Today (13th December), over 730 organisations and individuals on the frontline of providing support to people seeking asylum in our communities across the UK, wrote jointly to the Home Secretary to urge her department to reconsider the decision to suspend all Syrian asylum claims following the fall of the Assad regime.
This letter, signed by over 200 organisations (across the four nations of the UK) and over 500 individuals (including doctors, professors, lecturers, trustees, volunteers, ESOL tutors, teachers, nurses, midwives, directors, consultants, faith leaders, solicitors, lawyers, immigration advisors, charity workers, writers, artists, photographers, trade unionists, local councillors, retirees, legal advisors, refugees, people seeking asylum, journalists, human rights advocates, interpreters, campaigners, support workers, students and more) who are proud to welcome people seeking safety, calls on the Home Secretary to reverse the unprecedented move to announce a suspension of the asylum system for a single nationality group, at a time when the safety of Syria is far from certain.
Dear Home Secretary,
We are writing to you as organisations and individuals grounded firmly in our communities across the UK, many on the frontline of stepping in to support people who have been targeted and brutalised by hostile anti-refugee policies in recent years. We are proud to welcome people seeking safety, and many of us are signatories to the Fight the Anti-Refugee Laws pledge that seeks to defend the right to seek asylum in the UK.
We are writing to you today to express our deep concern and opposition to your decision to suspend asylum claims for Syrians just days after the fall of the Assad regime.
The reasons given by government ministers for pausing all asylum claims by people who have fled Syria have, in our view, been inconsistent. Whilst the Minister for Border Security and Asylum told Sky News that the suspension was down to claims being based on “fleeing the brutal Assad regime that has just collapsed” which seems to suggest Syria is now safe for those who have fled, the Foreign Secretary told the House of Commons that “Assad’s demise brings no guarantee of peace” and that this is “a moment of danger”.
We feel strongly that it is far from clear that Syria is safe for those who have or are seeking sanctuary. The Foreign Office continues to advise against all travel to Syria, ‘due to the ongoing conflict and unpredictable security conditions’, all British Embassy services in Damascus remain suspended, and as things stand there has been no return of British diplomats to Syria. We feel this shows the British Government’s acknowledgement that Syria is not yet a safe place, and therefore asylum claims should not be suspended. Announcing an indefinite pause for a specific nationality group is an unprecedented step in recent asylum policy, and given the fact that you have a range of temporary leave mechanisms at your disposal we feel there is no need to stop processing claims.
Whilst we acknowledge that the UK is not alone in taking this step, following some European countries – there is an acute and substantial backlog already present in the UK following the passage of the Illegal Migration Act which effectively halted all asylum claims. In the UK many Syrians have already been kept in limbo for years awaiting a decision on their claims, all the while banned from working, warehoused in barracks and hotels and forced to live on just £8.86 a week. Further suspending their claims will have a detrimental impact on the mental health and wellbeing of these individuals whose claims should be considered on a case-by-case basis.
We are urging you to reconsider the decision to suspend Syrian asylum claims and urgently:
- Ensure access to the asylum system for Syrians and re-start consideration of their claims
- Grant all people seeking asylum the right to work after six months of awaiting a decision on their asylum claim, lifting people including Syrians out of limbo
- Commit to no forced returns or coercive repatriations of Syrians in the UK
We also urge you to defend the right for all fleeing persecution and war to seek asylum in the UK and build a compassionate refugee system as set out in the blueprint sent to the Prime Minister in July, as published in The Guardian.
