Yes, but more realistically a refused asylum seeker is liable to be detained and deported to their country of origin. Many thousands are indeed deported, but the practical difficulties are enormous and many thousands more are not. Those difficulties are real, despite the Mail and the Express wanting to wish them away.
Anyone applying for asylum has to state, among other things, what their country of origin is and why they say they cannot safely return there. In some cases the statement may not be true, of course, but in principle every asylum seeker (successful or failed) has to have stated their country of origin. They may well have no passport, or have destroyed their passport, or their country of origin refuses to issue them with a passport or to take them back without one. Perhaps I should mention that in an earlier life I was the manager of the Immigration Appeal Tribunal (as it then was).
The lack of papers wheeze is a good one and often used here in Switzerland. What I would do is hire indigenous language experts to analyse their accent to divine where they come from and whether their story holds up. After all, at the end of the day, it's a judgement call. It's a bit simple to just say "I come from Somalia" when you don't. There should be at least a good stab of refuting that. The asylum seeker won't be able to prove he comes from Somalia in any case so it is all claim and counter claim. Or do they already do that? I don't think they do in Switzerland.
They already get help with languages. It's very common to claim to be from another Country, but the interpreters usually identify the accents. But you still have no documentation for them. No country will take a person with no papers back. In fact some won't take them back with! It's normal to find no documents ;-)
I have known cases where at a tribunal hearing an interpreter is provided for the language of the country the appellant claims to have come from, but that it turns out the appellant cannot understand the language or dialect in question or knows little about the country. If the tribunal finds that the person did not come from where they said, obviously their appeal fails.
I've heard Alex Salmond wants to double the present numbers of migrants to his brand new Scotland after independence to make the new venture all vibrant and dynamic. Perhaps he should gave the Mayor of Calais a ring. They could send him a starter batch. Perfect solution all round.
If the person claims to be from (say) Afghanistan or Somalia, but is found to have really come from (say) Pakistan or Kenya removing them becomes rather more feasible. Deporting someone is not quite the same as removing them, by the way.
I am more interested in what happens to those who refuse to give their nationality and they cannot be identified. Are they then kept in the detention centre? If so, for how long?
And for a second top up batch, we could empty a large building in Westminster and send em those. UK (excl Sc) could then start again, with a fresh batch....
It's not easy to work out what category of persons you are referring to. If someone refuses to give their nationality, then evidently they are not applying for asylum. So you seem to be referring to persons who: * have entered UK illegally * have become known to the authorities * do not have a passport * will not apply for a passport, and * have not applied for asylum. There would be very few people indeed in that category, but if there are any they would be investigated individually to establish their status, possibly with a view to prosecution.
Excuse my ignorance but what is the difference between removing and deporting someone ? Also, when you were manager of the Immigration Appeal Tribunal were there very strict guidelines to follow or could you if appropriate go with what you felt was instinctively right and ignore the rules ?
I was following on from the above posts, ie someone has claimed to be from a certain country, been found to be dishonest about their country of origin and then refuses to name the country they have actually come from hence rendering the deportation process innaffective? I imagine this to be a huge problem and wondered how the UK authorities deal with it. Its all interesting stuff btw.
Deportation is a penalty which is imposed on a defendant either as part of their sentence or after they have served their sentence for some offence. A person can be removed who has committed no offence as such, but is simply not entitled to be in the UK. For example children can be removed, but would not be deported.
Just to make it clear, I was not a judge and had no responsibility for deciding cases; my role was to manage the staff, the buildings, the money, the courtrooms, etc and I had only a very limited role as regards policy in that jurisdiction. Obviously I knew what went on. Every judgment made by a judge is subject to appeal to the court above, and any judge who 'ignored the rules' would rapidly be overruled. The function of lawyers generally is to apply the law to the facts, not to make it up.
No it's not really a huge problem. In the great majority of cases it's obvious what country a person comes from and they only speak one language fluently. Where a language / ethnic group crosses a border between two countries, a person from one might think it would be advantageous to claim to be from the other, such as Afghan & Pakistan, or a Kurd. If a tribunal makes a determination of what country an appellant comes from, that settles the matter. There are much more serious problems than that in effecting deportations, unfortunately.
So how does deportation actually work? You have some police on the plane with the deportees? But when the plane lands what happens esp if the right bribes haven't been paid and the destination country doesn't want them back? If they have no papers how do you force a country to accept them?
