Anonymous 23,
I agree that we should consider the time after the 21 day period, indeed this is the most important time as absolutely all support from the National Asylum Support Service is cut off at this time for single adults and childless couples. Since these failed asylum seekers are also prohibited from working, they have absolutely no means of subsistence. Although it would be nice if there was some special significance to the 21 days which meant that all refused asylum seekers, regardless of their country of origin, were able to return after this time (and with no legitimate fears for their safety), this is not the case. There is no mystical significance to the 21 days, it is merely a convenient, but arbitrary, limit and there are many reasons why the return of rejected asylum seekers may be impeded.

In most cases people fleeing persecution cannot safely obtain travel documents or valid visas from the authorities that are persecuting them and many countries of origin do not cooperate with the re-documentation and readmission of their nationals. After Amnesty International asked the Home Office to list countries from which it is very lengthy and difficult to obtain Emergency Travel Documents and which do not accept ‘EU letters’ instead of these ETDs, it provided a list including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Iran, Sudan and Zimbabwe. A letter dated April 2006 from the IOM in London to a firm of solicitors states that it has been unable to help any Eritrean rejected asylum seekers return voluntarily since at least August 2004.

For these reasons and more, there is a huge disparity between the number of people refused asylum and the number who are either removed by the Immigration Service or make a voluntary departure. For the foreseeable future, thousands of rejected asylum seekers in the UK are condemned to live in abject poverty, stripped of their dignity and relying on others to subsist. Sometimes they go hungry and sleep in the streets. All avenues to a normal life are blocked. There is little incentive to remain in contact with the Home Office at this stage and therefore the whereabouts of many rejected asylum seekers are unknown. This is not a hypothetical issue but a real one, thousands of people will continue to live in destitution if the status quo is not changed. The UK Government must not oblige people to live in abject poverty indefinitely due to a failure of the system to either grant them leave to remain or to make them return. Some means of subsistence, either the granting of the right to work or more extensive benefit support must be granted. I believe that there is more to be said for the temporary granting of the right to work (not confined to detention centres) which would allow these rejected asylum seekers to live normal lives and contribute to society. You may think that there is more to be said for the government continuing to provide the same accommodation and financial support as during the asylum process in these cases. In this case our difference of opinion would only be about what is more efficacious and realisable. Enforced destitution, whether malign or through government incompetence is not an acceptable option, I should hope that everyone would agree on this.

Earlier this year, when asked about the thinking on what will happen to rejected
asylum seekers who cannot return home through no fault of their own and are likely to be here for a substantial period, the then director of NASS responded that ministers
‘are open to exploring this conundrum’. For the time being, the conundrum has not been solved and rejected asylum seekers who cannot return face destitution.