Asylum Charities Blamed by Minister
posted: 18/11/2008
Immigration minister Phil Woolas attacked lawyers and charities working for asylum seekers, accusing them of undermining the law and "playing the system". In an interview with the Guardian, Woolas described the legal professionals and NGO workers as "an industry", and said most asylum seekers were not fleeing persecution but were economic migrants.
"The system is played by migration lawyers and NGOs to the nth degree," Woolas said. "By giving false hope and by undermining the legal system, [they] actually cause more harm than they do good."
It is the latest in a series of controversial public interventions by Woolas since he was appointed immigration minister by Gordon Brown in the October reshuffle.
NorthWest MP is in BNP hotspot
Woolas is Labour MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth and grew up in Worsthorne, just outside Burnley. Race is lively politics in Oldham, where in the 2001 election, days after racially motivated riots in the town, the British National Party (BNP) picked up 5,091 votes in his constituency, 11.2% of the total. In 2005, BNP support shrank to 2,109 votes.
Comments "absolutely extraordinary"
Immigration lawyers said Woolas's anti-asylum comments were "absolutely extraordinary".
Sophie Brown, chair of the Immigration Law Practitioners Association (Ilpa), said: "Lawyers can only work with the law. To say they are undermining the law is an extraordinary comment to make."
Asylum seeker wins appeals but minister still claims the person has "no right"
In one case, Woolas said, an asylum seeker had won the right to stay after going through six layers of appeal. "That person has no right to be in this country but I'm sure that there is an industry out there [with] a vested interest."
However George House Trust points out that the judges in this case clearly disagree with Woolas and accepted s/he has a right to be here. Woolas may dislike the judges’ decisions but we live in a democracy where the judiciary are there to independently interpret law made by Parliament, and we don’t not live in a state where arbitrary decisions affecting people’s lives and wellbeing are made to suit ministers and officials. Asylum law, rules and the application system all heavily favour refusals and rejections already. Only a minority of asylum claims are accepted.
Woolas concedes there are some harrowing, genuine cases of people fleeing persecution, which he claims are undermined by economic migrants. He recounted how another asylum seeker visited his constituency office in Oldham: "One lady showed me the scars on her thighs from where the soldiers had raped her, so I know," said Woolas, "but I cannot take a decision on that lady's behalf if I am fogged by cases that are misusing the law."
Appeals are vital safety net
Donna Covey, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said the appeals process was a vital safety net for asylum seekers who are "criminalised" on arriving in Britain. "Having your asylum claim rejected does not make you an economic migrant. For some nationalities, such as Eritreans and Somalis, almost half of refused asylum seekers have their cases upheld on appeal. These are people who would be in danger of persecution such as murder, torture or rape if sent back to the repressive regimes they are fleeing."
Woolas has raised the rhetoric at a time when the asylum issue has substantially diminished. At the peak there were more than 76,000 applications a year, in 2000; last year there were fewer than 24,000.
Woolas told the Guardian the "primary purpose" of immigration policy was to reassure the public that the government was in control of immigration. "The public recognise that we don't know the exact numbers. They see the asylum backlog and what they fear is that we don't have any control over the system," he said.
He argued he was not pandering to the far right by raising concerns about asylum seekers. "You can only stop it being seen as a problem when you can convince the public you're in control of it."
Source
The key part of the interview:
No amnesty
Woolas rejects the idea of an amnesty for unauthorised immigrants and asylum seekers. "Spain is on its fourth one-off amnesty and the result of that is more dead bodies on the beach of people coming over from Africa." It is "difficult", he says, but "most asylum seekers, it appears, are economic migrants". In Britain, asylum seekers are given "false hope" by NGOs and migration lawyers. "By giving false hope and by undermining the legal system [they] actually cause more harm than they do good."
So he believes that Britain's asylum system is exploited by migration lawyers and NGOs? "The system is played by migration lawyers and NGOs to the nth degree." In one case, an asylum seeker won after six layers of appeal. "That person has no right to be in this country but I'm sure that there is an industry out there that is a vested interest."
He jabs his finger as he recounts desperate asylum seekers visiting his constituency office. "One lady showed me the scars on her thighs from where the soldiers had raped her, so I know, but I cannot take a decision on that lady's behalf if I am," he almost shouts the word, "fogged by cases that are misusing the law." The European Convention on Human Rights, he says, "is meant to protect people from persecution. It is not meant to be an open-borders immigration policy."
Interview
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