- Conference
- 2003 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 17 February 2003
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes:
1)a media-orchestrated campaign to promote hostility against asylum seekers by linking refugees and immigrants with terrorism, criminality and scrounging on the benefits system;
2)the racially motivated murders of three asylum seekers in the past two years;
3)Tory Party proposals to lock up all new asylum applicants on national security grounds, pending checks on terrorist links;
4)Prime Minister Tony Blair’s commitment to re-examining Britain’s commitment to international treaties such as the 1951 Geneva Convention on refugee rights and European human rights legislation;
5)the Government’s Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 that:
a)removed the right (under its Section 55) to virtually all support packages to single adult asylum seekers who do not apply for refugee status almost immediately upon entry to the United Kingdom, so threatening to leave hundreds a week destitute;
b)reintroduces a white list of so-called safe countries from which asylum applications will be automatically rejected, despite compelling evidence of racist persecution of Roma people in several European Union accession states;
c)dramatically increases use of arbitrary detention, with up to 4,000 a week warehoused in removal centres, though never accused much less convicted of a specific crime; the introduction of a pilot scheme of four accommodation centres in rural areas, with strictly segregated medical and educational facilities, and the restriction of appeal rights to those who receive negative decisions on asylum applications;
6)the elimination of the previous Exceptional Leave to Remain category and the imposition of new visa restrictions on citizens of Zimbabwe and Jamaica;
7)the withdrawal in July 2002 of the right to apply for a work permit from those asylum seekers who had waited six months or more for an initial adjudication;
8)the brutal deportation of the Afghan-born Ahmadi family after a dawn raid on the West Midlands mosque where they had sought sanctuary as part of a programme aimed at increasing the number of removals by 400 per cent.
Conference believes:
i)the Government’s action and the Home Secretary’s rhetoric have fuelled rather than diminished populist racism, and given legitimacy to organisations of the fascist right such as the British National Party;
ii)the four pieces of legislation introduced by both Tory and Labour Governments to deter asylum seekers have served to erode civil liberties in Britain generally;
iii)neither asylum seekers nor immigrants (whatever their legal status) are to blame for Britain’s crumbling infrastructure, shortages of affordable housing and the crisis-ridden National Health Service. Indeed, overwhelming evidence suggests that successive generations of immigrants – right up to the present day – have contributed substantially both to Britain’s cultural vitality and to the Exchequer’s coffers;
iv)UNISON should take a lead in campaigning against the impact of the current legislation and for the repeal of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. It should also be promoting the arguments to its members with which to counter the steady diet of anti-refugee and anti-immigrant propaganda that dominates so much of the mainstream media;
v)the Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers (CDAS), the National Assembly Against Racism’s Speak Out campaign and a variety of other initiatives warrant the support of trade unions opposed to racism and committed to social justice. In particular, we commend the efforts of the Campaign for Justice in the Yarl’s Wood trial in seeking to prevent a gross miscarriage of justice in a politically motivated prosecution arising from the February 2002 fire at the Government’s flagship immigration detention facility.
Conference therefore resolves that UNISON affiliates to the Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers.