| The Experience Of Asylum Seekers/ Illegal Immigrants Coming To Britain Today Essay, Research Paper
Asylum seekers and
illegal immigrants have been in the media recently because the government is
facing problems over the number of immigrants coming into the country every
year, due to financial problems and the backlog of applications waiting to be
approved. Over the past couple of months newspapers have reported tragic
incidents where illegal immigrants in their desperate need to come to the West
have gone to extremes, putting their lives at danger to escape from their home
country.There is a difference
between asylum seekers and illegal immigrants. Asylum seekers are genuine
refugees that if they remain in their native country will be persecuted for
their religious beliefs, nationality, race or membership in a social of
political opinion. They wish to come to Britain because they see it as a way to
freedom. Illegal immigrants however are people that enter the country for none
of these reasons, most probably because they want to take advantage of the
benefits given to asylum seekers like candy by the government. However, most
illegal immigrants when arriving in Britain will claim asylum, however this is
not genuine. The main countries of
origin of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants are those that are
significantly less well off than the West, usually with a communist government
and/or places where there is conflict. These are countries like Afganistan,
Yugoslavia, Romania, China, Iraq and Iran.The ways in which
illegal immigrants and asylum seekers arrive in this country vary enormously.
In the news a couple of months ago, 58 chinese men were discovered dead in the
back of a lorry where they had suffocated to death while being smuggled across
the Channel. These were all illegal immigrants. Families of these paid a human
trafficking gang "the Snakeheads" £14,000 to smuggle one individual
from China to England. Only two men survived, and were found semi-comatose
under a pile of corpses. Most illegal immigrants are smuggled into the country
by gangs who hide them in lorries under produce which is being imported in.
Whilst still in their native country, the families can pay approximately half
of the money as a deposit, and once they arrive at their destination they must
pay the rest, else will be held captive. In the past, there have been reports
of Romanian women who cannot afford the second payment and are forced into
prostitution, begging or crime to pay off their debt. However this is extreme.
Other illegal immigrants travel into the country without the help of gangs,
just like the people that two days ago were discovered under the Eurostar train
that travelled from France to London. If they are caught coming into the
country, the illegal immigrant can make a verbal claim that they are seeking
asylum. Any person found smuggling an illegal immigrant can be fined.Asylum seekers apply to
the Home Office for residency in the country. If this is granted they are
allowed in legally, and are given various benefits that I will discuss later.
For an application to be granted, they have to meet one in five of the criteria
mentioned in the 1951 UN convention’s definition of a refugee. However, the
government is introducing a new immigration and asylum act which makes in
virtually impossible for a genuine asylum seeker to reach Britain legally. Only
one in five applications for residence are accepted. This means that more
people will enter Britain illegally, rather than be rejected by the Home
Office. If the application is
rejected, the asylum seeker can appeal against the decision. Ideally, the
seeker should obtain legal assistance when applying, but usually they speak
very little English and have no contacts over in Britain, so legal advice is
difficult to obtain. They should collect evidence that shows they suffered
persecution in their native country, this makes the application more likely to
be accepted. If the appeal is also rejected, the asylum seeker is either then
immediately deported, or fingerprinted and released on temporary admission.If the Home Office
grants an immigrant asylum, they are given certain benefits so they have the
basic amenities to live off. Firstly, every single asylum seeker granted
admission is given a £25 voucher to spend in supermarkets to buy their food. In
addition to this they receive ten pounds in cash as their ?pocket money?. The
Home Secretary Jack Straw recently instructed that the supermarkets do not give
change from the vouchers, as immigrants were spending the vouchers on something
very small, such as a Mars Bar, then using the change to buy additional,
non-vital purchases. The no-change system also keeps the cost down of asylum
seekers. On top, the immigrants are given housing benefits or free housing.Many people become very
bitter by the hand-outs given to immigrants in this country. This can lead to
prejudice, and violence against the immigrants. Many people do not believe it
is right for asylum seekers to receive food vouchers, pocket money and housing
benefits, while they have to work and struggle to pay for these. This makes
racism worse, and attacks on asylum seekers on Glasgow housing estates has been
in the media in the past. Currently Calais has a problem with violence as human
trafficking gangs are having disputes.Another problem that is
connected with asylum seekers and illegal immigrants is at the Home Office. The
applications for entry to the country has suffered a backlog and over 104,000
applications are waiting to be approved. This backlog occurred after the computerised
administration system went wrong and at its worse, only 800 decisions were made
in one month. The government has
introduced new measures over the applications. An extra 600 million pounds has
been given to help clear this backlog, and this also goes toward employing
another 6,000 people to approve or rejection applications, and make the whole
system much quicker. A new immigration and asylum act is being introduced this
April to make it more difficult for asylum seekers to enter into the country.
However,? this could make the number of
illegal immigrants entering Britain rise, so there are increased checks on
lorries coming into the Dover and Folkestone ports. The government is also
trying to spread the asylum seekers out over the whole of the United Kingdom as
so many reside in Kent, the council there was struggling for its resources. It
is evident how many asylum seekers there are when you walk around Margate in
Kent and see them all in the bed and breakfasts. Another problem for the Home
Office is that the cashless payment system with vouchers is a very complex
process and currently costs three times as much to run as it would to just hand
out the cash. It has gone round many times, where asylum seekers were not
receiving their food vouchers for weeks on end and were literally starving.
Many people are worrying because the first time ever, the number of immigrants
entering the country has overtaken the natural population growth, with
migration figures standing at 140,000 per year, and natural population growth
standing at 90,000 per year.In conclusion:
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