INTRODUCTION
For decades, immigration has become a recurrent subject in social
and political
debates in Western Europe. Whereas human being's mobility
throughout the
world is an historical fact that can be traced back ages ago. The
term immigration
includes economical as well as political migrants. If the former
due to «pull» factors
migrates to positively improve his conditions of existence, the
latter leaves his
country because of «push» factors. Indeed in order to
have a safe and peaceful life,
people are forced to flee from their own countries to escape
conflicts, torture,
persecution and other degrading treatments. By leaving their
countries for another one
to seek refuge, they become asylum seekers, who according to
United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees, is a person who has left their country
of origin, has
applied for recognition as a refugee in another country, and is
awaiting a decision on
their application(UNHCR,1996). In their flight, most asylum
seekers' destinations are
countries where they think basic human rights such as the right
of life, the prohibition
of torture, freedom of movement and expression etc... are
scrupulously respected.
The different political crises and conflicts all over the world
have generated thousands
of asylum seekers heading to the European continent especially to
the European
Union members `states where they think their life will be safe.
The choice of some
states of the Western Europe is not fortuitous. First, most of
them have colonial ties,
Secondly, they are signatories of 1948 Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, the
1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and finally
they all have a well-
established refugee regime. Thus the end of World War II and the
period post
decolonisation have seen many people flowing in Western Europe.
That tendency has
been increasing since the 1980s up to now.
The phenomenon of asylum seekers referred to as aliens coming to
Europe has
become a great concern and a real challenge for some European
countries. The alien
is a subject of curiosity for the local population because of his
skin, face and the
language he speaks. He is a mysterious person whose increasing
number frightens the
local population. A trivial incident he is involved in becomes a
serious matter, blown
up by newspapers and politicians to infuse fear then xenophobia
and finally racism in
the native population.. Though the issue of asylum is seen by
states as a kind of
immigration they nevertheless make a distinction between both of
them. They have a
moral obligation to accept the former who has rights guaranteed
by the UN 1951
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. While the latter
has no right and can
be therefore denied entry. Assuredly the issue of immigration
linked to the concept of
«race relations» has strongly influenced most European
countries' policies.
To tackle the problem of massive arrival of asylum seekers in
order to preserve
national stability, some countries have voted new legislations,
elaborated new
strategies that are at variance with all the International
treaties they signed and
ratified. One of the blatant examples is the administrative
detention of asylum seekers.
Although that practice, many times denounced by some Human Rights
organizations,
is contrary to the Article 31 of the 1951 Convention and the
Article 14 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is still carried on by
most of Western
European countries even those reputed to have a refugee tradition
such as the United
Kingdom. Is the presence of asylum seekers undesirable? Is
xenophobia or racism the
new growing feeling in Europe? One could spend times wondering
why people
seeking asylum are treated so. The rationale of the European
countries' behaviour
towards asylum seekers differs from one country to another. Some
refuse them for
racial considerations while others for economic ones. Among the
panoply of measures
to discard asylum seekers, European countries use either
containment which is to
prevent people from actually leaving their countries of origin
and arriving at Western
states' borders or deterrence which is a mixture of restrictive
and punitive measures
taken in the country of asylum (Hassan, 2000).
For decades many works have been written in sociology (Solomon
1989; Hayes and
Humphries 2004), politics and international laws dealing with
asylum seekers but also
deterrence measures implemented against them (S.Cohen 2003;
Hayter2004; Hassan
2000; Schuster 2003).
The topic: Deterrence Measures as Response to Potential Threats
To The
Host Country: The case of the United Kingdom; deals with the
practice of a
signatory state of the UN 1951 Convention to protect its society
and the welfare
system.
My work adds to the debates on the rationale of deterrence
measures against asylum.
It first gives us the opportunity to see through a discourse
analysis that politicians'
statements are the frame of its implementation, secondly that the
concept of race
relations which states that many different races in a given
country lead to violence
influences British immigration policy, and finally that both
containment and
deterrence measures in the United Kingdom are protective means
used against the
growing number of asylum seekers who constitute potential
economical and societal
threats.
I would like to mention that though the topic of the work is the
case of the United
Kingdom, I am not pretentious to cover the whole United Kingdom
but I would
rather focus on England. However I will refer to the United
Kingdom
or Great Britain as it is in the international treaties, official
documents or in any
quoted article I took from books.
My work will start by the origin of immigration to England where
we will see
the reasons why people choose to come to this country and the
role played by
governments. Secondly, I will present the impact of asylum
seekers' presence in
England. This part will give us an insight of the economic burden
and the societal
threat. In the last part of the work talking about the state
'response, we will have the
opportunity to see the measures adopted by the host country to
deal with the potential
threats.
METHODOLOGY
The focus of this work is on the rationale underpinning the use
of deterrence measures
towards asylum seekers in this country which is one of the first
signatories of 1951
United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of refugees. I
am convinced that
those measures are not spontaneous but rather the result of
series of events that took
place in this country. That is why I have based my work on a
combination of
qualitative and quantitative methods. They helped me first, to
see the history of
immigration in this country, understand what were people's
reasons for fleeing their
countries to come here and the role of the host country.
Secondly, to analyse the
statements and reactions of the leaders, politicians and
population of the host country.
Thirdly, to have an insight of the effects of deterrence measures
on asylum seekers.
Fourthly, to see the statistics related to the presence of asylum
seekers in the 70s, 90s
and 2003/04 and also the number of detainees in 2004.Finally, the
level of support
provided by the National Asylum Support Service (NASS).
The understanding of the rationale of deterrence measures starts
by the analysis of
different Acts since 1905 to 2002.
Knowing that English society is in a perpetual change rather than
static, population's
behaviour and language follow the current environment as politics
follows economy
and the social environment. Therefore politicians' Acts stem from
somewhere and
have objectives. That is why any limitation of my work to only
quantitative or
qualitative method will mislead us in the understanding of the
implementation of
deterrence measures. For numbers cannot reveal and tell the inner
feeling of the host
population, likewise language without numbers does not show the
size of a situation.
Though I have chosen a combined method, I acknowledge that it was
not easy to
gather information and documents. The poor quantity of former
asylum seekers I
found through a church network is due to people reluctance and
apprehension to
testify even talk about their past and reveal their status. I
also encountered
difficulties to gather first hand statistics from local councils
and notorious refugee
organisations. Under the confidentiality label, I have been asked
to browse their
web sites because they don't give interviews to students. While
others nicely will give
me a telephone number they will never answer.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Since the 1980s there has been a growing academic literature
concerning immigration
in the United Kingdom. The movement of people crossing
international boundaries
and settling in this country for a short time or forever has been
examined in its
different aspects and natures.
Contrary to the idea of Globalisation which is free mobility of
capital, goods and
technology across countries, the movement of human being, owner
of those items, is
subject to restrictions by states structural barriers. But what
makes people travel to the
United Kingdom, sometimes at the expense of their lives? The
Neo-Classical
economists argue that migrants are workers leaving low-wage to
higher-wage areas.
For them the movement of people to Europe is motivated by a
desire of better pay.
This perception of migration is also shared by the
Historical-Structuralist approach
inspired by the Marxist political economy. It states that
migration is to provide cheap
labour for capital. Those two theories of migration with a
disconcerting simpleness
push aside any other reason to only reduce migration to the quest
of money, financial
well-being. Whereas there is something greater than money,
something which is the
raison d'etre of human being; that thing is life itself. The
narrow perception and
theory of the Neo-Classical economists and the
Historical-Structuralist approach are
fortunately not shared by all.
Castles and Miller (1998) claim that migration is a combination
of push and pull
factors. People are attracted by opportunities existing in other
countries and migrate
therefore to improve their conditions of life, while others are
forced to leave to
preserve their life. Though the theory of push and pull factors
seems whole because it
takes into account both the improvement and preservation of life,
it does not explain
the magnitude of future migration, the conditions of travel nor
the reaction of host
countries. It also fails to see another type of migrants whose
reason to move is nothing
more than follow-the-leader.
Different reasons to migrate implies different kind of migrants.
The differentiation
between them lies in the motivation of departure. International
law and human rights
organisations call migrants who leave their countries for
well-founded fear of being
persecuted as refugees whereas the other group is economic
migrants. The UNHCR
Handbook on procedures and criteria for determining refugee
status (1996) makes it
clear that a migrant is a person who, for reasons other than
those contained in the
definition, voluntarily leaves his country in order t take up
residence elsewhere. He
may be moved by the desire for change and adventure, or by family
or other reasons
of a personal nature. If he is moved exclusively by economic
considerations, he is an
economic migrant and not a refugee. Bloch (2002) argues that the
key difference
between refugees and other migrants is that refugees do not want
to leave their
country of origin, they are pushed rather than pulled. They are
therefore involuntary
migrants. Between the two kinds of migrants, Harvey (2000) states
that because of
international treaties, the host country has an ethical
obligation to allow in, assist and
protect refugees which is not the same treatment for economic
migrants. It is not easy
for the receiving country to draw a line between the two groups
because the
anticipatory refugee leaves and migrates before the situation
prevents an organised
departure. This type of refugees, though they leave under push
factors are mistaken
for voluntary economic migrants(Kunz, 1973).
As people's flight has become easier because of sophisticated
means of
transportation, great numbers of asylum seekers landed in the
United Kingdom. The
choice of this country is based on colonial links. Sassen (1998)
claims that
the choice of destination is colonisation, political influence,
trade investment and
cultural ties. Those criteria are no longer relevant nowadays
because asylum seekers
go everywhere regardless of colonial ties or language. The
consequence of asylum
seekers influx is the changing of policies towards them, from
haven to protectionism.
It is said that nation requires defined territorial boundaries
which are made
impermeable to unwanted migration. Because any country poor or
rich that opens its
borders will see many people and neighbouring states taking
advantage of its
permeability. Economic factors are important in relation to
immigration. His
statement implies that refugees affect the economy therefore
state has the right to
protect its social goods. In the same vein is the position of
Communitarian theory
which argues that state is the highest authority as such it has
the obligation to protect
and favour its citizens first. Walzer (1983) claims that the
theory of justice must allow
the territorial state to specify the rights of its inhabitants
and recognize the collective
right of admission and refusal. The choice of state for
protectionism over
humanitarian is directed by the economy. This assertion leads to
one question: Is the
United Kingdom closing its borders to refugees because of its
national interest? The
use of deterrence measures outside and inside the country by
governments is to
protect the society and the welfare system. Cohen (1988) argues
that the 1905 Aliens
Act was purposely voted to deny entry to Jews who did not have
assets to maintain
themselves and could therefore be a burden to the host country.
His work is a
compilation of mistreatments ranging from detention to
deportation endured by
asylum seekers and refugees in this country. It helps to
understand the perception
people have of refugees, their reactions and strategies set up to
deter them. It is true
that it is a pamphlet against governments' abuse but it would
have gained vast interest
in suggesting solutions to the improvement of refugees'
conditions rather than
encouraging acts of defiance against the laws of the host
country.
Politics and economic are closely linked. The protection of the
welfare is at the core
of the immigration policy. For instance in the visa granted to
students, it is written `no
recourse to public fund'. The message is clear, we allow you to
enter into our country
but not to our finance. To avoid using people's money to take
care of asylum seekers,
it is in the interest of the state not to let them enter. Even
those who managed
to enter are no more entitled to social benefits. Hayes and
Humphries (eds) (2004)
argue that refugees are called `bogus refugees'or economic
migrants by authorities to
justify the restriction and then the removal of benefits. Their
work highlights the
refugees crisis in this country. Crisis not in terms of physical
or social violence but in
terms of embarrassment at the head of state to how to refuse
refugees without losing
the label of liberal democratic state or the reputation of haven
for refugees? How to
protect the welfare system and not to be seen as a human rights
violator by the
international community? Between national interest and
humanitarian compassion,
there is a choice the state has made regardless the plight of the
refugees. Through
legislation, the state finds the way to restrict, deter and
impoverish asylum seekers.
The legislation is so pitiless that in February 2003, the High
Court condemned the
2002 Act as inhuman.
Though their work does not give account of the genesis of
refugees in this country,
neither statistics of asylum seekers influx in this country nor
propose solution to the
dilemma of the state, it has the merit to speak out what is
murmured that asylum
seekers are left aside in a prosperous country. Similarly Bloch
(2002) argues that
various Acts are passed to restrict access not only to the
country but also to the
welfare benefits. Asylum seekers are prevented from gaining
access to this country
through various legislations Acts and those who are already there
face mistreatments.
Her work sheds light on the origin of immigration in this country
and the response to
increasing numbers of asylum seekers. It is a useful work I will
regularly refer to in
my findings. It helps in the understanding of the use of refugees
for economic
purposes by governments. The attitude of governments is closed to
wickedness and
hypocrisy. They take advantage of the plight of refugees to fill
the void in the labour
market. Hypocrisy is openly celebrated by governments when they
hide under
humanitarian act the real driving force of granting refugee
status.
The usefulness of the work lies among many others in the
retrospective view of the
origin of immigration, the display of the pieces of legislation
and deterrence aspects
incorporated in them. However it does not go deeply to reveal the
consequences of
those laws on asylum seekers. A brief mention of asylum seekers
detention without
her own view might suggest that it is a trivial and normal thing
which she agrees.
Lastly, it presents a nice picture of the settlement of minority
groups at Newham in
London. Would it not have been objective to also take another
locality outside
London to compare and show if the settlement policy is a
successful operation in this
country?
Hayter (2004) goes in the same way to argue that governments
believe in deterrence
measures to bring down the number of asylum seekers. They put a
special accent on
immigration controls to achieve that goal. Detention is at the
core of the arsenal to
discourage would-be asylum seekers. It is used at any stage of
the process. The
reasons why asylum seekers are detained are first the possession
of false documents.
It is undeniable true that someone fleeing under `push factors'
perpetrated by his
state' agents does not have the necessary time to carry all his
documents while others
do not have one. For instance, in a country ruled by a dictator,
opponents' passports
are confiscated to prevent them from leaving the country. In such
situation, they can
only leave the country either disguised or with false
documents.
Detain asylum seekers because of false documents raises the
question whether their
lives are less important than the documents they carry with them?
How can travelling
abroad with their own documents bring any change to the situation
that causes them to
flee? The second reason to detain is when immigration officers
think that the
individual may abscond. In other words, the asylum seeker will
disappear in the
nature without waiting for the result of his claim. It is a
naïve view. In entering in this
country people have two options, either legally or illegally that
is to say with or
without record of their presence. By lodging their claims, asylum
seekers show their
desire to abide by the law of the host country and not live
illegally. Therefore see
someone making an asylum application and think that very person
will abscond
without waiting for the result, is a wicked thought only
immigration officers can have.
The other tool of deterrence measures is impoverishment. The
removal of social
benefits coupled with the prohibition to work lead asylum seekers
to a situation of
destitution. The government is, through NASS, ready to take care
of them if only if
they prove to be penniless. All this participates in the strategy
to deter asylum seekers.
Face to arbitrary and wicked character of immigration controls,
Hayter suggests
stopping immigration controls because no one is illegal.
Her work which is an invaluable contribution in the understanding
of the plight of
asylum seekers in the United Kingdom, has been a precious source
of information
to my work. It gives deep description of the effect of
immigration policy on asylum
seekers. Nevertheless, it fails to appreciate the positive side
of immigration controls.
It is not enough to claim asylum to be allowed in the country nor
is it an open sesame.
For under the mantle of asylum seekers or refugees are hidden
criminals who are
wanted by tribunal. The case of a former Rwandese military
officer who planned the
massacre of Tutsi, then ran to Europe, claimed asylum and was
granted the refugee
status.
The plight of asylum seekers has also been the concern of
Schuster (2003) who
asserts that the purpose of the legislation in this country is to
deter potential asylum
seekers. The rationale of that position is based on the
perception that asylum seekers
are a threat to the welfare system, to British identity and to
the Liberal state.
Legislation is then used as legal weapon to restrict access to
the country and also to
certain social goods such as the welfare provisions. But how to
restrict the granting of
asylum and remain a liberal state? The government finds the
solution in criminalising
asylum seekers. An intelligent and subtle campaign is organised
through media to
shape and orientate the international and national opinion that
asylum seekers are not
genuine but bogus or economic migrants who come to improve their
well-being. They
rather flee hunger not persecution. This accusation leads then to
the categorisation of
asylum seekers into two groups: the genuine and the bogus or
economic migrants. It is
well spread that economic migrants are far numerous than genuine
asylum seekers.
Unfortunately no statistics is attached to the allegations to
prove them right. The
manipulation goes on and allows the government not to abide by
its moral
obligation towards asylum seekers.
It is clear that granting asylum or refugee status today does no
more respond to any
humanitarian act or political propaganda but is conditioned by
public order and
mainly the economical situation of the country.
This work gives us an indication of the origin and development of
asylum, focuses on
the use and abuse of political asylum by both asylum seekers and
states. It emphasizes
that though British governments will grant asylum to very few
people to assert its
liberalness, immigration controls are a priority in their agenda.
Face to asylum crisis,
containment and temporary protection are proposed as solutions.
However, Schuster's
work presents a bias inclination. It fails to give us the
evidence of abuses perpetrated
by asylum seekers to only record debates by Members of Parliament
and those in the
government. It is therefore a one side point of view because the
accused are not given
the opportunity to present their case. In addition no data is
shown to prove that asylum
seekers are a threat to the economy. Finally, the understanding
of deterrence is
contracted to restriction by legislation without reference to
detention which is a
current practice in this country. Is it an omission or an
implicit support? Hassan
(2000) goes further to state that deterrence policy described as
a mixture of restrictive
and punitive measures, is conceived to reduce the number of
asylum seekers,
discourage their permanent settlement then save the government
money, and finally
reassure the native population that the government has the
solution regarding the
problem of refugees. The implementation of deterrence policy
happened in the past.
Confronted to an influx of immigrants of different skin colours
and the emergence of
xenophobia, the country passed laws to make entry difficult for
them. Among the
tools of deterrence, detention is the most used against unwanted
immigrants. They are
detained without set times to be released which creates anxiety
in response to an
abnormal situation.
Hassan's work is useful to know the real motivation of the
government for
implementing deterrence policy against asylum seekers. One can
only agree with it
since it is the manifestation of truth.
A) I) THE ORIGIN OF IMMIGRATION TO ENGLAND
For a very long time England has been a country of emigration
toward other countries
such as the USA and Australia. But after the two World wars the
tendency changed.
The level of people entering the country increased for political,
economic and
traditional reasons. We will start by the political one.
A) POLITICAL REASON
In the 19th Century, England was a haven for other
European political dissidents.
Famous writers and thinkers such as Victor Hugo, Karl Marx and
Albert Einstein
found refuge in this country. But at that time to be a refugee
was not given to
anybody as Marrus put it: «the world of political exiles was
that of the relatively
well-to-do, at least of the once well-to-do» (Marrus cited
in Marfleet, 2006, p110).
It is clear that it was possible for only rich people to flee
their countries and live
abroad. The ideological division of the world between Capitalism
versus Socialism,
Democracy against Communism played an important role in the
immigration in
England. After the First World War, the emergence of
anti-Semitism and Fascism
throughout Europe saw the arrival of 30000Jews (Robinson, 1993,
p28), 160000
Belgians (Bloch 2002, p27) and 15000 White Russians fleeing the
Bolsheviks in
power (Bloch 2002,p27). Those people targeted for their race or
Political opinion
found refuge in England. After the World War II saw a new wave
coming from
Eastern Europe. Indeed from 1947 to 1949, 2000 Czechs, 84000 from
various
Eastern European countries and 20000 Hungarians in 1956(Robinson,
1993, p28).
Here is an idea of refugees coming into this country in the table
below.
Main Refugee groups arriving in the UK, 1870 - 1945
table1
|
DATE
|
GROUP
|
NUMBER
|
|
1914-1918
|
Belgians
|
250000
|
|
1918-1931
|
White Russians
|
15000
|
|
1918-1939
|
Armenians
|
200
|
|
1933-1939
|
Germans, Czechs, Austrians
|
55000
|
|
1937
|
Spanish
|
4000
|
|
1940-1943
|
Europeans
|
60000
|
|
1945
|
Poles
|
135000
|
Source: Bloch, 2002, p26
Accepting people fleeing dictatorship countries is a propaganda
method used to
promote capitalism the corollary of democracy. As we can see on
table 1, the groups
of refugees in the span of time 1870-1945 come from countries
under either Fascism,
Communism or Nazism regime.
Another reason under the political wing that favoured immigration
in England is
the colonial legacy. England like many other European countries
went for assets for
its industries . The pursuit of wealth to compete with other
countries led it to have
colonies in the remaining part of the world. After the
decolonisation era, those former
colonies called new Commonwealth made their way to England.
| 
