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MPs at loggerheads over asylum Bill requiring migrants to apply for leave to remain within three months of arrival in UK (19 January 2015)

Date: 19/01/2015
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, MPs at loggerheads over asylum Bill requiring migrants to apply for leave to remain within three months of arrival in UK

Labour MPs have provoked a backlash against Conservative MP Christopher Chope’s Asylum (Time Limit) Bill – which would compel asylum seekers arriving in the UK to apply for leave to remain within three months.

London newspaper the Evening Standard reports that Labour MPs say that asylum seekers arriving in Britain are often vulnerable and traumatised from travelling to the UK from war zones – often having been tortured.

Many asylum seekers do not speak English and are therefore unaware of how to go about applying for asylum, or immigration law in the UK, Labour MPs claim.

Mr Chope said, however, that it was important that all asylum seekers leave the UK “in a timely fashion”. He claimed that some asylum seekers arrive in the UK and abuse the “mercy and goodwill” of Britain – trying to “game the UK” by arriving in Britain illegally and evading the authorities until they are caught. Once caught, they then try and claim asylum, said Mr Chope.

The approaching general election in May is pressurising the Conservatives to put in place immigration measures which will show they are tackling illegal immigration to the UK.

David Cameron had pledged to reduce net migration to tens of thousands and not the 250,000 net migration estimate over the last few years.

Mr Chope’s asylum Bill would, however, impact on overseas students who might finish their studies in the UK – and find that when it is time for them to return home to their native country, a war has broken out there.

Home Secretary Theresa May has called for overseas students to be forced to return home after graduation so they can re-apply for a visa to return to the UK if they wish to take up job opportunities in Britain.

During a second reading of the Bill, Mr Chope told MPs:

"If somebody does come to this country because they are seeking asylum – they want refuge in this country because they have come from a country where it has become impossible for them to continue to live – they should at a reasonably early opportunity – and I think, frankly, that as soon as they arrive, they should say, ‘I'm here – I wish to claim asylum,’ and then they make their claim.

"But what is happening at the moment is that people are staying here for months or years – and then suddenly the authorities catch up with them and they immediately say, ’Oh, I forgot I really wanted to claim asylum'.

“It seems to me if you want to claim asylum and fall upon the mercy and goodwill of the United Kingdom, then you should do so in a timely fashion.”

Labour MP for Brent North, Barry Gardiner, said however:
“I would never accuse you of being far too reasonable and understanding.

"What I would ask you to do, though, is accept that many people who come to this country seeking asylum do so severely traumatised – often having experience of torture and many of them not speaking the language.

“Therefore that is I think a very good reason why we should not seek to tighten the limits in the way proposed by Mr Chope – because actually many people are afraid of approaching the authorities because of the experiences they have had in their own homeland.

“That trauma is very deep, it is very real – and it does need to be taken seriously by this House.”

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