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Lobbying for change

By Harmit Athwal

26 February 2004, 9:00pm

23 February 2003 saw over 100 asylum rights campaigners and supporters lobbying parliament as the Asylum and Immigration bill was being debated in parliament.

Campaigners heard from Jeremy Corbyn MP - 'I feel constantly disgusted at the way we treat asylum seekers... the most serious part of this bill is the removal of rights of review', Caroline Lucas MEP - 'an appalling piece of legislation on humanitarian and legal grounds', Hugo Charlton (Green Party) - 'Institionalised authoritarianism', Tauhid Pasha (Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants) - 'the government has successfully managed to delineate asylum seekers as separate...Identifying them with criminals by electronically tagging them'.

The new bill includes measures which

remove the right of appeal of an adjudicator's decision in a Immigration Appeal tribunal (clause 11),
criminalise asylum seekers who arrive in the UK with no passport or are in possession of a false one (clause 2),
allow for electronic tagging of asylum seekers (clause 16),
allow 'removals' of asylum seekers to a safe third country before their asylum claims are decided (clause 13),
withdraw accommodation and financial support from families whose asylum appeals have been dismissed (clause 7).

Read briefings on the Asylum and Immigration bill at the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns website and the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants website.

The Institute of Race Relations is precluded from expressing a corporate view: any opinions expressed are therefore those of the authors.

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