Immigrants
Straw's laws criminalise people
THE EFFECT OF immigration laws is to criminalise people, simply for being immigrants, migrants, refugees or asylum seekers. It does not matter if they have committed any criminal offence or not.
The Immigration Act authorises detention and imprisonment where there has been no offence, no charges no prosecution and no court intervention. Reinforcing the image of immigrants as criminals is done in a number of ways:
Language
Under immigration law, immigrants, migrants and refugees are defined as being in the UK "illegally" or" unlawfully". So they are defined as non-persons and outside of the law. Immigration Officers regularly describe Third World people as "illegals" - with no identity other than being devoid of status in the UK. Those who lose their claim for asylum become "Bogus". All these definitions are used to criminalise people.
The Media
On Saturday February 26 2000 "The Times" ran a story under the headline
" Refugees flock to Germany and Britain " written by Stewart Tendler, Crime Correspondent. The story, about Home Office figures released the day before, was that Britain attracts more asylum seekers than any other country in Europe bar Germany.
The cost to the British taxpayer was also illustrated - Kent County Council reported that dealing with child asylum seekers will cost households an extra £3 next year on council tax. It was suggested that many other councils will follow suit unless the government pledges more money.
The NCADC is calling on people to protest at the presentation of this story in the Times by writing to Peter Stothard, editor of The Times, fax no 0171-782 5046. The Times has labelled 71,160 asylum applicants as criminals by giving the story to their crime reporter.
Please e-mail copies of anything sent to [email protected] .
Contact the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns (NCADC) for more information by phone: 0121-554 6947, fax: 0870-055 4570; web site http://www.ncadc.demon.co.uk .