On October 14 2009, following a decade of continuous changes to asylum procedure, the Home Office announced yet another change.Following developments such as only allowing asylum claims to be made in person and no longer by post (announced February 2003) and the introduction of the New Asylum Model (NAM) which aims to render a decision on an asylum claim within a month of it being made in six easy steps (introduced April 2007), the Home Office have announced that in-country asylum claims can now only be made in person at the Asylum Screening Centre in Croydon.
Further, anyone wishing to make further submissions (those asking the Home Office to re-examine their case on the basis of new information or a change of circumstances after they have exhausted their appeal rights) will be required to make these submissions in person at the newly named Liverpool Further Submissions Unit, if they have claimed asylum before March 5, 2007 and their case is not being managed by NAM, or at a reporting Centre in their region if the asylum claim was made after 5 March 2007.
The Home Office, however, appears to have overlooked two main points in making these changes, a) they have failed to consult practitioners around the country who handle asylum claims on a daily basis about these changes and b) they have failed to understand that many people fear attending a reporting centre in person for fear that they will be detained.
Further, it is unclear whether legal representatives will be able to attend these interviews and it seems no consideration has been given to the long journeys some may face in reaching the relevant centre and the cost and timing of these journeys. Mental or physical impairments, the fact that some asylum seekers do not speak the language and suddenly find themselves lost in a new country or the fact that asylum seekers might be very intimidated by an interview and had no access to adequate legal representation beforehand, does not seem to have been taken into account.
It also seems likely that as the changes to further submissions are just procedural, they may not be enforceable, and may even be unlawful, with regard to the Immigration rules.
It could be said that these changes have simply been made with the intention of deterring individuals from making asylum claims, and in particular, from making further submissions once their appeal rights have been exhausted. These changes seem to be in line with the more stringent Point Based rules introduced in October 2008 and March 2009 for other categories of immigrant, and, one may be entitled to think, appear to be leading to a more cynical, less compassionate, United Kingdom.
Post published in: Opinions