No, but if he doesn’t like it he can always return home”. Following this I asked to speak to the case-worker’s manager who advised that the man was in fact entitled to apply for expenses but that in order to do this he was required to make a separate, unpaid for, trip to London to make the application in person for future expenses to be paid.
• — Refused asylum seeker who had been living in Oxford for 10 years was advised, with three days notice, that he and his son were to be moved to NASS accommodation in Plymouth so that the flat they were in (provided by Social Services) could be used for another purpose. No account was taken of the support network they had built up in Oxford or the son’s settled and happy attendance at school. The man and his son had insufficient time to say goodbye to all their friends or to adequately pack the belongings that had been acquired over 10 years (including a washing machine acquired with a charity grant). When the van arrived to transport them to Plymouth the irritable driver refused to allow them to take more than two suitcases in total. They had no financial means, or remaining time, to arrange to return for the rest of their belongings.

3. Part 2. Analysis of Some of the Root Causes of the Cruelty, and Factors that Sustain it

3.1 The UK is by no means unique in its cruelty towards asylum seekers. There are many parallels in the treatment of asylum seekers across the world and, as far as I am aware, cruel components to the processing systems of every country to which they escape. It seems that many countries have developed cultures for processing asylum seekers that are remarkably similar in detail to that adopted by the UK. Another interesting phenomenon is that systems for processing asylum seekers frequently appear to mirror what has happened to applicants up to the point that they claim asylum. The table on the next page outlines some of these mirroring ‘reflections’.

3.2 Mirroring effect’ of the UK asylum process.

Situation in the home country	Mirror in the UK
Many of those who become asylum seekers in the UK have been imprisoned without charge and for indefinite periods.	Many asylum seekers are imprisoned without charge for indefinite periods
During imprisonment it is hard or impossible for them to access any or adequate legal assistance and they are not automatically advised of their rights.	The same. For example although asylum applicants are allowed to have legal representation in their critical first interview it isn’t a requirement that they are advised of this (and many aren’t). Many asylum seekers are unable to access any or competent legal help.
Many asylum seekers have been arrested and interrogated eg for their assumed political beliefs and activities.	Shortly after claiming asylum, asylum seekers asked a lot of questions (To establish the basis on which they are claiming asylum and its credibility). For instance if they claim to have fled because of persecution for their political beliefs the questioning will include detailed questions about their political activities in the country from which they have escaped. In this way many asylum seekers are asked very similar questions to those that they were being asked during interrogation at home.
Those asylum seekers who have been imprisoned in their home countries often find that the legislative context is weighted against them with an implicit assumption of guilty unless found innocent. There is a culture of disbelief.	The same
Many asylum seekers have been tortured prior to coming to this country.	Apart from sporadic and unofficial physical violence asylum seekers aren’t physically tortured—but the mental anguish associated with the asylum process should not be underestimated. I have lost count of the number of times that asylum seekers have said to me that their suffering in this country on account of the asylum process here has been similar in effect to their experiences in their home country.
Once arrested many asylum seekers did not know how long they would be held for or if they would be tortured or ‘punished’ or indeed if their period of incarceration would culminate in execution.	Similar. Asylum seekers with a genuine fear of being punished tortured or executed on their return have to wait in fear, for an indefinite period, to see if this is going to happen. As such their experience can be akin to being on death row.
The judicial systems of the home countries from which many asylum seekers originate frequently had a political component—eg justice was more likely to be stacked against those coming from a particular ethnic, religious or tribal or other category.1	Similar. Although the British judicial system is meant to be separate from politics the administrative culture surrounding asylum seekers inevitably has a political component. Most politicians are anxious not to be perceived as being lax/naïve with respect to asylum seekers who are disadvantaged under the law compared to ordinary citizens.
Many asylum seekers have been imprisoned without having committed a crime.	The same.2
Because of the ethnic, religious, tribal or other category to which they belong many asylum seekers have been unable to flourish in their countries of origin. For instance they have been denied the right to vote, or to receive the same benefits as other citizens or the right to particular sorts of work or status. In short they found the system against them.	Same, and in some aspects worse. The category ‘asylum seeker’ as we have seen is distinctly disadvantageous. In particular they have no right to work or vote. Refused asylum seekers have even fewer rights, for instance they do not have a right to routine medical care. No other group, even suspected terrorists,3 can be held indefinitely without charge.
Many have been deliberately targeted for abuse in their home country—the extreme form of which is genocide.	Not as severe, but a similar process. Asylum seekers are prone to being ‘scapegoated’—picked out and blamed for everything.
Many asylum seekers risk their lives to reach the UK, frequently at the expense of becoming separated from their belongings, families and loved ones. The journey is often traumatic. They don’t know what awaits at the other end and any hopes they may have of finding some measure of safety and protection are frequently frustrated after arrival.	The same. As we have seen enforced deportation from the UK is itself potentially dangerous and the consequences of being returned home can be fatal.

1 Can include gender and sexual orientation.

2 Many asylum seekers reach this country with perfectly legal and valid documentation. Others have to forge documents in order to escape—or have no documents. Whether this should constitute a crime in the context of claiming asylum is controversial—but it isn’t in any case needed as a justification for their imprisonment.

3 See: http://www.loc.gov/law/help/uk-pre-charge-detention.php for the temporal restrictions on terrorist detention without charge.

3.3 It is important not to stretch the mirroring analysis beyond credibility or usefulness. Its inclusion here is partly because it is so often referred to by asylum seekers themselves, and those trying to represent them. But the phenomenon is nonetheless startling and instructive. Together with the fact that so many countries around the world, just like the UK, have developed inbuilt systemic cruelty in the processing of asylum claims, it suggests that there is something intrinsic to the very fact of coming into contact with asylum seekers and encountering and witnessing their claims that undermines the humanity and impartiality of those responsible for processing them. On the face of it this is hard to understand. Asylum seekers are arguably amongst those who have suffered most in the world and—despite all the difficulties associated with applying for asylum—a significant proportion are eventually accepted as having genuine reasons for requesting sanctuary and help. Why then is the system so manifestly cruel in the way that it responds to them?

3.4 I believe that the main answer to this is psychological. It is precisely because many asylum seekers have suffered so much that the reactions to them become so systemically entrenched in cruelty. There are essentially only two reactions we can make in the face of great suffering. The first is to believe and engage with it, opening our hearts and relating to it empathically and expansively. The second is to contract and defend against it.

3.5 The first (expansive) process of opening up to another’s suffering is difficult and onerous. Empathy involves imagining ourselves in someone else’s skin and allowing ourselves to feel some of their suffering by association. This is painful58. Moreover because we now understand and believe the person or persons concerned we feel called upon to help them, and this too can be challenging in its implications because it might be at the expense of our own limited resources and peace of mind. Indeed the more suffering that is witnessed, the harder it is to empathically open ourselves to it and the more likely we are to (unconsciously) take the second option of defending against it. It is for this main reason, I believe, that the cruelty of the system has developed—as a means by which those running the system protect themselves against the difficult feelings which they might otherwise experience through opening up to this client group.

3.6 For the majority, who are not directly involved with the asylum system, the defence against suffering primarily manifests as denial, indifference and passivity towards asylum seekers. But for those operating the system there is a danger that their defences against the suffering of asylum seekers become distorted by the powerful and toxic psychological forces involved. In particular the gate keepers to the system, the border guards, prison warders, Home Office prosecution lawyers, judges, sub-contracted security and escort guards and UKBA processing staff are all at risk of becoming (largely unconscious) accomplices in the generation and perpetration of the suffering experienced by asylum seekers.

3.7 Quite why the manner of treatment of asylum seekers often mirrors persecutory experiences in their home countries is a subtle and complex matter without a single explanation. One reason is that genuine asylum seekers often arrive with an acquired (rational and experience-based) mistrust and fear of authority and of the machinations of the state. This fear and typecasting then naturally transfers onto the new personnel they encounter. The officials, reacting to the fear and mistrust, can inadvertently become the persecutors59. Another more obvious reason is that the psychological defences (against opening to suffering), to which personnel in the receiving country are prone, are similar to the defences of the personnel involved in the incarceration, torture and interrogation of eventual asylum seekers in their home countries. They too have developed a cocktail of defences against empathising with the suffering of the people that they ‘process’. And the methods, systems and institutions that arise from these defensive orientations are correspondingly similar.

3.8 We will now look at some of the detail of how these defensive strategies work both at an individual level and as embodied within institutions. For the purposes of this analysis the focus here is primarily on how these phenomena manifest in receiving countries (though in line with the explanation above many of them are also transferable to an understanding of the processes involved in home countries).

3.9 The defensive strategies that are adopted in order to avoid experiencing another’s suffering can be characterised in terms of six ‘D’s: disbelief, dissociation, depersonalisation, disempowerment, distortion (of feelings), devalidation and defamation as follows:

3.10 Disbelief This is where the suffering of genuine asylum seekers is avoided through disbelieving them. It manifests as generalised prejudices: ‘asylum seekers fabricate their stories’. ‘They are just manipulating the system’. ‘They are really economic migrants’. ‘Their stories are unbelievable—it can’t have been this bad’, ‘surely there was something else they could have done’. This is the culture of disbelief already referred to. Of course it is also supported by the fact that it is sometimes right—some asylum seekers are ‘bogus’. Some exaggerate or embellish their stories in order to try and improve their chances of being accepted.60 Some are purely economic migrants.61 The defence becomes problematic however when it automatically generalises to cover genuine asylum seekers (the phenomenon of guilty until proved innocent).

3.11 Dissociation. This is the orientation of not taking personal responsibility, eg: ‘I don’t have to think about these people because this isn’t my problem’. ‘They aren’t from this country—charity begins (and ends) at home’. ‘It isn’t my concern that there is persecution in another country’. ‘Someone else should take responsibility’. This particular way of thinking may have helped inform the 1990 Dublin Convention which developed the safe ‘third country’ concept—allowing receiving countries to reject asylum claims if the applicant had already transited through a safe country. Other ways of dissociating have been to keep boats of would-be asylum seekers off shore (because as long as they don’t enter the country then responsibility doesn’t have to be taken), or (as France and Australia have done) to create special airport zones that are designated not to be part of a country’s territory for the purposes of claiming asylum—thus enabling the country to exempt itself from full responsibility under the UN Convention.

3.12 Depersonalisation. Here the suffering of asylum seekers is avoided by the act of depersonalising them. They become, as it were, numbers and categories to be processed rather than individuals with unique and separately distinct suffering. It is frequently the detail of suffering that makes it both believable and hard to let in—and depersonalisation is one method for keeping it at bay. An early analysis of this phenomena was undertaken by Isabel Menzies Lyth in her seminal work “Social Systems as a Defence against Anxiety, 196062. Here she describes how the depersonalisation of both staff and patients in the hospital she was studying became an unconscious mechanism for coping with anxiety (and suffering). For example nurses often talked about patients not by name, but by bed number or by disease or diseased organ: “the liver in bed 10”, or “the pneumonia in bed 15”. The nurses themselves viewed themselves as interchangeable—something re-enforced through the use of uniforms. Whilst of course the anxieties in looking after sick people in hospital are inherently different from those associated with looking after asylum seekers in IRCs there is nonetheless considerable overlap. Both institutions are suffused with anxiety: the patients are anxious about their health—with an ultimate fear of death. Genuine asylum seekers fear deportation and whatever that might represent—in many cases death.

3.13 By keeping themselves aloof and uninterested in the detailed stories of specific asylum seekers those charged with looking after them can avoid opening up to the individual instances of suffering and thereby manage their working lives more easily (as with the medics). In this way asylum seekers come to be categorised by their countries of origin or the stage of their application process, rather than their individuality per se. And, as with the nurses, the guards themselves can protect their anonymity through wearing a uniform and through inter-changeability of their roles.63 Needless to say the depersonalisation of asylum seekers also contributes to the suffering that they experience (some examples of which are referred to above under 2.8: Incidental Cruelty. Another example is the way in which asylum seekers are apparently dispersed around the UK without any regard being given to their individual preferences to be settled close to known diasporas from their country of origin, culture or religion.)

3.14 Disempowerment This is where those charged with managing asylum seekers separate themselves out from taking personal responsibility for any suffering that they are involved in causing by believing (either consciously or unconsciously) that they have no choice and are just following orders. The extraordinary capacity of people to do this was famously demonstrated by Milgram’s experiment64 in which he showed how most ordinary people were prepared to inflict pain on others (or at least what they believed was pain)—sometimes even when they believed that this would be fatal—simply because they were being instructed to do so. The rationalisation of just following orders (though not allowed as a defence during the Nuremberg trials) is a frequent justification given by those administering torture and other forms of abuse. Another subtler version of this tendency manifests when different players within the system defer responsibility to others. Thus civil servants can blame the politicians/government—they are just following orders. Politicians often argue that the opinions of their voters have forced their hand. The opinions of voters are arguably informed by the tabloid press and the tabloid press counters by arguing that it is simply echoing popular opinion.

3.15 Distortion of feelings. Witnessing extreme forms of suffering in others can lead to a range of different emotional responses. To the extent that these are sometimes unpalatable to the witness they can then distort into other feelings.

3.16 For example guilt sometimes becomes distorted into anger. An example of this was given by Bruno Bettelheim, survivor of the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps65. Bettelheim observed that the Nazi guards responsible for granting sick leave to camp inmates would be less likely to oblige if the person making the plea displayed their desperation and distress, whereas those making more dispassionate requests, even if they were actually less ill, were much more likely to receive merciful treatment. Bettelheim reasoned that the stronger pleas aroused unpalatable feelings of guilt in the guards who were therefore more likely to cope by belittling the justification of the person’s claim and becoming reactively angry and dismissive as a result.

3.17 Another pair of feelings that appear to couple up in this way are fear and aggression. An example of this is when the guards responsible for running a penal establishment cope with their fear that things might get out of control (eg through a prisoner uprising) by becoming increasingly aggressive. Some light is thrown on this by Philip Zimbardo’s classic Stanford Prison experiment66 in which 24 clinically sane individuals were randomly assigned to be “prisoners” or “guards” in a mock dungeon located in the basement of the psychology building at Stanford University. The planned two-week study into the psychology of prison life ended after only six days due to emotional trauma being experienced by the participants who quickly began acting out their roles, with “guards” becoming sadistic and “prisoners” showing extreme passivity and depression.

3.18 Feelings becoming distorted in these ways can lead into a negative feedback loop: the official’s increasing guilt/fear leads to further merciless/aggressive acts which give rise to further and (increasingly justified) feelings of guilt and fear.

3.19 Devalidation. Here the case for helping asylum seekers is devalidated by myths with respect to the overall numbers and trends of people claiming asylum in the UK, the rigor with which they are assessed and how all this compares to other countries. These myths are also frequently perpetuated and built upon by the tabloid press. Here are some examples of myths (and their refutations):

Myth	Myth buster
Huge numbers of asylum seekers come to the UK. 44% of Britons believe it is 100,000 per annum or more.1	In 2011, only 19,865 asylum seekers came to the UK and only 5,649 were granted either refugee status or other leave to remain.
Numbers of asylum seekers arriving in the UK are increasing dramatically year by year.	They have been decreasing since the early 1990s and 2011 saw a 14% reduction on the previous year2
Asylum seekers are the same as immigrants (or are a huge proportion of total immigrants).	Asylum seekers are a tiny sub-category of all immigrants—currently less than 4%.3
UK takes more than its ‘fair share’ of refugees. In a 2002 survey, 82% in the UK thought that we had more than our fair share of asylum applications4 and a MORI poll (also 2002) found that on average the public believes that the UK hosts nearly a quarter of the world’s refugees and asylum seekers.	The vast majority of the world’s refugees remain outside Europe—less than 2% come to the UK. Comparing the UK with Europe shows we are average in terms of numbers/member of our population and below average if you take numbers/GDP5
The UK is too lenient in its processing of asylum seekers and attracts them as a result. In a Mori poll in 2000 80% of respondents agreed with the statement that asylum seekers come to Britain because they believe it to be a soft touch	Not the case. The UK currently only gives around 33% of all asylum seekers either refugee status or humanitarian protection/discretionary leave to remain. A more precise refutation of this myth is complex, but see reference6

1 http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/news/archive/press/2011/april/20110418_refugeepoll.htm

2 http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN02654. Figures are not yet available for 2012

3 The majority are allowed in to study or work.

4 Source ESS Round 1, edition 6/.2 from Norwegian Social Science Data Services at: http://ess.nsd.uib.no/.

5 Asylum Policy in the EU. The Case for Deeper Integration, 2012. Timothy Hatton. http://www.norface-migration.org/publ_uploads/NDP_16_12.pdf

6 But see Timothy Hatton: Seeking Asylum, Trends and Policies in the OECD, 2011, http://www.cepr.org/pubs/books/cepr/Seeking_Asylum.pdf for a fuller analysis of this multi-faceted subject.

The perpetration of these distortions is used as a rationalisation for not helping.

3.20 Defamation (also scapegoating). An exaggeration and development of the tendencies of disbelief and depersonalisation already discussed. Asylum seekers are/come to be accused of stealing jobs, benefits and housing,67 are perceived as being given unfairly prioritised access to services, and are variously categorised as scroungers, greedy, lazy, unskilled, benefit frauders, criminals, drug dealers and terrorists. The phrase ‘Asylum Seeker’ acquires a connotation that is sharply at odds with its true meaning with the distinction between asylum seeker, immigrant and even terrorist becoming systematically blurred. It becomes a category/label about which it is acceptable to express extreme forms of prejudice whilst at the same time avoiding overtly racist language and the concomitant risk of censure.68 Alongside this in some sectors asylum seekers become increasingly blamed for every problem and all society’s ills, or in other words, scapegoated.69

3.21 This section does not claim to be an exhaustive analysis why people in act in a cruel way towards asylum seekers. Many of the reasons offered have been generalised over from other contexts in order to offer pointers towards a fuller explanation. There is clearly a need for research and analysis specific to the treatment of asylum seekers.

3.22 I have also not clearly divided the factors between those that are ‘situational’ and those that are ‘individual’. The analysis therefore does not resolve the question of the prime causality in respect of the cruelty towards asylum seekers (ie is it the result of the situations in which ordinary individuals find themselves operating in, or individual personality traits and predispositions that lead directly to unethical behaviour within the system?). The answer probably lies in an interactive combination of the two. Some individuals may be drawn towards cruelty whatever their situational context and some situational contexts are such that ordinary individuals find themselves acting in cruel ways. Situational contexts also have a life of their own—perhaps drawing initially on the indifferent or cruel predispositions of a few founding individuals, a culture of institutionalised cruelty can become established and, once established, can be hard to shift because individuals working within the institutions have become fixed in their ways. The debate amongst some social psychologists (situational vs individual) may therefore be somewhat arid in this context—and if we wish to reduce cruelty towards asylum seekers it seems logical to address both aspects simultaneously by improving both the calibre of personnel and the contexts in which they are operating. How to do this effectively is covered next.

4. Part 3. Recommendations for Ensuring a Reduction in the Cruelty

4.1 It is beyond the scope of this article to suggest more than a few broad recommendations for reform or to conduct a thorough cost benefit analysis of the financial implications of those recommendations. All the recommendations however have been drawn up with an eye to their viability both financially and politically. Financially, in a time of recession, the proposals are more likely to be accepted if they either reduce or do not significantly increase public expenditure70. Politically they needed to be likely to attract the broad support of the electorate and of politicians who might otherwise be unduly deterred by fear of unpopularity71.

4.2 The following recommendations are made:

Decisions around distribution of asylum seekers should be made at a European level. (4.3)

Only refused asylum seekers awaiting imminent deportation should be imprisoned. (4.4)

All policies leading to destitution should be abandoned. (4.5)

Better recruitment, training, support and supervision of staff managing asylum system. (4.6)

Radical reform of UKBA. (4.7)

Politicians to take courage and take the lead. (4.8)

4.3 Decisions around distribution of asylum seekers should be made at a European level.

4.31 In recent years there has been a vigorous debate about reforming asylum policies at the international level and the need for international cooperation has been stressed by almost all ‘sides’ of the debate. In line with this, this article advocates adopting a proposal for Europe devised by Hatton and Williamson in 200472.

4.32 Developing an earlier UNHCR proposal Hatton and Williamson proposed a scheme which sets for each EU member a fixed contribution to the European Refugee Fund (say, in proportion to the country’s GDP) and a ‘resettlement quota’ (say, in proportion to the population). The resettlement quota would be a proportional figure, worked out for each member state, of the number of asylum seekers that particular country could reasonably be asked to ‘resettle’ or give status to in any particular year. Any EU member that resettled in excess of its quota would be entitled to a per-refugee rebate (from the European Refugee Fund). In this way the number of refugees that a country accepted would no longer be just a function of the numbers chancing to apply to that country and the severity of that countries approach to processing applications. Instead there would be a fairer system based on the relative wealth and population of member states, with those taking more than their quota of refugees receiving extra financial assistance.

4.33 Calculating the allocation of refugees on the basis of comparative population would leave total numbers coming to the UK roughly unchanged under current circumstances73 thereby improving the likelihood of the recommendation being acceptable to the general public.74 It would have the added advantage, by taking the debate out of the domestic political arena, of allaying concerns within the UK that we are taking more than our fair share of asylum seekers (though, as we have seen, this isn’t the case). European countries would lose motivation to compete against each other by implementing increasingly draconian policies in a ‘race for the bottom’ designed to competitively deter asylum seekers. In this way policies around the management of asylum seekers could be allowed to focus on ensuring their fair and humane treatment.

4.4 Only refused asylum seekers awaiting imminent deportation should be imprisoned.

4.41 This should only include those for whom there is a clear, time limited (not more than four weeks75), and implementable plan around deportation. It would exclude those refused asylum seekers for whom deportation isn’t possible on account of a Home Office assessment that their country of origin isn’t safe to return to, or due to unresolved complications around a home country refusing to accept someone back76.

4.42 The humanitarian basis for seeking to reduce the imprisonment of asylum seekers in this way has been outlined under 2.2 (ie cruelties intrinsic to, and associated with, imprisonment). But for the policy to have a realistic chance of implementation it is important also to address the arguments used to justify the imprisonment of asylum seekers. These are now addressed separately:

4.43 ‘Asylum seekers represent a threat to the community.’ The vast majority of asylum seekers do not represent a threat to the community. The widespread and populist perception that they might is probably rooted in tabloid rhetoric and confusions amongst the public as to what exactly an asylum seeker is and how they are distinguished from other immigrants and indeed from foreign nationals accused of terrorism. For instance widespread use of labeling such as ‘illegal or bogus’ in connection with asylum seekers has perpetuated a notion that asylum seekers are intrinsically unlawful/criminal (rather than recognising that for many the only way of escaping persecution to legitimately claim asylum is through being smuggled and/or through the use of forged documents)77. These confusions also explain to some extent why detention centers currently appear to be set up more for the containment of seriously violent or dangerous criminals than the humane and sensitive holding of applicants for asylum until such a time as their requests for sanctuary can be processed.

4.44 The very small number of asylum seekers for whom there are proven grounds for fearing that they might pose a risk (for instance through their involvement with terrorist groups, serious criminal activity or intent etc.) would be most appropriately handled under legislation and within institutions dealing with criminals and terrorists, and in the same way as British born criminals and terrorists are handled.

4.45 ‘If we don’t lock up asylum seekers they will abscond/go underground.’ Many destination countries have developed alternatives to imprisoning asylum seekers. Research into these alternatives suggests that they are, in fact, effective in ensuring that asylum seekers do not disappear. For instance Field 200678 concludes:

“For the world’s major destination States, existing evaluations of alternatives (…) support the position that asylum seekers very rarely need to be detained, or indeed restricted in their movements, prior to a final rejection of their claim, or prior to the point at which their removal becomes a practical reality.”

4.46 A study in New York79 of using the alternative to detention of supervision and assistance of asylum seekers within the community, found that:

“Implementing such alternatives will result in more deportations of those whom the law excludes, and less detentions of those permitted to remain in the US.”

and concluded:

“the case for community supervision as an alternative to detention (is) compelling.”

4.47 This research also found that supervising people in community did not compromise their eventual attendance at court:

“When the project began, practitioners, including judges and lawyers, insisted that no alien would come to court if she knew that she would be detained if she lost. Not so.”

4.48 There are of course also pragmatic reasons for not imprisoning all asylum seekers because of fears that they will go underground. The UK currently imprisons around 2000 asylum seekers (and refused asylum seekers) at any one time. This compares with a figure of around 20,000 new applications for asylum each year, uncertain numbers of asylum seekers with longstanding claims spanning many years, and uncertain numbers of refused asylum seekers still at large despite the UKBA ‘legacy cases review’80. Clearly there need to be some selective criteria for deciding who to imprison and the proposal resolves this dilemma by selecting those for whom there is the highest likelihood of absconsion.—ie the ones who have lost their cases and for whom there is a plan of deportation. Using this criteria would be more than viable within the present availability of detention facilities provided there were sensible limits to maximum detention times.81.

4.49 ‘If we don’t lock up asylum seekers more people will be encouraged to apply for asylum in the UK.’ Again the research evidence does not substantiate this theory. A paper by Timothy Hatton82 draws on extensive research and concludes that the number of asylum claims in a particular country is much more likely to be influenced by policies around access to the country and processing (eg likely success rates of applications) than by policies relating to the welfare of asylum seekers. In other words prospective asylum seekers are most influenced by their chances of eventually succeeding in claiming asylum in a particular country rather than on the conditions in which they would be kept during the application process. More specifically Hatton concludes the:

“effect of relaxing harsh detention regimes is likely to be weak”

4.410 The concern, in any case, is rendered irrelevant if levels of asylum are set at a European rather than a national level, as recommended.

4.411 It is noted also that many asylum seekers are not in any case afforded the luxury of deciding their country of destination according to any criteria. For instance those that are hidden by agents in lorries may have no idea, or influence, over which country they are being taken to, and may not even find this out until after they emerge from the lorry at their destination.

4.412 ‘Being able to lock up asylum seekers is convenient for UKBA.’ UKBA convenience may be at the root of the policy but it hardly qualifies as justification for this hugely expensive and, as we have seen, cruel practice. Detaining asylum seekers solely for convenience also contravenes United Nations guidelines83 which state that the detention of asylum seekers or other immigration clients should be a measure of last resort where no other alternatives are available. It is the contention of this article that for the vast majority of asylum seekers there are cheaper, more viable and more proportional alternatives.

4.413 Financial implications of changing the basis for imprisonment of asylum seekers. The financial implications of the recommendation are far-reaching. The Home Office generally does not publish figures on the financial costs of immigration detention. However in 2007 following a request made under the Freedom of Information Act, they revealed that in 2005/6 the weekly cost per detainee ranged from £511 (Lindholme IRC) to £1,344 (Colnbrook IRC). The cost of detaining someone in the DFT system in the now-closed Oakington IRC cost £1,620 per week (ICAR 2007). Then on 4 February 2010, the UK Government reported in Parliament that the average overall cost of one bed per day in the immigration detention estate is £120 (Hansard 2010).84

4.414 Using this figure we can calculate current annual costs of imprisoning 2000 refused and other asylum seekers at over £131 million per year. Under the recommendation (assuming deportees are held for an average of two weeks), this figure comes down to just under £11 million—a saving of approximately £120 million per year. This figure would be offset by the cost of keeping asylum seekers in the community but even allowing for this there would be a saving of approximately £86 million85.

4.5 All policies leading to destitution should be abandoned.

4.51 In particular:

• — The policy of not allowing refused asylum seekers and asylum seekers to work.86
• — The policy of not giving asylum seekers and refused asylum seekers either any benefits or benefits equal to those considered minimal to the survival of ordinary citizens. Benefit entitlement should include the right to emergency housing (eg night shelters), and all forms of medical care.

4.52 The humanitarian basis for these recommendations surely needs no justification in a modern, civilised, and relatively rich country. Against the objection that it would lead to increased number of applications of asylum seekers to the UK is the research already noted under 4.4 above which suggests that the use of destitution and other policies that make inroads into the welfare of asylum seekers is not significant in deterring them from applying to the UK (whereas the likelihood of eventually being accepted is of relevance). Also, once again, in the context of a European administration of asylum seekers this particular concern would no longer be relevant.

4.53 To the objection that asylum seekers would take away jobs and other welfare provision that would otherwise go to British citizens one can counter by stressing the very small numbers involved (around 17,000 per annum—less than 0.03 percent of the population). With respect to work it is noted that one of the popular objections to asylum seekers is that they are only in the UK to ‘scrounge’ off the state—and not to make a contribution (so in this context asylum seekers are in a bind they cannot transcend). Another option which might allay some public concerns would be to ‘barter’ a reduction in the overall number of immigrants by reducing non-asylum immigrants allowed into the country.

4.54 There are also several other clear benefits to allowing asylum seekers, and refused asylum seekers to work:

• — It would decrease their involvement by default in illegal work such as drug trafficking or prostitution which would offer additional savings to the tax payer in the costs of policing and prosecuting.
• — In the absence of identity cards, National Insurance numbers are a very good way of keeping track of the whereabouts of both asylum seekers and refused asylum seekers within the country.
• — By enabling asylum seekers to work from the point of their arrival in the UK the integration process can begin immediately. This means that those who eventually gain refugee status may by that time already be significantly along the road to integration (in contrast to the current situation in which the re-traumatisation of asylum seekers can impede their eventual integration).

4.55 With respect to benefits it is expected that the increased taxation paid by asylum seekers in work would offset the cost of extra benefits paid to them as a group. But a full analysis of this conjecture is beyond the scope of this paper and would also need reliable up to date figures of the numbers of refused asylum seekers still at large without status (post the legacy cases review).87 As with allowing them to work, the payment of benefits to refused asylum seekers would enable a track to be kept of their whereabouts. In this way the costly and ineffective system of trying to keep track of asylum seekers and refused asylum seekers by requiring them to sign could be withdrawn (since they will either now be signing regularly for benefits, or be registered at a known work location).

4.56 It would be important in introducing this policy to allay public concerns around the distribution of benefits by keeping the process around benefits for asylum seekers and refused asylum seekers transparent and equal. They should be treated on exactly the same basis as UK citizens and not receive preferential treatment (not that they currently do of course—though this is a popular concern).

4.6 Better recruitment, training, support and supervision of staff managing asylum system.

4.61 The management of asylum seekers, as we have seen, is prone to being contaminated by institutionalised cruelty. It is important to recognise that these cruelties frequently arise because of the powerful situational forces involved rather than character deficiencies in the staff. We need to recognise that the care of asylum seekers is a highly skilled task. Many asylum seekers, particularly those who have received harsh treatment by police and the military in their country of origin, though outwardly compliant, may also be nursing fear, suspicion and (less conscious) resentment of authority. They are also naturally likely to be envious of the freedoms and privileges enjoyed by staff, and prone on account of the inequality of the situation to depression and dissent. As we have seen such reactions can be hard to cope with by a workforce largely untrained in such psychological processes and immersed in a culture where the emphasis is not primarily on the safety and welfare of asylum seekers but on meeting targets around deportation, fast processing, and the tough assessment of claims.

4.61 The removal of the task of assessing claims from these staff (dealt with under 4.7) should greatly reduce some of the tensions and double binds experienced by staff working for UKBA.

4.62 It is also recommended that most staff should be recruited from health and welfare backgrounds rather than from the security sector. As well as recruiting for the normal ‘good carer’ characteristics, the selection processes also needs to rate highly the applicant’s abilities in the following areas:

• — Cultural sensitivity and understanding.
• — Sympathetic understanding of the reasons why people legitimately claim asylum.
• — Sympathetic awareness of mental health issues and symptoms that can arise on account of traumatic experiences and from being held in custody.
• — Capacity to disagree with authority on matters of ethics and to whistle blow contraventions of ethics.

4.63 These are also areas that should be developed through early and on-going training and high quality supervision. Trainings should include first-hand accounts from accepted asylum seekers of their experiences in their home country, on their journey to the UK, and since being in the UK. These real-life first-hand accounts have been found to be particularly significant in shifting ingrained prejudices towards asylum seekers (which are often rooted in ignorance)88.

4.64 The qualities mentioned above become all the more important in the selection of staff for management roles. Managers should be well trained in ways in which situational factors can allow the emergence of systemic cruelty—particularly in the context of secure environments.

4.65 Institutions, particularly IRCs should be subject to regular, unannounced internal and independent assessments. Where cruelty from staff is uncovered at any level, this should be met with immediate suspension, pending an investigation, and those investigations which substantiate either staff cruelty or the passive acceptance of it by their colleagues should result in dismissal of the staff concerned. A zero-tolerance attitude to cruelty is at the heart of creating a new culture within the asylum system that prioritises the care and well-being of detainees above all other considerations. The failure to prosecute staff (for example in the example of someone being killed whilst being deported see 2.7 above) conveys an impression of tacit acceptance from above and an implicit license for such activities to continue.

4.7 Radical reform of UKBA.

4.71 UKBA and the Home Office have been subject to many reforms over the years. And there are current plans to reduce the UKBA budget by 20% over the next four years and personnel by 5,200.89 However in my view reforms currently proposed are unlikely to be successful either in terms of reducing cruelty towards asylum seekers or in terms of their own objectives. In the first place the overriding context of cost reduction does not reconcile well with other aims of improved transparency and the achievement of desired outcomes (for instance around times spent processing claims). You get what you pay for. Staff within the system are well known to be demoralised by successive waves of staff and financial cut backs. Most importantly the emphasis of reforms to date on greater efficiency and more stringent measures towards asylum seekers has failed to properly address the institutionalised cruelty that has invaded the system and robbed it of a meaningful overriding rationale to do with the humane treatment of asylum seekers.

4.72 It is not within the scope of this article to provide an in depth analysis of UKBA, and what needs to change, beyond making one crucial point—the current functions of UKBA, as they stand, are unlikely ever to be executed in a satisfactory and humane way because they are in conflict with one another. Specifically the aim of providing a fair, just, humane and competent management of asylum seekers is at odds with the other role of UKBA—ie to assess the validity of asylum claims and to conduct the prosecution of asylum seekers who appeal.

4.73 The judicial role of UKBA (specifically the responsibility for prosecuting asylum seekers) should be removed from UKBA and given to another completely separate body. This is because it runs counter to all the caring aims of the organisation. Those responsible for the care and wellbeing of asylum seekers, and their fair processing, should not, at the same time, be charged with preparing cases against them. The current splitting and confusion of staff roles in this way has a contaminating influence—those responsible for caring for asylum seekers are at the same time responsible for challenging their entitlement to this care. It is this double bind that is at the root of the culture of disbelief pervading the system and any reform of UKBA must legislate away from this confusion to have any chance of success.

4.8 Politicians need to take courage and take the lead.

4.81 Some years ago I had a pre-election doorstep discussion with my local MP around several of the asylum issues that have been discussed here. I was heartened to discover that he was in complete agreement with my views (for instance the unnecessary detention of asylum seekers, the fact that they are not allowed to work, the culture of disbelief, unsatisfactory practices around deportation and so on). When I asked therefore why there weren’t clear proposals within the labour party manifesto that accommodated these objections he replied that he did not write the manifesto but those who did had to be sensitive to public opinion. I recall thinking shortly after this conversation (and regretting not saying it at the time!) that if this was the price of power then it wasn’t worth having.

4.82 But after reading some of the research into public attitudes I now believe that there was a much better reply: the public are not in fact unreasonable, they are misinformed, and they are certainly not universally hostile to asylum seekers. Research into the attitudes of the public towards asylum seekers makes it clear that as well as being deeply ignorant about asylum seekers their position towards them is also deeply ambivalent and paradoxical. Here are some statistics:

• — An analysis of 8 European (including the UK) countries showed that on average 63.85% respondents felt that genuine refugees should be given asylum. 90 Over three quarters of a sample of UK residents felt that those in fear of their lives should be allowed to remain. 91
• — 62.9% of Europeans felt that asylum seekers applying for status should be allowed to work.92
• — 47.7% of UK citizens would prefer decisions about asylum seekers to be taken at a European or International level rather than at a UK level.93
• — 70% of UK citizens agreed with a statement that it is a good thing that Britain is multi-cultural.94

4.83 These figures seem high given the extent of public ignorance around asylum and the widespread belief that it is out of control etc. already referred to.95 Despite the fact that the majority of the UK public are confused and ignorant about asylum and many believe the grossly exaggerated rhetoric at large the more positive attitudes reported in the bulleted statistics above have still managed to prevail. This leads to the hopeful possibility that a more accurate and sober reporting of the facts should have a significant impact in improving tolerance towards asylum seekers and enabling a tipping point towards greater humanity.

4.84 Politicians are uniquely placed to do this by countering public prejudice towards asylum seekers at both a local and a national level with clear facts and clarification. Taking a more responsible stance, sticking to the facts and appealing to the better side of the nation (which clearly exists) should, on the basis of the above figures, win substantial support. The more people know the detail about asylum the more likely they are to be tolerant towards it and the less likely to have an alarmist reaction to progressive policies96. Historically the response of the UK public both to the Ugandan Asian crisis and to the plight of Vietnamese refugees suggests that the public is perfectly capable of responding positively and generously to the plights of those in need of help.

4.85 There are also a huge number of smaller reforms that politicians could introduce to reduce the incidence of cruelty within the system. These include:

• — Setting time limits for the processing of claims with an automatic right of refugee status if the limit is exceeded.
• — Removing the anomaly that asylum can be refused and at the same time the applicant’s home country deemed unsafe to return to. If the latter is true then some form of status should be awarded automatically to the applicant.
• — Removing the need for refugees to re-apply for status at the end of a specified time period (Limited Leave to Remain).
• — Changing the policy of deporting some asylum seekers prematurely before they can appeal.
• — Where deportation has to happen, ensuring that this happens humanely and setting up mechanisms for the successful re-integration of deportees on their return to their home country. One possibility here is to involve British Embassies (or, in their absence, one of the NGOs) in monitoring the ongoing safety of returned asylum seekers. Returned asylum seekers (or a nominated relative) could be offered travel expenses and perhaps a small financial incentive to report to the embassy—say at the end of their first month and after their first year following return. This would allow the embassy to build up a picture around the treatment of returned asylum seekers. In the event of mistreatment coming to light, or a large proportion not turning up for interview, concerns could then be raised with the government in question (and also advice given to the Home Office in the UK—as this might have a bearing on future decisions). Knowing that a failure to show for interview might result in concerns being raised with their home country government might motivate people to turn up for interview. It might also discourage home country governments from mistreating them on return.
• — Requiring asylum seekers to opt out of receiving legal help rather than opt in and ensuring they receive adequate, on-going and competent legal assistance.
• — Requiring Immigration Judges to be properly selected, supported, trained and independently reviewed.
• — Making sure that the Commission for Racial Equality defines Asylum Seekers and Refugees alongside other minority groups in relation to prosecuting incidences of racism and of promoting equality and good race relations.
• — Ensuring that the press are held liable when they incite hatred and alarm through inaccurate presentation of the facts.
• — Supporting the widespread dissemination of more accurate facts about asylum (for instance as part of the national curriculum).

5. Conclusion

5.1 Our current ineffective, cruel asylum system causes terrible suffering to some of the world’s most vulnerable individuals and is not fit for purpose. Those who have sought asylum in the UK remain at high risk of poverty, homelessness, destitution, injustice, deprivation of liberty, statelessness, violent and often wrongful deportation attempts and administrative contempt, indifference, and disregard. But there is no need for any of this.

5.2 There is an urgent need to raise awareness of the facts about asylum and to assert the moral and humanitarian imperative for the UK to play its full part in protecting those fleeing persecution and to set an example to the rest of the world.

5.3 Britain can lead the way in developing an alternative system that models good practice, humanity, justice and compassion. The realisable recommendations made in this paper would enable a system that is better able to transcend the cruel systemic deficiencies that are currently endemic. With skilful handling and politicians courageous enough to take a lead, it is the contention of this article that this can be done without unduly taxing the public purse (and possibly even saving it money) and with broad public support.

5.4 We need to work together to establish a system that ensures, as far as is humanly possible, that no genuine refugee is ever denied our fullest possible support and protection.

Wyon Stansfeld

March 2013

©Parliamentary copyright

Prepared 11th October 2013