Labour plans for migrants under fire

Labour’s plans to tackle the mounting backlog of asylum claims by focusing on detention and deportation continue the Conservatives’ “dangerous rhetoric of stigmatising refugees”, immigration lawyers argue.
One solicitor tells The Times that proposals from the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, could have come from a press release “with Suella Braverman’s name on it”.
Cooper announced a goal to deport more than 14,000 illegal migrants and foreign criminals by the end of the year — along with a decision to press ahead with the previous government’s plans to reopen two immigration detention centres.
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She also said that the National Crime Agency will recruit 100 extra intelligence and investigations officers to target the people-smuggling gangs providing the small boats that transport migrants across the Channel.
Since Labour was elected last month, the Home Office has sent nine flights returning migrants to their home countries. But the latest government figures, published this month, show that the number of asylum-seekers awaiting decisions on claims rose to a record high of 224,742 at the end of June. Of those, 118,882 people had not received an initial decision, while tens of thousands awaited the outcome of appeals against rejected claims.
Lawyers and refugee charities criticise the government’s failure to create safe, legal routes enabling people to claim asylum — especially for those with relatives in the UK — or to address the situation of those who cannot be returned to their home countries.
They also call for greater resourcing of skilled Home Office staff, an increase to legal aid rates for lawyers and a relaxation of the restrictions that ban asylum-seekers from working in the UK while waiting for claims to be decided.
Labour proposes “nothing positive”, says Sonia Lenegan, a solicitor at Free Movement, an immigration law information and training provider. “It is very easy to imagine that press release coming out a year ago with Suella Braverman’s name on it instead of Yvette Cooper’s,” she adds.
Cooper’s deportation target merely promises “something that was going to happen anyway”, Lenegan adds, highlighting figures showing that the number of enforced returns have been increasing over the past few years, hitting 7,190 for the 12 months ending last June — up from 4,873 the previous year.
Diana Baxter, a partner at Wesley Gryk Solicitors, is disappointed by Labour’s plans “to continue the dangerous rhetoric of stigmatising refugees and migrants, and obsess with stopping the boats”.Baxter notes that removals under the last Labour government were higher than those under their Tory successors. She says that the Conservatives “talked tough on enforcement”, but achieved little and wasted “eye-watering” sums on the Rwanda scheme, which has been scrapped by the new administration.
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“I wish the new government were willing to be truly bold and explore humane alternatives to reopening failed detention centres,” says Baxter, branding immigration detention as a “cruel” mechanism that “rarely achieves its purpose” because most detainees are released rather than removed.
The public “deserves honesty about upholding our obligations under international refugee law to offer sanctuary to those fleeing persecution”, she says, adding that there are relatively low numbers coming to the UK compared with other countries.
While Brexit caused a rise in the number of people arriving in the UK in small boats — suggesting that the returns agreements with EU countries had a deterrent effect — Baxter argues that “there are more than 100 million displaced people in the world, of whom merely tens of thousands seek refuge in the UK each year”.
In addition, the focus on detention and removal, suggests Lenegan, is likely to lead to legal challenges, as many people will not have had access to a lawyer before their detention owing to low levels of legal aid and because of the Home Office’s unnecessary and “harmful” use of detention.
Labour’s plans target the victims, who may have been trafficked and are in need of protection, rather than the perpetrators of organised crime, argues Zoe Bantleman, director of the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association.
She notes that the UK “is a draconian outlier in Europe” with no statutory time limit on immigration detention and draws attention to recent reports that highlight poor conditions in immigration detention.
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As well as exposing vulnerable people to the risk of greater harm, Bantleman warns that Labour’s measures are “likely to exacerbate the climate of hate and hostility migrants and those who represent them face, which resulted in the recent far-right violence”.
Before the election, the law firm Duncan Lewis began a legal challenge to the Conservative justice secretary’s failure to increase legal aid fees for immigration and asylum work, which it claimed deprived thousands of eligible individuals of legal representation because they could not find a lawyer willing to work for rates that had been unchanged for years.
Echoing the views of many colleagues, Lenegan calls on the government to “urgently get to grips with the importance of a properly funded and functioning legal aid system”. She argues that “choking the life out of the legal aid sector is a false economy” that leads to an increase in appeals.
A Home Office spokesman said the government was “determined to restore order to the asylum system after it has been put under unprecedented pressure, so that it operates swiftly, firmly and fairly”, adding that clearing the case backlog will “help us deliver savings on asylum hotels and accommodation”.