In response to the quarterly asylum statistics published today, Donna Covey, Chief Executive of the Refugee Council said:
“Once again, despite numbers remaining low, initial decision-making is still shockingly poor. This is shown by the continuing success rate of appeals – almost one in four are successful, rising to 50% for Somali nationals and 51% for Eritrean nationals, for example.
“This is a very costly way to conduct an asylum process, not to mention the stress and trauma it causes people who have already endured much hardship.
“We also have serious concerns about decision-making for those who are detained on arrival – these people are put through a ‘fast-track’ process which is turning 99% of applications down. Such a statistic suggests very strongly that the speed of this process is resulting in inadequate consideration of people’s cases. And we must always remember that getting an asylum claim wrong can be the difference between life and death.
“More generally, the number of detainees is far too high. This is particularly so in the case of children: the snapshot figure we receive from the government shows that there are now 55 children in detention, 20 more than at the end of the last quarter, with some being held for as many as two months. And we still have no idea how many children are detained throughout the quarter – the real number could be far higher. This is totally unacceptable. It is bad enough that children are being detained at all, but there can be no justification for keeping children locked up for such extended periods.”
Ends
