Refugee Council Remote Controls: how UK border controls are endangering the lives of refugees Sile Reynolds Helen Muggeridge December 2008 Refugee Council Remote Controls: how UK border controls are endangering the lives of refugees Sile Reynolds Helen Muggeridge December 2008 Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the following people Parlevliet and Alexander de Châlus in London, as for their contributions to this project and the report: well as Xhemil Shahu and Mahmut Kaçan in Van for all their help and support. Firstly, we would like to thank all our respondents. In particular we are grateful to refugees in the UK and We would also like to thank our colleagues at the Turkey who shared their experiences so openly with Refugee Council. Thanks particularly to Gemma us. We hope this research goes some way to reflecting Juma and Nancy Kelley for their hard work setting your courage in such difficult circumstances. up the project, to Sarah Cutler for her guidance during the early stages, to Barbara Keating and We are very grateful to members of our International Hannah Ward, and to colleagues in the Policy and Advisory Group who generously gave their time and Development and Communications teams for their expertise; Elspeth Guild (Kingsley Napley Solicitors); expertise. Thanks also to Lisa Doyle, Megan Valsamis Mitsilegas (Queen Mary, University of McCorriston and Kavita Brahmbhatt for their London); Phil Shiner (Public Interest Lawyers); Jill valuable research expertise and to Jonathan Ellis Rutter (ippr); Dave Corlett (Latrobe University); and Jonathan Parr for all their support. We would Louise Moor (Amnesty International); Gerry Simpson like to say a huge thank you to Karl Torring and to (Human Rights Watch); Amanda Shah (BID); Barbara Georgina Pope for volunteering their time and skills Harrell-Bond (Amera); Patricia Coelho (ECRE); Jan to the project. Finally, a big thank you to One Stop Shaw (Amnesty International UK); Louise Zanre Services in Leeds and London for all their help in (Jesuit Refugee Service); Judy Wakahiu (Refugee accessing respondents. Consortium of Kenya); Reyes Castillo (ACCEM); Javier Ramirez (CEAR); Gabor Gyulai (Hungarian We are very grateful to UK government Helsinki Human Rights Committee); Katrine Camilleri representatives who generously gave their time to (Jesuit Refugee Service); Agata Forys (Helsinki respond to our questions and to assist us in setting Foundation for Human Rights); Jason Bergen up meetings in the UK and Turkey. (Oxfam); Anja Klug (UNHCR); Lord Alf Dubs; Gary Christie (Scottish Refugee Council); Mike Lewis Finally, we are particularly grateful to the (Welsh Refugee Council); and Omolade Oshunremi organisations in Turkey that enabled us to conduct (Lewisham Refugee Network). We are especially the fieldwork; in order to preserve the anonymity of grateful to Guy Goodwin-Gill (Oxford University), the respondents, we are not naming them. We Chooi Fong and Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen would, however, like to thank the Helsinki Citizens’ (Danish Refugee Council) for their contributions to Assembly in Istanbul for their invaluable assistance, this report. Thank you also to Nick Oakeshott including contributing the foreward to this report. (Asylum Aid) for his kind assistance. UNHCR in the UK and Turkey have been extremely helpful to us and we would like to thank Jacqueline 2 Refugee Council report 2008 Contents Executive Summary 4 Recommendations 7 Foreword 10 Chapter One – Introduction 12 Chapter Two – Contextual Overview 15 The legal dimensions 22 Chapter Three – Visa restrictions and e-Borders 25 Chapter Four – Outposted immigration officials 35 Chapter Five – Carrier Sanctions 44 A note on State Responsibility 50 Chapter Six – Displacement onto dangerous routes and methods 52 Chapter Seven – Refugees in permanent transition 59 Non-Refoulement 70 Case studies 72 Annexe One – Interview Schedules 74 Glossary 79 Bibliography 81 Remote Controls 3 Executive Summary This report presents the findings of a one-year Refugee Council project, which examined the impact of the UK’s border controls on refugees’ ability to escape persecution and find protection. The project was guided by an International Advisory Group of leading NGOs, lawyers, academics and UNHCR, and fieldwork was undertaken in Turkey to review the impact of border controls in a key transit country for refugees. Policy context claiming asylum, refugees are forced to travel The dramatic decrease in the number of refugees irregularly in ‘mixed flows’, and hence encounter the coming to the UK over the last 20 years is not same border controls as other irregular migrants. matched by any decrease in conflict around the world. In fact, the global number of refugees and This study explores the various overseas UK border those displaced within their own country has controls and their impact on refugees. The report increased. The Refugee Council is concerned that demonstrates that a request for documentation is the plethora of UK border controls placed overseas often the first obstacle faced by a refugee trying to and aimed at preventing irregular migration is escape. Refugee respondents explained that they preventing refugees fleeing from their own countries were unable to obtain passports when their country and getting to a place of safety. was in a state of upheaval. To compound this difficulty, visas are required for many nationalities. The Refugee Council believes that the UK Our research shows that the imposition of visas on government needs to recognise that wherever it nationals of countries such as Iraq, Somalia and operates border controls, or influences the border Zimbabwe make escape from persecution controls of other States, refugees will be moving extremely difficult. across those borders because they need to escape from persecution and human rights abuses. In order • Leading refugee law expert, Guy Goodwin-Gill for the UK Government to comply with its legal and has provided a legal analysis for this report, in moral obligations, it must ensure that its border which he questions whether anything remains controls do not result in refugees being unable to of the right ‘to seek’ asylum in 2008, the 60th escape their countries of origin or being sent back anniversary of the Universal Declaration of to persecution. Such practice, known as Human Rights. refoulement, is prohibited by the 1951 Convention Today’s ‘rights-holders’ are faced with obstacles put relating to the Status of Refugees, to which the UK in place by States to curb irregular migration. is a signatory. However, States bear responsibilities for actions taken outside their territories. Most crucially, Key findings refugees should not directly, or indirectly, be sent • The UK government’s ‘upstream’ migration back to a place of persecution or torture as a result controls risk blocking refugees who are trying of the actions of UK officials at home or abroad. A to escape their country of origin or transit. decade after the Human Rights Act, Goodwin-Gill This report focuses on the UK Government’s concludes that it is unclear whether the UK’s objective of moving migration control as far specific human rights obligations are integrated ‘upstream’ as possible in order to stop irregular sufficiently, or at all, into its migration and asylum migrants reaching the UK. Since there is no legal policy and practice. way to travel to the UK for the specific purpose of 4 Refugee Council report 2008 • The protection-blind use of technology in documented passenger brought to the UK, means border control ignores the needs of refugees that individuals suspected of intending to claim who are forced to travel irregularly. asylum in the UK are classified as a threat and The UK’s use of technology in the field of border therefore likely to be refused boarding. Identification control is also examined in this report. The Refugee of such risky passengers is based on little more Council finds it remarkable and disappointing that in than ad hoc profiling by carriers, and the use of ‘gut implementing a sophisticated and expensive border feeling’ to intercept individuals suspected of control system, refugees’ protection needs have travelling irregularly or of intending to destroy their been entirely ignored. Our refugee respondents travel documents before arriving in the UK. Carriers expressed a particular fear that the use of showed little awareness of basic refugee protection biometrics to ‘fix’ individual identity leaves no room principles, including the prohibition on refoulement. for legitimate explanations for the use of irregular There is a lack of transparency surrounding private travel by refugees, as provided for by Article 31 of carriers’ immigration control activities. This makes it the 1951 Refugee Convention. difficult to guarantee that refugees’ lives are not put at risk. • Interception activities conducted by the UK’s outposted immigration officials and private • There must be a solution to the needs of carriers contain no safeguards for persons refugees in order to prevent irregular and who may need international protection, and dangerous travel to safety in Europe. could even lead to refoulement. As a result of our findings, we identified an urgent The report considers the responsibilities of need for safeguards to be incorporated into the outposted immigration officials, whose work with UK’s border activities in order to protect refugees. airlines and government counterparts throughout At the same time, the Refugee Council believes that the world aims to intercept irregular