£10bn legacy of shambles over asylum: 'Labour Party failings have left 250,000 illegals'
Labour spent £2million every day on a shambolic asylum system which failed to remove hundreds of thousands of bogus claimants, reveals a blistering study.
An audit of the last government’s record reveals how officials spent as much as £10billion processing applications as they struggled to cope with a surge in numbers.
But only one in four of the 660,000 decisions made on asylum claims between 1997 and 2010 led to the applicant being removed.
Even where the claim was considered to be unfounded, the majority of failed asylum-seekers were not sent home. They are now living here illegally.
Last night, immigration minister Damian Green said it was a symptom of the ‘hopeless chaos’ which Labour inflicted on the UK’s border controls.
The study by the MigrationWatch think-tank found that 660,000 asylum cases were decided from 1997 to 2010.
Some form of humanitarian protection, including asylum, was granted in 243,000 cases. This left 417,000 claimants who were rejected and should have left the UK. But only 151,540 – or 36 per cent – of those denied asylum were removed. Another 8,615 were found to have left without telling the authorities.
This means more than 250,000 have neither left nor been removed and are therefore presumed to remain in the UK illegally, MigrationWatch said.
Its report also found that between 2008 and 2010, 59 per cent of claims were lodged only after the person had been detected by the authorities. Asylum-seekers with genuine claims are supposed to claim at the first possible opportunity – not after they have been caught working illegally or sneaking into the country.
Britain was also found to approve more claims than France, through which many claimants pass to reach the allegedly ‘soft touch’ UK. In 2009, Britain granted permission to stay in 28 per cent of cases, compared with 19 per cent in France. Under Labour, the annual number of asylum cases increased hugely from 32,500 in 1997 to a peak of 85,000 in 2002.
MigrationWatch chairman Sir Andrew Green said: ‘The asylum system has proved to be a £10billion shambles. Those who, like ourselves, are serious about protecting genuine refugees should be no less serious about removing bogus claimants. ‘The system needs to be much faster. Delays leave the door open for appeals based on the right to family life.
‘It also needed to be much tougher on the bogus. It is absurd that we allow people who have been in Britain illegally for years to claim asylum to delay or prevent their removal; this applies to almost 60 per cent of claimants.’
The study estimated the cost of asylum since 1999 at close to £10billion, including legal aid and court costs. This includes £2.8billion for temporary accommodation, £927million on payments to support those awaiting a ruling and almost £500million for failed claimants who cannot return home or are taking steps to leave the UK.
The report, based on research published by the Home Office, warns it is difficult to know exactly what happened in every case because of the chaos and confusion of recent years. Five years ago, ministers identified more than 400,000 ‘legacy cases’ which officials had never resolved. Some have since been granted settlement or removed.
Mr Green, the immigration minister, said: ‘The system we inherited was hopelessly chaotic and did not provide the taxpayer with value for money. ‘Last year, we reduced the bill for asylum support by over £100million and it is falling further this year.
‘We have nearly doubled the proportion of asylum-seekers removed within a year of their application and around 60 per cent of applicants receive a decision within a month.’
SOURCE
Australia, PNG sign MOU on Manus I. detention for illegals
The federal government and Papua New Guinea have signed a memorandum of understanding on reopening Manus Island to process asylum seekers.
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said the MOU was signed on Friday afternoon and signals an important step in the process of establishing what he says will be an Australian-funded 'assessment centre'.
'The Manus Island centre will complement the Malaysia transfer arrangement and provide further disincentive for people considering risking their lives on dangerous boat journeys,' Mr Bowen said in a statement.
'This MOU sends a clear message that countries in this region are working together towards a lasting regional response.'
The MOU provides a framework to how the detention centre will operate.
Mr Bowen said the two countries were working to have it operational 'at the earliest opportunity'.
The MOU recognises the need for a regional solution to people smuggling and notes that both countries are signatories to the UN convention on refugee rights.
It also commits to treating detainees with dignity and respect, to processing them as quickly as possible, while noting that Australia will bear all the costs of their assessments.
SOURCE
Background
Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.
Why is "La Raza" the one Spanish term that is NEVER translated in the American mass media? Because translating it would make it a lot less respectable. It means "THE RACE" -- The mixed Hispanic "race" of Mexico. Racism is fine South of the Rio Grande only, apparently.
The "line" of this blog is that immigration should be SELECTIVE. That means that:
1). A national government should be in control of it. The U.S. and U.K. governments are not but the Australian government has shown that the government of a prosperous Western country can be. Up until its loss of office in 2007, the conservative Howard government had all but eliminated illegal immigration. The present Leftist government has however restarted the flow of illegals by repealing many of the Howard government regulations.
2). Selectivity should be based on "the content of a man's character, not on the color of his skin", as MLK said. To expand that a little: Immigrants should only be accepted if they as individuals seem likely to make a positive net contribution to the country. Many "refugees" would fail that test: Muslims and Africans particularly. Educational level should usually be a pretty fair proxy for the individual's likely value to the receiving country. There will, of course, be exceptions but it is nonetheless unlikely that a person who has not successfully completed High School will make a net positive contribution to a modern Western society.
3). Immigrants should be neither barred NOR ACCEPTED solely because they are of some particular ethnic origin. Blacks are vastly more likely to be criminal than are whites or Chinese, for instance, but some whites and some Chinese are criminal. It is the criminality that should matter, not the race.
4). The above ideas are not particularly blue-sky. They roughly describe the policies of the country where I live -- Australia. I am critical of Australian policy only insofar as the "refugee" category for admission is concerned. All governments have tended to admit as refugees many undesirables. It seems to me that more should be required of them before refugees are admitted -- for instance a higher level of education or a business background.
5). Perhaps the most amusing assertion in the immigration debate is that high-income countries like the USA and Britain NEED illegal immigrants to do low-paid menial work. "Who will pick our crops?" (etc.) is the cry. How odd it is then that Australians get all the normal services of a modern economy WITHOUT illegal immigrants! Yes: Before the pandemic, you usually COULD buy a lettuce in Australia for a dollar or thereabouts. And Australia IS a major exporter of primary products.
6). I am a libertarian conservative so I reject the "open door" policy favoured by many libertarians and many Leftists. Both those groups tend to have a love of simplistic generalizations that fail to deal with the complexity of the real world. It seems to me that if a person has the right to say whom he/she will have living with him/her in his/her own house, so a nation has the right to admit to living among them only those individuals whom they choose.
I can be reached on jonjayray@hotmail.com -- or leave a comment on any post. Abusive comments will be deleted.
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