Warning on shifting asylum seekers to dangerous areas is revealed
Report on dispersal policy buried for four years
Research released after information request
Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Friday March 16, 2007
The Guardian
Home Office ministers pressed ahead with a programme to disperse 50,000 asylum seekers despite internal research admitting that some were being sent to “highly volatile” and “extremely dangerous” parts of Britain where police could not guarantee their protection.
The disclosure is made in a Home Office commissioned report which was buried for more than four years until being finally released yesterday under Freedom of Information legislation.
It was one of 13 unpublished Home Office reports, released yesterday in the face of FoI demands, covering immigration and asylum, criminal justice and drugs policy. Their release follows a “research pause” ordered by the home secretary, John Reid, in the publication of often critical research reports. He has asked for new official research to be shorter and aimed specifically at “supporting the development and delivery of Home Office policy”.
The previously unpublished Oxford Brookes University report, commissioned by the Home Office, examining the policy of dispersing asylum seekers said the “big bang” approach adopted from April 2000 did not work well and was often implemented with undue haste.
Its release now is significant as the government is poised to implement a programme of dispersal of up to 6,000 child asylum seekers from London and the south-east.
The study, completed in September 2002, argued that even a no-choice dispersal policy should have had its limits, reflecting the need for basic personal security and avoiding areas prone to racial tension. “This has not always been achieved, with certain areas in the north-west, Hull and Glasgow being examples of highly volatile environments in which asylum seekers have been harassed and in the case of Glasgow, murdered.”
The report said although there was no “well of racism” there were “pockets of resistance and worrying level of evidence of spontaneous racial harassment and racial attacks.
The procurement of housing in the poorest areas polarises entrenched views held by the host community against the incomers.”
The study says that in particular, asylum seekers interviewed in the Moston and Cheetham Hill areas of Manchester and the Everton and Toxteth districts of Liverpool said they were extremely dangerous and unpleasant places for them. Many had experienced racial harassment, constant threats and even physical abuse.
The 100-page report highlights tensions around the country caused by the unplanned dispersal programme which the Home Office implemented without consulting other government departments. In Newcastle teachers had to cope with children speaking 50 languages new to the city's schools.
The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, said it was no wonder the government had buried the report: “It is a devastating condemnation of its centrepiece asylum dispersal policy.”
The shadow home secretary, David Davis, said the report revealed that the government was warned by its own advisers that dispersal was a shambles. It was outrageous that it had suppressed such important information.
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Special report
Immigration, asylum and refugees
Immigration, asylum and refugees: archived articles
In this section
Warning on shifting asylum seekers to dangerous areas
Violence flares at asylum centre
Councils facing 100m bill to care for sick and destitute migrants
SMS alerts to remind foreigners to renew visas
Concessions granted on English for asylum seekers
SMS: the new medium for bad tidings
Minister blocks job rights bill
Child asylum seekers face dental x-rays to assess their age
British Asian faced deportation threat
Jobless Poles swell rise in migrants
In this section
Warning on shifting asylum seekers to dangerous areas
Violence flares at asylum centre
Councils facing 100m bill to care for sick and destitute migrants
SMS alerts to remind foreigners to renew visas
Concessions granted on English for asylum seekers
SMS: the new medium for bad tidings
Minister blocks job rights bill
Child asylum seekers face dental x-rays to assess their age
British Asian faced deportation threat
Jobless Poles swell rise in migrants
Michael White: Facing up to awkward truth on migration
Migrants have lifted economy, says study
Would-be citizens should do community work, says Brown
The total number of asylum applications in the UK fell by 9% to 23,520 during 2006, Home Office figures show.
Letters: Britain's shameful deportations of asylum seekers
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Archive
Immigration, asylum and refugees: archived articles
Links
Home Office: Immigration and Nationality Directorate
Human Rights Watch: refugees
International Committee of the Red Cross: refugees
Moving Here
Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002
Praxis
Refugee Council
United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)
US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants
