Executive Wants Integrated Asylum Families To Stay
Scottish ministers are to urge the Home Office to consider allowing the children of failed asylum seekers to remain in the country, The Herald has learned.
In a dramatic shift in the Scottish Executive’s stance on asylum, Hugh Henry, Minister for Education and Young People, will ask officials at the Home Office to consider that many children have become “well integrated” into their local schools and communities since arriving in Scotland.
He wants this to be taken into account as part of an imminent review into more than 1000 so-called “legacy cases” in Scotland which will examine whether some of those within the backlog of failed asylum seekers and their families awaiting removal can remain, despite their applications being rejected.
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Mr Henry also disclosed yesterday that new measures to safeguard the welfare of asylum seeker children by appointing a “lead professional” to oversee their cases was now ready to be put in place, a year after it was agreed as part of a protocol between Scottish ministers and their Westminster counterparts.
The intervention by Scottish ministers comes after growing unrest over the removal of families and children who have been in Scotland for up to five years and the use of “dawn raids” to enforce their removal.
A group of pupils from Drumchapel High School, known as the Glasgow Girls since they launched a campaign for the rights of young asylum seekers 18 months ago, yesterday renewed their call for an end to dawn raids and the detention of children.
There are 1100 rejected asylum cases in Scotland, representing some 4000 people, who have no legal right to remain in the UK. Asylum campaigners, religious groups and charities have called for an amnesty on those rejected asylum seekers who have been here for several years.
In a letter sent to the conveners of the education and communities committees of the Scottish Parliament yesterday, Mr Henry said he wanted the Home Office to take a “sensible and pragmatic” approach to considering, on a case by case basis, whether asylum seekers within the “legacy” group could remain.
He said: “This legacy review’ here in Scotland will involve a reassessment by Home Office staff of around 1100 cases to determine whether those seeking asylum are able to stay. Many of the children involved were born here or are well integrated into and contribute positively within local schools and communities.
“We will urge the Home Office to take a sensible and pragmatic approach to reviewing their cases. This review is expected to begin shortly and it will be fully informed by the information gathered under the lead professional arrangements.”
Though the letter to the parliament committees stresses decisions on removal are ultimately for the Home Office, Mr Henry’s intervention represents the first attempt by a Scottish minister to exert an influence over the review of legacy asylum cases. First Minister Jack McConnell, who agreed the new asylum protocol in March last year, had only expressed concern over the welfare of children subjected to enforced removals.
The move appeared to run into immediate difficulties with the Home Office after Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, said its determination to remove failed asylum seekers was “stronger than ever”.
One of the Glasgow Girls, Emma Clifford, said: “We just want the Home Office to look at cases with some humanity and consider how long people have been here and how they have integrated, especially where children are concerned. We’ve written to the Prime Minister, but now I think it’s time for a meeting.”
Sally Daghlian, chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council, said: “We support Hugh Henry’s comments and have been calling on the Home Office to consider these cases on individual merit.”
