<img alt="Suella Braverman, the home secretary.” src=”https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/428886f891955d7e42eb96120ce206581cb8c4a2/0_116_3500_2101/master/3500.jpg?width=465&dpr=1&s=none” width=”465″ height=”279.1328571428572″ class=”dcr-evn1e9″>
The UN has supported a pilot funded by the Home Office that aims to significantly reduce the escalating costs of the asylum system. However, Suella Braverman, the home secretary, is refusing to endorse the scheme, despite it being described as “more humane.”
This week, the UNHCR (the refugee agency that assists the UK government in improving its asylum system) will commend a scheme in Bedfordshire funded by the Home Office. The scheme has been found to reduce the cost of accommodating refugees and migrants by over 50% compared to placing them in detention. The savings were achieved through providing housing, legal support, and welfare assistance.
However, the home secretary intends to oversee a significant expansion of the Home Office’s detention facilities, which experts estimate will require billions of pounds in funding. Braverman has stated her intention to pursue ”a program of increasing immigration-detention capacity,” which reportedly includes using disused RAF bases and barges. The only barge used so far, the Bibby Stockholm, was intended to house 500 asylum seekers but is now empty due to the discovery of legionella bacteria on board.
Additionally, the Home Office is currently spending over £5 million per day to accommodate asylum seekers in hotels.
Meanwhile, the illegal migration act is expected to result in the detention of “tens of thousands” of refugees, according to the Refugee Council. Internal government projections suggest that the costs could exceed £3 billion over the next two years. A report by the IPPR thinktank, expected to be released this week, will warn that the law will only exacerbate the chaos.
The UNHCR’s evaluation of the Home Office-funded pilot is anticipated to praise the Bedfordshire scheme for its ”more humane” treatment of refugees and migrants. Critics argue that it is precisely this aspect that has led to the scheme being effectively abandoned by the Home Office, whose legislation imposes a legal duty on the home secretary to detain and remove anyone deemed to have entered the UK illegally.
Insiders familiar with the scheme have stated, “The findings contradict the illegal migration act. They directly challenge the Home Office’s narrative and rhetoric of ‘invasion’ and ‘scary migrants.'” Shortly after being reappointed as home secretary by Rishi Sunak, Braverman referred to refugees and migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats as ”the invasion on our southern coast.”
Since August 2020, the King’s Arm Project, based in Bedford, has supported 75 vulnerable migrants from 23 different nationalities. The project offers them legal advice, clothing, mental health support, English language learning, and GP registration while they are in the community.
The pilot has proven to be more cost-effective than detention and has resulted in better outcomes, such as obtaining settled status. Less than half of those held in immigration detention centers are actually deported.
One participant in the scheme described the assistance as “methodical, very orderly, and effective. It came at a time when I was in the depths of hopelessness and despair, not knowing who to turn to for help.”
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2023-08-20 04:00:44
Post from www.theguardian.com
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