ASYLUM SEEKERS

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Asylum seekers at Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre in Bedfordshire, have won the right to eat custard cream and bourbon biscuits after complaining they did not like the chocolate variety provided. Private sector managers caved in to a series of demands from hundreds of detainees. These included the provision of extra TV channels, among them the dance music channel MTV Base and religious channels, DVD players with the technology to play discs originating in Africa and better-quality, "Tilda" brand rice. The extended "shopping list" includes a request from female detainees for specialised glue for their hair extensions and hair relaxer, a lotion used to straighten curly hair.

Women at the centre have also demanded more comfortable mattresses, more than one pillow and towel, and better-quality flip-flops. They also want to be able to buy Body Shop and Avon cosmetics from the centre's shop. Detainees have asked for bigger meal portions and for food contents to be displayed in case detainees have allergies, for pork to be added to the menu and more varied salads. They have also requested the reintroduction of tea bags, claiming the usual tea was "disgusting."

The Borders and Immigration Agency said that detention is an essential element in the effective enforcement of immigration control. Detainees are not prisoners and were provided with a wide range of activities and facilities to help them use their time constructively. A spokesman said, "None of these changes has cost the taxpayer any money. We signed a contract with the Home Office and we get paid a contract fee. So, if we improve things, it will have come from our own budget. And where did that contract fee come from? (Source: Daily Mail, Aug/07)

The High Court ordered the Government to pay out thousands of pounds in damages to a family of failed asylum seekers after a judge ruled their deportation on Easter Sunday "unlawful". The senior judge also ordered Home Secretary John Reid to take "all reasonable steps" to secure the family's return to the UK.

The order was made by Mrs Justice Black who said the Government's "unlawful actions have resulted in the family being stranded abroad when they should still be in the United Kingdom". The judge said the family was never given a proper opportunity to seek legal advice to challenge their removal. She ruled that three members of the family, a husband and wife and their 18-year-old daughter, were entitled to interim payments of £4,000 each for the way they had been treated. (Source: Mail on Sunday, Dec/06)

The Government gave £6 million in handouts to asylum-seekers in the first four months of 2006 under a scheme to encourage migrants to leave Britain. Not surprisingly, the £3,000 cash payments prompted a surge in applications from people wishing to leave. Presumably threats of torture in their own country were suddenly forgotten.

A total of 1,956 asylum-seekers took up the offer in the first four months of the year, more than double the number who left on voluntary departure schemes in the same period of 2005. The increase in numbers accepting £2,000 in cash and a further £1,000 worth of job training and education has resulted in the Government extending the scheme for a further six months.

Sir John Gieve, a former permanent secretary at the Home Office, warned MPs that increasing payouts might encourage people to come to Britain. He said, “If the worst thing that is going to happen to you if you come and claim asylum when you are not due asylum in Britain is that someone gives you a few thousand pounds and sends you home, that may not look like a very big downside.” (Source: Times Online, Jun/06)

About 30 to 40 asylum seekers a month will be sent by the Government's National Asylum Support Service from January 2006. This follows a decision in September 2003 to halt the dispersal programme in Derby because the city was unable to cope. Using a national formula for the dispersal of asylum seekers, towns and cities should have received up to one asylum seeker for every 200 residents. Based on a population of 230,000, Derby's total quota should not have exceeded 1,150, but the figure peaked at more than 2,200.

It is currently estimated that there are about 500 asylum seekers in the city. The council has persuaded NASS to agree to send more families and fewer single men to Derby, with an embargo on housing young single males in the Normanton area and has insisted on certain guarantees before the dispersal programme is relaunched. Agreement has been obtained that most of those coming to Derby will be families.

The council has also asked for guarantees that Refugee Action, the national charity that provides day-to-day advice and assistance to asylum seekers, sets up an office in Derby to cater for all asylum seekers. Police and council officials previously played down reports of racial tension in Normanton in recent years as a result of large numbers of young single males living in the area but the authorities admitted the situation was not helping community relations.

When an initial asylum dispersal contract was agreed by the city council in 2001, 98 council homes were allocated to NASS for asylum seekers. The council took 48 of them back following a report that many of them had been left vacant and vandalised. The remaining 50 homes, which are on various council estates across the city, are due to be assigned back to the council when the old contract runs out in March 2006 but asylum seekers will continue to be housed by NASS through deals with private housing associations.

Councillor Philip Hickson, leader of the city's Conservative group, said, "I am appalled that dispersal is going to resume. Although they might be giving guarantees about the numbers, they did so before and breached them. Neither the Home Office nor NASS can be trusted. It is absolutely ludicrous to reintroduce dispersal when we have 10,000 people on the housing waiting list." A Home Office spokeswoman said, "We feel it's right that the Home Office now looks to resume dispersal to Derby, but we want to work with the local authority to ensure a smooth transition." (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph)

The first eight asylum seekers to be sent by the Government to Derby since September 2003 will all be single, despite the city council being told by the National Asylum Support Service that more families and fewer single men would be sent to the city. Councillor Amar Nath, cabinet member for housing and social inclusion, said, "We would prefer families and we will not accept any single people being housed in the DE23 postal area, which covers Normanton." (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph, Jan/06)