There are no illegal asylum seekers
FULL FACT: Can refugees enter the UK illegally?
Article 31 of the UN Refugee Convention states that refugees cannot be penalised for entering the country illegally to claim asylum if they are
“coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened”
provided they
“present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence”.
However, in 1999 (see next entry) a UK judge ruled that
“some element of choice is indeed open to refugees as to where they may properly claim asylum.”
specifying that
“any merely short term stopover en route”
to another country should not forfeit the individual’s right to claim refugee status elsewhere.
This means people who enter the UK by illegal means can legitimately make a claim for asylum, even after passing through other “safe” countries, provided they do so directly after arriving.
1999 supreme court
R V UXBRIDGE MAGISTRATES COURT & ANOTHER EX PARTE ADIMI R V CROWN PROSECUTION SERVICE EX PARTE SORANI R V SECRETARY OF STATE FOR HOME DEPARTMENT EX PARTE SORANI R V SECRETARY OF STATE FOR HOME DEPARTMENT and ANOTHER EX PARTE KAZIU [1999] EWHC Admin 765 (29th July, 1999)
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE CO/2533/98, CO/3007/98,
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE CO/2472/98 & CO/1167/99
(DIVISIONAL COURT )
Channel boat people are refugees, Home Office officials confirm
Evidence presented to the Home Affairs committee of MPs on 3 September makes clear that the majority of those making the perilous crossing are either being granted refugee status straight away or come from countries for which the success rate in asylum applications is extremely high.
Figures on small boat crossings are not routinely published, but the Home Office keeps tabs. Senior official Abi Tierney told the committee that 5,000 people have crossed the Channel in small boats so far this year. Of those, 98% have claimed asylum. The Home Office has issued an initial decision on around half of those asylum claims so far.
The breakdown of those roughly 2,500 decisions is as follows:
20% of those have been granted, 10% have been refused and a further 71% have been refused because we are not the responsible country, i.e., they have travelled through a safe country before they came here.
Tierney’s colleague Tyson Hepple, head of Immigration Enforcement, later clarified that the 71% are not being refused in the sense that the Home Office thinks they are not genuine refugees. The department just believes that another European country has the legal responsibility for deciding whether they should be granted asylum or not:
The people Abi was referring to are those we are trying to transfer to another European state under the Dublin regulations, so they will not have their protection claim heard in the UK. We are seeking to transfer them to another European state in order to have their asylum claim heard there, because they claimed asylum in that country on their way to the UK.