Background
The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 continued the Home Secretary’s plans to radically overhaul the asylum system. This Act focused heavily on the control and removal of refused asylum seekers.
Nationality
Part 1 of the 2002 Act required applicants for British citizenship to pass English language and citizenship tests and to take part in a naturalisation ceremony.
Accommodation centres
Part 2 of the 2002 Act sets out the Government’s power to establish a network of accommodation centres for destitute asylum seekers receiving UKBA support. The centres were meant to provide full-board accommodation, access to health care, interpreters and legal advice. They were also meant to include education and training facilities thereby excluding the children of asylum seeking families from mainstream schooling.
The plans were eventually suspended in 2005 amid fierce opposition from residents groups in the localities where the centres were planned. The Home Office claimed that the rethink was inspired by the falling number of asylum applications in the UK.
Support restrictions
Section 54 of the 2002 Act restricted support given by local authorities to certain types of people including a ‘person unlawfully in the UK’ or a ‘failed asylum seeker who has failed to cooperate with removal directions’. Section 54 affected many vulnerable people arriving in the UK seeking asylum and who would otherwise be eligible for services under children’s or community care legislation. One of the most regressive parts of the 2002 Act was the introduction of Section 55, denying support to asylum seekers who did not apply for asylum at the earliest opportunity.
Section 55 came into force on 8 January 2003 and resulted in thousands of asylum seekers being made homeless. This provision was the subject of a judicial challenge which argued that subjecting people to destitution as a matter of policy breached Article 3 of the ECHR. As a result the Home Office was forced to revise its procedures relating to Section 55, but it can still be applied where people have friends with whom they can stay.
Detention and removal
Part 4 of the 2002 Act gave powers to the Government to remove asylum seekers whose applications are certified as ‘clearly unfounded’. Any removal directions issued by the Home Office would, for the first time, apply to all members of the family concerned, including any child born in the UK.
All detention centres were re-designated ‘removal centres’, although their function remained the same. The Act also removed provisions set out in the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 introducing automatic bail hearings for immigration detainees.
Restrictions on appeal rights
Part 5 of the 2002 Act introduced ‘nonsuspensive’ appeals for people whose asylum claim is deemed ‘clearly unfounded’ because they come from countries designated as a ‘safe’ by the Home Secretary. The Act also allowed for individual cases to be certified in this manner irrespective of the countries they came from.
A non-suspensive appeal is one where any outstanding rights of appeal do not suspend removal. This means the applicant can only lodge an appeal from outside the UK. As of 1April 2007, 14 countries were subject to nonsuspensive appeal restrictions but this list is likely to be extended.
See Non-suspensive appeals under the Asylum Process section.
Increased border controls
The 2002 Act introduced a number of measures with which the Government aimed to reduce unauthorised migration into the UK. This included juxtaposed controls, which allow the UK to operate full immigration controls in any EEA port. The new ‘authority-to-carry’ scheme and the carriers’ liability provisions put further pressure on private companies to ensure that any passenger they carry is entitled to enter the UK.
The 2002 Act also introduced measures to tackle illegal working, increased penalties for human smuggling and created a new offence of human trafficking for prostitution. The Home Office was also given new powers to obtain information on individuals, enter premises and arrest people suspected of immigration offences.
