Refugee groups fear changes to immigration law

REFUGEE groups last night expressed concern that asylum seekers can be held in prison for up to 21 days from Monday following changes to the law.

The Immigration Act 2003 extends the period that asylum seekers can be detained from 10 to 21 days, if they are suspected of breaking immigration laws.

The Irish Refugee Council (IRC) is concerned at the large increase in asylum-seeker detention times.

“This is something that we would be worried about because it is a very big jump in the number of detention days. Immigrants can now be held for 21 days before their case is reviewed,” an IRC spokesperson said.

The change in procedures also allows the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner (ORAC) to assess the credibility of applicants.

This means that an asylum seeker who arrives here without full identification could face severe problems in convincing the ORAC of their claim, the IRC spokesperson said. “You could have a situation where someone who can’t speak English and has not full identification at the initial stage will struggle with their application.”

Another change to the law, which adds Bulgaria and Romania to the list of safe countries has also been criticised by the IRC. Applicants from these countries will be presumed not to have fled over fears for their safety.

“We think that this goes against the spirit of the law because it fails to look at an immigrant on an individual basis,” the spokesperson said.

The new laws also require asylum seekers to co-operate with authorities and to inform them if they change address.

The legislation, that also includes amendments to the Refugee Act, is aiming to speed up the time taken to process asylum applications. Children under 14 can be fingerprinted for the first time and asylum applications from minors will be prioritised by the ORAC.

Anyone whose case is “manifestly unfounded” will just have four working days to appeal, as opposed to the current 10.

The changes come after it emerged that 794 asylum seekers have been recognised as refugees since the beginning of the year. Of these, 251 were recognised at ‘first instance’ by the ORAC and the remaining 543 were granted asylum status on appeal. This brings to 2,787 the total number of refugees recognised since January 2002, more than half of them, 1,643, on appeal.

However a total of 5,171 applications are still outstanding at the ORAC and 592 of these date back to 2002 or before.

A further total of 2,712 asylum-seekers are appealing decisions and 351 people, who had earlier withdrawn from the asylum system, have re-applied.

Some 60% of applications for asylum so far this year are from nationals of Nigeria, Romania, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Moldova and Ghana.