Does Rishi Sunak’s government really have a plan to deal with the backlog of asylum claims (The Guardian view on Sunak’s asylum plan: tough talk can’t mask past failures, 13 December)?
For years I’ve been entangled in the Home Office backlog, both as an asylum-seeker and a UCL researcher investigating “the politics of time”. Now I’m begging the Home Office to urgently implement a first-tier tribunal’s decision allowing my asylum appeal, in line with the government’s own guidance, which states: “An allowed appeal should be implemented promptly, otherwise the individual may not be able to access benefits and services to which they are entitled...”
It’s also to protect the interests of my children, who have been separated from me for 1,200 days, and whose access to family reunification depends on implementing the tribunal’s decision. My children are, like me, bereaved by the recent death of my mother, who used to care for them in my absence, and their need to be with me is now more urgent than ever.
My mother died in Kuwait while my asylum has been pending for more than three years. I couldn’t attend her funeral due to my status, and witnessing her being mentally and emotionally tortured due to seeing me in limbo has added insult to the injuries I suffered as a survivor of persecution and an unfairly failed asylum seeker. I’ve experienced the Home Office’s use of time as a form of violence. Whenever they wanted me to attend or provide documents, they would impose specific, short and strict timeframes, with no consideration of my lack of resources. But when it comes to my desperate needs, the Home Office’s excuse is “the backlog”.
As an asylum seeker in the UK, I’ve lived as a prisoner since September 2019. My mother’s last wish was to see my children reunited with me before she died. But the Home Office’s procrastination made sure she died before any of our wishes came true. These experiences compel me to doubt that the current government has any plan to tackle the backlog. I believe that the backlog is their plan.
Ahmad Jaber
Southend-on-Sea, Essex
• No one would get into an obviously unseaworthy boat in such cold winter conditions and attempt to reach England by sea unless forced to do so out of desperation. I commend Sally Hayden’s prize-winning book My Fourth Time, We Drowned, which reports some of the many reasons why people attempt the crossing.
Among the most obvious reasons are first, that it is impossible for many of those seeking asylum in England to have their cases considered elsewhere; second, that there are no safe and legal routes in for many who wish to seek asylum here; and third, many are seeking to flee from refugee camps that have become places of despair in which they have been trapped for an indeterminate period.
These are not new problems. It is over seven years since the picture of the drowned two-year-old Alan Kurdi brought these issues to everyone’s attention. It is time that politicians stopped using reckless language in the belief that they can win votes by appearing macho and more severe than their opponents. If only they would use their positions to promote a constructive dialogue with the public, based on factual evidence.
Statesmanship, not showmanship, is needed now, because lives are at risk and this is an international problem, calling for cooperation between nations and respect for the rule of law. The archbishop of Canterbury’s speech last Friday and the recent report A British National Refugee Policy, published by the Legatum Institute, are good starts.
Processing the huge backlog of cases in a timely, efficient and fair way is rightly a priority, but it is the government’s fault that the backlog has built up, not the fault of those now arriving. To use them as scapegoats is shameful.
Graham Charkham
London
• Some years ago, my daughter was a primary school teacher when there was a requirement that children should be taught what it meant to be British. She asked me, and I have to say we were both a tad mystified. Some years later, Jeremy Hunt told us in the House of Commons: “To be British is to be compassionate.”
A few months after that, the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, is resuming the “hostile environment” checks that were suspended after the Windrush scandal (Rishi Sunak tells MPs he will clear asylum backlog by end of 2023, 13 December). Children are going to be mightily confused.
Mo Hutchison
Maidstone, Kent
• Our government is among the criminal gangs that put the lives of the desperate at risk by providing no other route for asylum seekers. Asylum seekers are not illegal immigrants (Four people dead after small boat incident in Channel, 14 December).
Emma Tait
London
• Consulting a doctor, patients will be asked to describe symptoms. They are not immediately accused of malingering, yet this is the attitude the UK government presents to refugees. Many of them had previously supported the UK military and have escaped persecution. Some will be of service in civil society, as Enver Solomon explains (A feted restaurateur, a senior doctor: Sunak’s cruel plan would have deported both, 14 December).
They need a sympathetic reception, like the resistance fighters who also arrived during the second world war by paddling a canoe from the Netherlands to the Suffolk coast, where they now have a monument.
John Pelling
Coddenham, Suffolk
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