Immigration Watch International

Gurkhas who risked their lives for Britain suffered a major blow today in their attempts to win the right to settle here. The Home Office announced that after a High Court ruling 10,000 more former soldiers and family members would be eligible to live permanently in Britain, but campaigners say that in reality the new rules may help fewer than 100 men. David Enright, a solicitor acting on behalf of the Gurkhas, said: “They have set criteria that are unattainable. They require a Gurkha to serve for 20 years – but a rifleman is only permitted to serve for 15 years. “It’s a sham and an absolute disgrace. It’s far more restrictive than the old policy.”

The Home Secretary agreed to announce a new policy on the right of Gurkhas to settle in Britain after campaigners returned to court last month to enforce a legal ruling won at the Royal Courts of Justice in September. A High Court judge had ruled that the Government’s existing immigration policy, excluding veterans from settling, was unlawful.

Campaigners, including the actress Joanna Lumley, said that today’s announcement was disingenuous and offensive. “The Gurkhas cannot meet these new criteria. It makes me ashamed of our government,” Lumley said. “We will fight on. We don’t stop. This has been a setback but that is all.”

The Home Office said that it would will allow in around 4,300 more former Gurkhas out of a total of 36,000 who served in Britain’s Armed Forces prior to July 1997. Phil Woolas, the Immigration Minister, said: “This guidance honours the service, commitment and gallantry of those who served with the Brigade of Gurkhas. Now, another 10,000 Gurkhas and family members will be able to benefit from our revised guidance.”

He denied that the Government had betrayed the Gurkhas. “What we’ve done today is to allow even more people in without setting a precedent that would create a massive pressure, in my view, on the immigration service, which I don’t think the public would want me to grant,” he told the BBC.

Rules introduced in 2004 allowed serving Gurkhas with at least four years’ service to settle in the UK but they did not apply to Gurkhas discharged from the British Army before July 1, 1997.

Under the new guidelines Gurkhas and their families will be allowed to settle if they meet one of five criteria: they have three years’ continuous residence in the UK during or after their service; they have close family in the UK; they received a level 1-3 bravery award, including the Victoria Cross, the Distinguished Service Order and the Military Cross; they served for 20 years or more; or they suffer from a chronic or long-term medical condition caused by, or aggravated by, service in the brigade.

In addition Gurkhas will normally be allowed to settle in Britain if they meet two or more of the following criteria: they were previously awarded an MoD disability pension but no longer have a chronic medical condition; they were mentioned in dispatches; they served for 10 years; or they received a campaign medal for active service in the brigade.

The brigade was formed after the partition of India in 1947, but Nepalese Gurkha soldiers have been part of the British Army for almost 200 years.

More than 200,000 Gurkhas fought for the Allies during the First and Second World Wars, with 43,000 giving their lives. There are currently around 3,500 serving Gurkhas.

The migrants, mainly from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and several African countries would not, however, be “abandoned”, he said. Instead, they would be offered food, showers and information on how to claim asylum in the welcome centres. He denied emphatically that these would be “mini-Sangattes” – referring to the Red Cross Centre which acted as a magnet to thousands of migrants hoping to reach the UK before being closed as part of an Anglo-French agreement in 2002. “There will be no new Sangatte. There will be no mini-Sangatte,” he said.

The new measures would allow local authorities to “better treat people without papers, without setting anything permanent,” he said. On Tuesday, 500 French police officers arrested 194 migrants in and around the “jungle” in an operation aimed, they said, at breaking up people smuggling gangs who charge up to £1,000 for illegal passage to England. Although Mr Besson called the operation a success, all those detained have been released without charge. His ministry said that Tuesday’s sweep was “part of this project to shut down the jungle” and that “other similar operations will be carried out”. [Equally futile ones, apparently]

However, Natacha Bouchart, the mayor of Calais, said that the task of closing the migrant shanty town was too great for local authorities. “It’s not a camp, it’s a village. The municipal workers cannot clean it up, they’re not up to it,” she said, adding that the army would have to be called in. “There are more than 80 shelters, with a transport stop, a mosque and a shop.”

She said that she would urge Mr Besson to “renegotiate international agreements”, including pushing for Britain to sign up to the Schengen agreement, which permits free travel between designated European Union states without passport controls. If the UK entered Schengen, then all of the Calais migrants could cross to Dover unchecked, placing the onus on Britain to handle their asylum requests. Mrs Bouchart said: “Today, with some 800 migrants in the town, the situation is becoming unmanageable. Calais is hostage to Britain, which refuses to ratify Schengen.”

However, Phil Woolas, Britain’s Immigration Minister, said: “The UK policy is to not sign up to the Schengen Agreement.” His French counterpart, Mr Besson, has made no mention of the Schengen issue but has promised to come up with a “solution” to the Calais migrant problem by May 1 and to ask Britain to do more. He said: “Great Britain must probably reinforce its controls, take a more important financial slice of the burden and must above all ask itself why illegal work on its territory is considered by traffickers and migrants alike as so enticing.”

Since the beginning of March, 483 Afghan asylum seekers have turned up at the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Jakarta but none has been formally registered with Indonesian authorities. The Indonesians were unaware precisely where the asylum seekers were living and, in some instances, had not even been told they had arrived, said Ade Endang Dachlan, a senior Indonesian immigration intelligence officer who heads the department’s Bogor office.

“This should not happen,” Mr Dachlan said. “The UNHCR office should only issue refugee processing status based on the recommendation from the immigration office. “Since we can’t get hold of them [the asylum seekers] and closely monitor their whereabouts, they have plenty of chance to escape and use illegal ways to enter a third country such as Australia.”

Raids this month in Bogor netted 22 asylum seekers who carried genuine UNHCR papers but were not registered with the Department of Immigration. Mr Dachlan said it was only the tip of the iceberg, adding that people smugglers were exploiting the “loophole” – staying in touch with asylum seekers until “such time as the syndicates can get them access to Australian borders”.

Ali Khatri, one of the Afghans snared in the Bogor raid, said a people smuggler had given him the address of the UNHCR office, told him to go straight there when he arrived in Jakarta, and he was assured that, by turning up, he would have protection as a refugee. He denied he planned to go to Australia, though others at the same villa said they were prepared to make the crossing. They asked not to be named. “The UNHCR gave us some papers, like an appointment slip,” Mr Khatri said, adding he was not told to register with Indonesian police or immigration. “We just left and went back to our hotel in Jakarta. Then we came to Bogor because it was cheaper.”

Bogor is a mountainous holiday area 1½ hours’ drive from Jakarta and a favoured hideout for asylum seekers. The 22 caught in Bogor were only a small fraction of an estimated 2000 Afghans in Indonesia looking to come to Australia.

A spokeswoman for the UNHCR in Jakarta, Anita Restu, said 483 Afghans had come to its Jakarta office in the past seven weeks alone. “Because of this influx, we have just given them appointment slips,” she said. They were not formally registered because “it takes too long to go through our system and there’s so many people”. Even if Indonesian authorities were told of the arrivals, “we cannot give out the address of the asylum seeker”, she said.

The Obama Administration’s decision to abandon the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws was only highlighted Sunday morning when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano bungled the fundamentals of U.S. immigration law during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union. Napolitano appeared on the show, hosted by John King, to discuss the latest intelligence report, border security, immigration reform, and a host of related issues. During the interview, the discussion turned to Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona. King asked Napolitano to respond to Arpaio’s statement that he hoped the federal government would prosecute all aliens who cross the border illegally. Napolitano responded:

“Well, you know, Sheriff Joe, he is being very political in that statement, because he knows that there aren’t enough law enforcement officers, courtrooms or jail cells in the world to do what he is saying. What we have to do is target the real evil-doers in this business, the employers who consistently hire illegal labor, the human traffickers who are exploiting human misery.

And yes, when we find illegal workers, yes, appropriate action, some of which is criminal, most of that is civil, because crossing the border is not a crime per se. It is civil. But anyway, going after those as well.”

ENTRY WITHOUT INSPECTION IS A CRIME: In fact, pursuant to 8 U.S.C. 1325, crossing the border illegally is a crime–a misdemeanor for the first offense and a felony for the second and subsequent offenses. But of course, ignoring or mischaracterizing the law is a very convenient way for those in power to avoid the laws they find most inconvenient. Sadly, statements such as these are also a signal that Americans will have to wait a long time before their government articulates any credible immigration enforcement policy.

And as the political row over the surge in boat arrivals deepened – with Kevin Rudd branding Malcolm Turnbull “opportunistic” over his handling of the issue – senior government sources told The Australian another boat was due to be intercepted “within days”. They are likely to join asylum seekers, who landed earlier this month, on Christmas Island.

Yesterday, Mr Joelianto said Indonesia had seen a spike in suspected refugees transiting the sprawling archipelago. Significantly, Mr Joelianto dated the start of the increase at September last year, the same time the Rudd Government announced a series of policy changes aimed at softening Australia’s treatment of refugees.

But at the same time, the ambassador acknowledged Labor’s claim about the causes of the surge, saying violence abroad and the scourge of people-smuggling were at the root of the problem. Mr Joelianto said the problem of irregular migration was too big for Indonesia to handle alone.

When asked if more suspected refugees had been coming into Indonesia, heading for the main transit points for people journeying to Australia, Mr Joelianto replied: “We noted, especially after September 2008, the influx, the flow of illegal migrants get more and more,” he said.

“But I think we have to see the root cause – conflict, the political instability, economic problems in the origin country; that’s why this problem is not easy to tackle.”

Mrs Bouchart, 45, a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s ruling UMP party, said she was so disgusted by what was going on that she refused to have any meetings with British government representatives. She said the British system was predominantly to blame for thousands of Africans, eastern Europeans and Asians trying to clamber aboard lorries and trains in Calais every day.

‘Requesting asylum is easier with them (the British) than in France. The asylum seeker is given accommodation and receives up to £40 a week according to their case, when the annual income of the average Eritrean is around $200 (£135). ‘That seems enormous and it’s attractive to them.’

In Britain, asylum seekers can receive payments as soon as a claim is lodged. In France, an asylum seeker generally is given nothing for six months. That is because the French bureaucratic system means it routinely takes a minimum of six months to have a claim for asylum – and with it the opportunity to receive state support – accepted. Once accepted, the claimant can receive a range of benefits – but almost all prefer to try to reach Britain and secure immediate benefits. Married asylum-seeking couples in the UK receive £66.13 a week, while single people get up to £42.16. They are also entitled to free NHS care, housing and education for any children.

Home Office Minister Phil Woolas has been seeking closer cooperation with France in the hope of preventing the crisis in Calais from escalating. Ministers have been alarmed by figures showing the number of migrants caught trying to reach Britain by stowing away on lorries at Calais has doubled over the last year to more than 2,000 a month. The count of 6,031 in the first three months of this year compares with 2,919 caught by port security services trying to gain access to trucks queueing for ferries between January and March 2008. The pressure on the port of Calais is being matched at the Channel Tunnel terminal outside the town, which has reported a 50 per cent rise in illegal migrants over last year. Most are trying to board lorries waiting for places on freight trains.

Mrs Bouchart said she had received many requests for a meeting with UK officials to attempt to sort out the mess. ‘I’ve never followed them up because I consider them provocative. To receive in the city hall a representative of the British governmentis to support what it imposes on us.’ The mayor pointed out that the Calais Chamber of Trade was having to pay £12million a year to secure the port area – money she suggested the French government should provide.

Calling for a ‘change in attitude’, Mrs Bouchart said the current build-up of UK-bound foreigners was ‘untenable’. ‘Each day the town of Calais finds itself under psychological pressure because of the presence of the migrants. ‘That blocks our economic development. That stops some businesses from establishing themselves and that costs a lot.’

Tory immigration spokesman Damian Green said: ‘The Mayor of Calais is right that the long-term chaos in our immigration system, from badly-protected borders to the Home Office not sending an officer to many appeal hearings, encourages people to try their luck. ‘The answer for Britain and the people of Calais is a well-run immigration system with a proper Border Police Force.’

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of MigrationWatch UK, said: ‘Gallic logic has reached the inescapable conclusion that Britain is a soft touch for asylum seekers. ‘You only have to say the word asylum and you have an 80 per cent chance of staying in Britain, more often than not illegally.’

In response, Mr Woolas said: ‘The illegal migrants in Calais are not queueing to get into Britain – they have been locked out by one of the toughest border crossings in the world. These successful controls have been possible thanks to the close co-operation of the French government. ‘Benefits are only available to those who play by the rules, work hard, pay taxes and learn to speak English. ‘I have made it clear that those trying to cheat our system will not be tolerated, which is why last year UK Border Agency staff worked tirelessly at our French and Belgium controls – stopping more than 28,000 attempts to cross the Channel illegally.’

About 300 French officers were involved in the sweep, which came two days before Immigration Minister Eric Besson was due to visit Calais for talks on the situation following complaints from local lawmakers. Police cordoned off a major camp in Calais itself and seized some 150 people, while picking up a further 33 in motorway rest stops outside the city and 11 in the nearby town of Saint Omer, a state spokeswoman said.

“We have seen in recent weeks pressure, far from falling, was building in terms of the number of migrants and their increasingly aggressive attitude to residents and the police,” said local governor Pierre de Bousquet de Florian. “I wanted to put a stop to this development,” he said.

“The situation had deteriorated in Calais,” Besson told reporters in Paris. “We can’t let it be said that smugglers and human traffickers are above the law. Basic values had been called into question. We needed to reassert the authority of the law,” he said, when asked about the round-up.

Opposition Socialist lawmaker Harlem Desir, who founded France’s best known anti-racism group SOS Racisme, and local aid groups helping the refugees dismissed the police operation as a media relations stunt ahead of Besson’s visit.

But De Bousquet denied his officers had carried out a “clean up” ahead of Besson’s inspection, insisting: “We arrested identified people. We didn’t round up everyone. This is a judicial investigation, not an administrative measure.”

A volunteer working at a care station for the migrants complained that the area had been under siege for more than a week before the raid. “We’re trapped. Democracy is doing its job,” Jean-Claude Lenoir remarked, in a bitter reference to the political pressure brought to bear on the police.

Local MP Natacha Bouchart, from France’s right-wing ruling UMP party, said there were 800 migrants sleeping rough in Calais and called on London to come up with a way to deal with them. “We are being held hostage by Britain,” she declared.

The focus of the operation was the “Jungle”, a patch of woodland inhabited by migrants hoping to sneak on board trucks and trains using the ferries and tunnel to southern England, or to pay traffickers to arrange a crossing. “This morning we were sleeping in our tents when maybe 200 police came and caught people. There was no fight. It went quiet. Some people were taken to the police station,” said Samir Amir, a 17-year-old Afghan. “The police said: ‘You put your tents down and you clean yourself.’ We will stay here. We don’t have a place to go to. There are 700 of us living in the jungle and waiting to go to England,” he explained.

Many of those arrested identified themselves as Afghans, the official said. They have been taken into custody in the cities of Calais, Boulogne and Lille on the orders of the Boulogne state prosecutor.

Besson last visited Calais on January 27 and promised that he would come up with a permanent solution to the problems posed by the migrants by May 1. Until November 2002, many of the arrivals from Asia, the Middle East and Africa crossing France en route for what they believe would be an easier life in Britain were housed at an organised camp in Sangatte, near Calais.

The then interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who is now the French president, closed the centre following pressure from London, which said it encouraged migrants to make the illegal and dangerous trip across the Channel. Since then, however, travellers have continued to arrive in the region. As their numbers have built up in the woods and dunes in and around Calais they have become a concern to local officials.

Asylum seeking is a risky business, as shown by the tragedy that unfolded in Australian waters last week. The risks of not seeking asylum can be even more severe, and people experiencing persecution may have little choice but to avail themselves of extreme measures in attempts to seek safe haven. [Really?? When they have passed through several other countries on their way to Australia, they have obviously had PLENTY of choice. Afghans could for instance have stopped in Pakistan. Many do]

The blame game for the tragedy near Ashmore Reef has begun, with shadow immigration minister Sharman Stone holding the Government culpable for putting lives at risk through what she describes as a watering down of the Howard government’s immigration policies and the cutting of surveillance.

Political memories are short-lived and the opposition and its supporters ought to tally the loss of lives during boat journeys to Australia under the harsh policies of John Howard. The starkest reminder of the risks at sea is in the nation’s capital of Canberra – a memorial erected by refugee advocates to remember the 353 women, children and men who lost their lives on the ill-fated SIEV X, which sank on its way to Australia in 2001. The government’s Temporary Protection Visa, aimed at deterring asylum seekers, barred family reunion and women and children were the majority of those who perished in a desperate bid to reach their husbands and fathers through the only means available to them.

During the Howard era there were other less-known fatal voyages where people died in tragic circumstances while attempting to seek refuge in Australia. In December 2000, then immigration minister Philip Ruddock defended his decision not to launch a search and rescue mission for 160 asylum seekers feared drowned on their way to Australia, adding that his government believed another 350 people had been lost earlier that year. In 2001 deaths included a young baby on the boat known as SIEV 5 and two women, one pregnant, on the SIEV X. [It is perfectly true that refugee boats sometimes sink and kill people but the best cure for that is to stop them setting out in the first place and that is precisely what the Howard government did]

In 2005, the Australian Council of Heads of Schools of Social Work convened the People’s Inquiry into Detention [Much like the People's Democratic Republic of North Korea, no doubt. The Marxist language tells you all you need to know. These guys aren't even clever] in order to challenge and expose asylum seeker policies and practices. Witnesses to the inquiry told of the perilous journeys to Australia and the harsh treatment they received at the hands of the Australian government. We surely do not wish to return to an era where we again experience the treatment meted out to desperate people as illustrated in the following account. ["Desperate", my foot. They had plenty of choices before coming here. Australia is a long way from where they originated. Even the country where they got into the boats -- Indonesia -- is a Muslim one with Muslim obligations of hospitality. And how did they get to Indonesia? On regular airline flights! How desperate does that sound? "Greedy" would be a better word for them. It is money they are after, not refuge]

Europe’s top human rights watchdog chided Italy on Thursday over ignoring a request it suspend forced deportations to Tunisia to prevent possible torture of asylum seekers. Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, said he had “serious concerns” over Italy’s migration policy and practices.

The Italian Foreign Ministry said in a reply attached to Thursday’s report that its policies are in line with European human rights standards. “Italy does not intend to put at risk the effectiveness of the European system for the protection of human rights,” it said.

In a report, Hammarberg said he was worried by the continuing practice of forcing back refugee claimants to Tunisia on security grounds. Italy had been requested by the Council of Europe’s court of human rights to suspend the practice in February out of fears that many that were repatriated to Tunisia faced torture.

Hammarberg said Italy’s move to ignore the court request to halt deportations was “seriously jeopardizing the effectiveness of the European system of human rights protection.”

The commissioner also said Italian authorities had to “condemn more firmly” racist or intolerant acts and ensure more effective implementation of anti-discrimination laws. He recommended Italy move to increase the number of ethnic minorities in the police and set up an independent ombudsman office to handle complaints over human rights violations.

Thursday’s report was released after Hammarberg visited Italy in January. It was his second in the last 12 months over increased concern by the Council of Europe that recent moves by Italy to implement an immigration crackdown have unleashed a surge in racism and xenophobia.

A report issued last July slammed Italy’s crackdown that have targeted Africans and nomadic groups known as Roma, Stinti and Gypsy. Italian officials have given different reasons for the crackdown, including to tackle street crime and illegal immigration and to encourage more Roma children into school.

Failed asylum seekers are winning the right to stay in Britain because of “shambolic” failings in the immigration hearing system. Hundreds of appeal hearings are going ahead without a representative from the Home Office to defend its original decision to deny asylum. Immigration lawyers admitted that the situation is helping their clients to win cases they might otherwise have lost. The disclosure could help explain why the percentage of asylum seekers winning their appeals has risen from 17 per cent in 2005 to 25 per cent for the third quarter of 2008.

Opposition politicians criticised the “shambolic” and “bizarre” situation in which asylum appellants are not properly cross-examined. Over the last two weeks, reporters from this newspaper attended 25 hearings around the country. At 24 of them, no Home Office Presenting Officer (Hopo) – who is tasked with putting the department’s case before the immigration judge – was present. In the one remaining hearing, the officer turned up late and admitted that she was unprepared.

Senior sources close to the hearings have said the Home Office is failing to properly defend about a third of cases which come to appeal. One court official, who asked not to be named, said: “It is becoming a common problem. There is a shortage of qualified staff so cases have to go ahead without anyone to present the Home Office’s case and defend the original decision.”

This failure is of benefit to those making the appeal, according to lawyers. Annette Elder, a partner with the firm Elder Rahimi, which represents five to 10 appellants each week, said: “Frankly, it does make our job easier. “It is hard to say whether we have won a case because a Hopo hasn’t been present. But if someone isn’t being cross-examined then their chances of success have to improve. There is less chance of any errors in their case being exposed. There are days when you are relieved there is no one from the Home Office.”

Another immigration lawyer, who asked not to be named, said: “I know there are occasions when we have won because the Home Office hasn’t turned up.” “It has happened when we have had immigration cases when the appellant has been accused of using false documents. The Home Office has not been there to prove that claim and has not provided any evidence to back it up. We have won automatically because of that.”

The Home Office representative is supposed to defend the department’s original decision, cross-examine the appellant and provide guidance for the presiding judge. The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (AIT) service website advises those who have instigated appeals that a Hopo will be present. But in all but one of the cases attended by Sunday Telegraph reporters, the judge – who often only receives the files a few hours before the hearing – was forced to try to make sense of the case alone.

Reporters attended hearings at Taylor House in Islington, London; Bennett House in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs; and Sheldon Court in Birmingham. During a morning session at Taylor House last Tuesday, one judge informed the appellants in three separate hearings: “There is nobody here from the Home Office so there will be no cross-examination. I may ask some questions for clarification.”

At a hearing in Stoke last Wednesday, a judge was told that the Home Office representative had been absent for two hearings because he was working on another case in the same building. The judge simply remarked: “It’s always a juggling act.” A lawyer representing an appellant told the court: “I have evidence today which the Home Office could have challenged but they have chosen not to turn up.”

Judges who preside over the hearings are forced to make decisions based on what they hear and on the “skeletal” refusal letter submitted by the Home Office in advance. In the one case where a Home Office representative did turn up – at Taylor House in Islington – the official arrived late, telling the judge that she had just dropped her children off at school and she had no idea she was due in court until she had been contacted by the office. The case, already 45 minutes late, was adjourned for a further 15 minutes so the officer, who had to apologise for her casual dress, could finish reading the case files.

The judge made four separate interventions about the relevancy of her line of questioning. The officer later had to withdraw a crucial part of the Home Office’s case against the Iranian national because she could not prove it.

Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, condemned the Home Office’s failure to staff the individual hearings. “I think it is a shambolic situation. The Home Office keeps talking about tightening the system but clearly the reality is the opposite,” he said. “They need to get to grips with the situation. I think in the case of the Home Office, the culture of chaos starts at the top. “Ultimately, it is the job of the Home Secretary and her ministerial team to set the right expectations for the department. Clearly that is not happening.”

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: “It looks as if the Home Office tribunal system is in a state of some chaos. The failure of the Home Office to field representatives inevitably means an appellant’s case is not properly cross examined. “The real concerns that the immigration officer may have had, and which led to the original decision, are not been given their day in court. I think it’s bizarre that the judge isn’t given advance notice of whether the Hopo will be present. At least then they would be aware that they had to study the files in depth.”

Civil liberty campaigners also criticised the lack of Home Office representation, saying it caused problems for the appellant.

A spokesman for the tribunal service said: “We do not collect data on Home Office representation at Asylum and Immigration Tribunal hearings. We are aware that there are times when hearings are conducted without a Home Office official present. There is no requirement on the Home Office to send a representative. Therefore, it is up to their discretion.”

A spokesman for the UK Border Agency said: “Public protection and harm reduction remains our primary consideration when deciding on whether or not a case should be represented. Only a very small percentage of AIT hearings are not attended by a presenting officer and the figure of one in three is unfounded. “We have said we will target the most harmful people first and part of this is about making sure that we focus our resources on defending the right cases in court. Team managers carefully scrutinise and identify suitable cases to proceed without representation.

“In these few cases where an officer is not present, the immigration judge, if not deciding to adjourn the appeal, will determine the appeal in accordance with their power under the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 on the evidence before him.”