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England

Response - UK Border Agency: Reforming Asylum Support

By: Elizabeth O'Hara
Published: February 2010

Response - UK Border Agency: Reforming Asylum Support

We are disappointed that the consultation does not recognise the problems of poverty and destitution of those either in the asylum process or at the end of it. Instead it focuses on using the support system as a means of encouraging compliance with enforcement and increasing rates of voluntary return. Accommodation and support should be provided to asylum seekers to honour commitments under the 1951 Convention, rather than as a tool of immigration control.

Our main concerns are:

  • the proposed re-enactment of s.55 of the 2002 Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act; and,

  • the proposal to place families in full board accommodation.

Neither of these proposals is acceptable to Shelter. We have successfully campaigned on these issues in the past and they remain core concerns.