What is the difference between a refugee and an asylum seeker?
What are refugees?
A refugee is a person who:
‘owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country’
What is an asylum seeker?
Does the UK have more asylum seekers than most countries?
No it does not. With an estimated 109,600 asylum applications, Germany was the largest recipient of new asylum claims in 2013. The United States of America was second with 84,400 asylum applications, followed by South Africa (70,000), France (60,200), and Sweden (54,300). By comparison, the UK received 23,507 new applications for asylum by the end of 2013.
(Source: UNHCR 2013 Global Trends Report)
How many refugees are there in the UK?
At the end of 2013, the population of refugees, pending asylum cases and stateless persons made up just0.23% of the population. That’s 126,055 refugees, 23,070 pending asylum cases and 205 stateless persons.
The vast majority of refugees stay in their region of displacement, so that 86% of the world’s refugees are hosted by developing countries. Pakistan hosts the highest number of refugees at 1.6million.
(Source: UNHCR 2013 Global Trends Report)
Where do asylum seekers in the UK come from?
The top ten countries of origin are as follows:
Pakistan (3,343), Iran (2,417), Sri Lanka (1,808), Syria (1,669), Eritrea (1,377), Albania (1,326), Bangladesh (1,123), Afghanistan (1,040), India (965), Nigeria (915).
(Source: Home Office Asylum Data Tables January to March 2014)
What is a bogus asylum seeker?
There is no such thing as a bogus asylum seeker or an illegal asylum seeker. As an asylum seeker, a person has entered into a legal process of refugee status determination. Everybody has a right to seek asylum in another country. People who don’t qualify for protection as refugees will not receive refugee status and may be deported, but just because someone doesn’t receive refugee status doesn’t mean they are a bogus asylum seeker.
Let us remember that a bogus asylum-seeker is not equivalent to a criminal; and that an unsuccessful asylum application is not equivalent to a bogus one – Kofi Annan
What benefits do asylum seekers receive in the UK?
What is detention?
In the UK, thousands of asylum seekers are held in immigration detention centres each year. Under theDetained Fast Track (DFT), asylum seekers are detained for the duration of their application and appeal. As a principle, UNHCR opposes the detention of people seeking asylum, and calls for the use of alternatives wherever possible.
In 2012, of 21,843 main applicants for asylum, 11.4% (2,482) applicants were detained under DFT. In 2011, 10.7% of asylum claims were accepted onto DFT.
In 2013, 203 children were detained in immigration removal centres, with 155 being under the age of 11.
(Source: Home Office Asylum Data Tables January to March 2014)
What is subsidiary or humanitarian protection?
Subsidiary protection can be given to people who do not meet the 1951 Convention’s legal definition of a refugee but are still in need of international protection. Across the EU, the Qualification Directive provides subsidiary protection for those facing the following threats if returned to their country: (1) the death penalty or execution; (2) torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; or (3) threats from an international or internal armed conflict. The UK uses the legal term humanitarian protection to meet this Directive, and in 2013 granted 53 people humanitarian protection. A further 540 applicants were given ‘discretionary leave to remain’, a form of temporary permission which is unlikely to be more than three years.
(Source: Home Office Asylum Data Tables January – March 2014)