groups need a different kind of definition. What about the people who have come to the UK to find safety? How do they ‘define’ themselves?
In Immigration Law, an ‘Asylum-seeker’: is a person who has asked to be allowed to stay in the UK on the grounds that if they return to their original country they will be in danger. They either haven’t had a decision or are waiting for a second opinion. They MAY NOT work, and can only get a very little bit of help from the Government, like £36 per week and health care. If they need a place to live the Government will send them outside London – it is called ‘dispersal’. They just have to wait until they know the Government’s decision.
If the Government says ‘No’ they are called a ‘Refused Asylum-Seeker’. They might have to report to a police station every week,they might be ‘detained’ in a place like a prison, they might be deported – send back to the country they first left. Some people ‘go underground’ and ‘disappear’ for a while, but they cannot live like that for long. If they are caught, they will probably be detained.
But if the Government says ‘yes’ there are different things that can happen.
If they are given ‘Refugee Convention’ status, they seen as a refugee in international law. That means the Government believes they have a well-founded fear of persecution if they go back to their country of origin. With ‘Refugee Convention’ status, they are protected by international and British Law. They are safe for at least five years. They can work and live in the UK and travel to other countries – anywhere except where they lived in the first place. This protection was first put in place in 1951 – after the Second World War and the horrors of the Holocaust.
Many people who ask for asylum are given some other kind of ‘Leave to Remain’ – sometimes for 1 year, or 2, or 3 or 5 or ‘Indefinite Leave to Remain’. This might be called ‘Humanitarian Protection’ if for example someone’s country is at war and even though they aren’t being persecuted but it can have many different names. Or it might be ‘Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Child Leave’(UASC) for a child who is under 18 and on their own. Generally charities and other help and support services in Britain call someone ‘a refugee’ if they started as an asylum seeker, and got a ‘yes’ answer so they can stay in the UK, whatever their actual visa/permit/leave is called. They can work, and until they get a job they can get the same help with money that a British national would get. But people with permanent Leave to Remain find it easier to rebuild their lives in the UK. People who only have temporaryLeave to Remain – 1,2,3 or 5 years – are often scared about what will happen after that and find it hard to get on with a full life. Young people with UASC leave don’t have parents in the UK to help them. They never know what will happen after their eighteenth birthday. From 17½ years onwards, they can be detained and might be deported on their 18th birthday.
Another way of defining refugees is a‘socialdefinition’: someone who has family, a community history or an ethnic background where at some time most people arrived in the UK as refugees might feel their life has been shaped by that. They might feel they are from a ‘refugee community’even if they were born here.
Finally there is an ‘inclusive definition’: any person who feels that they have come to the UK to find safety, regardless of their legal or immigration status. This is REAP’s preferred definition.
p.s. Children (U18) are fully protected by Children’s Law in Britain, no matter where they were born.
Or perhaps we should be asking ‘when does someone stop being a refugee?’