Immigration: desperate measures

In brief

• The United Nations Refugee Convention.
• Section 31 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999.
• Section 2 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants) Act 2004.
• Claiming asylum: the ‘culture of disbelief’.

The UK has been a signatory of the Refugee Convention since 1954, although the Convention was only incorporated into domestic law 45 years later, under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, s 31.

During the decade 2010 to 2019, the number of people seeking asylum in the UK almost doubled, from around 23,000 in 2010 to around 45,000 in 2019, a ten-year high.

Many applicants wait years for their case to be concluded. For a case to be considered ‘concluded’ in Home Office statistics, it must have resulted in a grant of protection or other leave, the removal of the asylum applicant(s) from the UK, or the withdrawal of the application. Of all applications received in the financial