International refugee movements - out of control

While the nature of social benefits granted to asylum seekers is till a source of considerable discussion, suspending them altogether has never been considered. European democracies generally don’t let people starve in the street, whatever their status or origin.

Out of Dander

But governments have tried to be increasingly strict in implementing the principal that a refugee should seek asylum where he is in no danger rather than where it is his personal choice to be. Germany has been returning to the Czech Republic or to Poland third-country asylum seekers coming via those countries and caught on its border. The Dutch have done the same towards Germany, the Swiss towards Italy, the Irish towards Britain. Ultimately, this is only palliative. It transposes the problem without solving it and, as long as asylum-seekers are not in holding centres they will continue to cross borders and many will ultimately succeed.

The ultimate purpose of this policy is to try to separate the granting of asylum from the physical presence of the asylum-seeker on the territory of the receiving country. It is on this principal that the US has been intercepting Cuban boat people on the High seas; if there is a presumption of refugee status the asylum seeker is landed inn Guantanamo for full processing. If the decision is positive they will be given asylum n a Latin American country. If there is no presumption of refugee status, the person is returned the same day to Cuba.

This process in no way contradicts the 1951 Convention because it does ensure that a refugee will receive asylum, but not necessarily where he or she wants. This principal of access to protection without prior admission is at the basis of a multilateral initiative. It would provide that an asylum-seeker coming to Europe via Albania would be returned to a holding centre in that country where he could be screened and then given asylum of found to be a refugee.

On the same lines, Switzerland and Austria have provisions that enable an asylum-seeker to present a request at one of their Embassies abroad. Ultimately, however, Europe will have no alternative but to decide that asylum requests from citizens of specific countries will simply not be considered.

The problem is compounded by the atmosphere of confrontation, which has developed within the asylum arena. In addition to bona fide non-governmental organisations which are the indispensable partners of national and multinational humanitarian policies, governments now have to contend with a proliferation of self-appointed ‘advocacy groups’. They have political agendas and increasingly use the theme of asylum to challenge the system.

Democracies that developed the 1951concvention and extended its scope and have, perhaps unskillfully, created procedures undoubtedly over-complicated but with the ultimate aim of ensuring that no rfugee be denied asylum, are portrayed as enemies of refugees.

Migration and Removal

As the European Union moves closer to a common asylum system, two fundamental issues will have to be addressed. The first is removal. There can be no credible asylum policy without the repatriation of those who are not at risk and there fore are not refugees. A common and extremely forceful position is necessary for asylum-seeker source countries that refuse to take back their own nationals.

The second is the migration issue. Given current demographic patterns, Europe cannot sustain its present level of developments without immigration. Largely unacknowledged, such immigration has been going on for years, albeit in the form of guest-workers in Germany and the like. Granting asylum is a moral imperative, accepting immigrants is a response to an economic need.

Migrant, properly selected, bring skills. Refugees flee persecution. And while there might be some minor overlap between the two, the contention that by expanding immigration quotas the number of fraudulent asylum claims can be significantly reduced as for all practical purposes false.

European democracies have done pretty well over the past two decades in facing successive refugee-cum-migrant crises. The costs were massive and new procedures were often overtaken by events even before they were implemented. But by and large the cases of refugees being denied asylum were few and far between and when such cases did occur the cause was human error and not government policy. If Europe’s record is to be the benchmark by which the new European Asylum arrangements will be judged, refugees have nothing to fear.