|
|
 |
Home - My Yahoo!
- Yahoo! - Help |
 |
| Home | Top Stories | Politics | World | Business | Internet | Entertainment | Full Coverage | Sport | Sci-Tech |
| Yahoo! Headlines | Top Stories | |
| More Reuters Top Stories | Free Email from Yahoo! | Personalise your news with My Yahoo! |
| Wednesday June 7, 1:28 PM |
|
|
LONDON (Reuters) - The immigration service says it is planning to lock up and then deport thousands more asylum seekers whose applications to live in Britain are rejected.
A spokesman for the service said that by 2004, up to 57,000 failed asylum seekers could be deported each year, up from around 8,000 deportations in 1999.
Officials are also planning a four-fold increase in the number of detention places available to imprison rejected asylum seekers before they are made to leave the country.
"The best way for us to effect a removal is if we've taken them into custody and then it's easier to get them onto a plane," an immigration service spokesman told Reuters.
"At the moment we only have about 900 to 1,000 places so we need to increase our capacity to detain people."
He said immigration officials would ask the government to increase that number to 4,000.
More detention centres, coupled with a speeding up of the decision-making process on asylum applications, would lead to a "substantial increase in the numbers of people being removed after their claims have failed," the immigration spokesman said.
A spate of arrests of asylum seekers for begging and public order offences sparked a vicious political row over immigration with opposition politicians complaining the country was being "flooded".
The government -- under attack from the Conservatives who accused them of being a soft touch on immigration -- introduced tough new measures on April 3.
They included "dispersal" schemes to spread asylum applicants across the country to reduce concentration spots in the south east, giving them vouchers instead of cash for living expenses and fining truck drivers who are found with stowaways hidden in their vehicles.
The moves came under heavy fire from human rights organisations and religious leaders who deplored the government's attitude to immigrants.
The Home Office ruled on 32,000 applications for asylum last year, refusing claims from 11,000 people. Figures for 1999 show that around 8,000 failed asylum seekers were deported.
But the immigration service said 1999 was a "record year" and that on average, around two thirds of those refused asylum abscond and disappear before they are deported.
The immigration spokesman said the new plans had yet to be approved by the
government's treasury and said the projected increased numbers of deportations
and detentions were "working assumptions" rather than official targets.
Yahoo! Full Coverage > Asylum Seekers Row
| Next Story: | Asylum seekers face
deportation (BBC News ) |
| Home | Top Stories | Politics | World | Business | Internet | Entertainment | Full Coverage | Sport | Sci-Tech |