The Dehumanisation of Asylum Seekers in the Proposed System Reforms

Seeking asylum is a human right under international law. Let’s set that straight, first and foremost. The government’s planned overhaul of the asylum system demonstrates the government’s view of asylum as a privilege and economic transaction – not a human right. The government’s reforms and its interpretation of long-standing legislation paint asylum seekers as less than human.

A quick run-down of the proposed changes - the Home Secretary plans to:

• Quadruple the waiting time for asylum seekers to apply for permanent leave to remain

• Reassess the safety of their home countries every 2.5years (costing of £872 million over ten years according to Refugee Council), with deportation if the country is deemed safe

• Remove statutory support including housing and financial aid

• Reinvent the interpretation of fundamental legislation, including the European Convention of Human Rights and the Modern Slavery Act.

• 5 years of protection will be cut to 30 months.

• The multiple appeals process will be eliminated.

• And finally, on a seemingly optimistic note, new safe routes are to be created.

Sadly, this last point falls flat when heard within context: the Home Secretary has said “Those who come via legal routes will have a faster and easier path to becoming permanent citizens”. However, we again stress the obvious: all asylum-seeking routes are legal under international law.

The government claims that under these reforms, asylum seekers who can contribute to the economy and community will see their support prioritised. But how can one who is not granted the Right to Work contribute to the economy? And how can one who is not permitted to work survive with the removal of statutory support? The reforms are full of contradictions, placing asylum seekers in a bind.

But what happens if someone is seeking asylum from modern slavery, or was trafficked into the UK against their will?

To humanise those whom these reforms will affect, let’s imagine how a hypothetical person might navigate the system. Let’s name her Priya.

Priya flees violence in her home country with her 3-year-old daughter. She has an aunt who moved to the UK during the British occupation of her country. Her aunt is her only remaining family, and Priya speaks a bit of English, so she chooses to seek asylum in the UK.

When Priya arrives in the UK via the reformed asylum system, her case and benefits are deprioritised because she has no education or skills – at home, she was expected to be a housewife and mother. Because her support is deprioritised and housing/financial help are no longer statutory requirements, Priya is left without enough money to feed herself and her daughter. She has nothing to contribute towards the cost of her accommodation, so she is moved to a shelter.

Desperate for money for food, Priya begins begging on the street. A man approaches her and helps her, giving her food and some money, but afterwards asks for a favour in return. He entraps her in forced crime, and she has no alternative. Priya is arrested for pickpocketing, and now that she has a criminal record, her asylum case is prioritised for likely deportation. She tries to explain the entrapment and that she was forced to commit the crime, but under the new interpretation of the European Convention of Human Rights, she is now seen as a criminal and a risk to the British public. She then pleads Article 8 of the ECHR, which guarantees the right to family and private life, but is told that the right to family life for asylum seekers applies only to immediate family; her aunt is too far removed.

Priya and her daughter are deported back to the violence in her home country, now with additional physical and psychological trauma.

This hypothetical story is merely one example of how these reforms might play out within the contexts of individual lives. Legislative changes and re-interpretation promise to prioritise public safety over an asylum seeker’s rights to a family life, or the risk that they will face 'inhuman' treatment if returned to their home country. Additionally, Article 8 of the ECHR, which guarantees the right to family and private life, will also be reinterpreted “in favour of the British people’s expectations”. The way that the changes re-interpret the ECHR and the Modern Slavery Act transfers subjectivity from the asylum seeker to the “British people”. Rather than interpreting the laws as protection for those in need, they are now focusing solely on protecting the masses without regard for refugees, effectively dehumanising and objectifying them in the very laws which aim to protect human rights. We cannot value the rights of one human over another, which these interpretations clearly do; the first quite literally allows ‘inhumane’ treatment in their home country if it helps British public safety.

Finally, the Home Secretary has mentioned “tweaks” to the Modern Slavery Act to prevent it from being used “as a tactic to undermine British border security”. This we ask: what about the 40% of victims of modern slavery identified by the Home Office in 2024 who were exclusively exploited within the UK? Conflating the atrocities these individuals have faced within our country and in their own with border protection is to place an unrelated burden on the weakest shoulders.

We must begin to seek a humanitarian approach to the asylum system, one that follows international law, encourages order, appreciates nuance and the complexities of individual experiences, and views asylum seekers as human beings, deserving of human rights.