45 Americans claim asylum in Britain

[jimmy olsen]

Socialists and Lettowites, the lot of them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/25/americans-claim-asylum-britain

    * News
    * UK news
    * Immigration and asylum

45 Americans claim asylum in Britain

Home Office statistics reveal dozens of applications by people claiming persecution in the US
    * Helen Pidd
    * guardian.co.uk, Monday 25 January 2010 13.44 GMT
    * Article history

They hail from the land of the free, the home of the brave, a place where it is said anyone can prosper regardless of colour, creed or religion. But dozens of Americans have tried in recent years to gain asylum in the UK by claiming they were persecuted in their homeland, according to figures released to the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.

Home Office statistics show that between 2004 and 2008, 45 Americans submitted asylum applications to the UK Border Agency claiming they had fled the US and were unable to go back because they had a well-founded fear of persecution. Fifteen Canadians also applied. All 60 were turned down.

A US government source said the American applications were most likely submitted by self-declared "political refugees" claiming they faced discrimination under the last administration. The applications from the US peaked in 2008, the final year of George Bush's presidency, when 15 Americans submitted asylum claims.

Between 2004 and 2008 there were 132,640 asylum claims made in the UK, according to government statistics.

The Home Office refused to reveal the rationale behind the claims or why they were refused, saying a manual search of the records would be required, exceeding the time limit for Freedom of Information requests.

But on various online forums, people claiming to be American refugees have outlined their cases. One Texan hoping to be allowed sanctuary in Scotland claimed he had been "persecuted as a political dissident against US government war-mongering".

Liza Schuster, an asylum expert from the department of sociology at City University, said: "I don't know the details of those cases, but assume the US citizens are deserting before being sent to somewhere like Afghanistan. With the Canadians I'm really not sure. It is, as is clear from the numbers, pretty unusual – if only because it is relatively easy for those people to leave their countries and settle elsewhere. Why not just apply for a work visa and renew and then apply for leave to remain?

"As someone who would not find admission to European countries too difficult, it would only make sense to claim asylum if you feared extradition back to Canada or the US, or if there was some reason you might be refused entry. It is interesting – I'd be curious to know more – not least because in spite of what the law books say, granting asylum is a criticism of the originating state."

According to the Home Office figures, most of the US and Canadian applicants were aged between 18 and 59, though a small number of American asylum seekers were over 60.

The Refugee Council, the largest organisation in the UK working with asylum seekers and refugees, said it had helped 18 American and two Canadian asylum seekers between 2004 and 2008. The adults ranged in age from 29 to 59 with a mean age of 44. The Americans had nine dependent children aged under 16.

"In this time this group of clients attended 40 advice sessions and mainly came to see us regarding their entitlement to UKBA asylum support, and issues associated with destitution," said a spokeswoman.

Donna Covey, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: "No country is safe for every person all of the time. Those with a genuine need for protection, whatever country they are from, should have the right to claim asylum in a place of safety."

A small number of Americans have successfully claimed asylum abroad over the past few decades. In 1997 the Netherlands granted asylum to Holly Ann Collins, together with her three children, when they claimed to be fleeing domestic abuse. The family had spent three years living in four different Dutch refugee camps before their application was approved.

In June 2008 Texan mother Chere Tomayko and her two daughters were granted asylum in Costa Rica, also on the grounds of abuse.

After America went to war in Iraq in 2003 a number of US soldiers deserted and crossed the border to Canada, where they tried to claim asylum.

For a number of years Private Bethany Smith has been fighting to stay in Canada, claiming she was persecuted in the army because she is a lesbian.

Smith, who now goes by the name Skylar James, told Canadian authorities she was repeatedly harassed and threatened with death, then denied an honourable discharge because her superiors wanted to send her to Afghanistan. In November a senior judge ordered Canada's immigration and refugee board to look again at her case.

[Jaron]

[Caliga]

  It would be awesome if the US government stripped them of their citizenship, despite Britain not granting them asylum.

[citizen k]

It would be awesome if the US government stripped them of their citizenship, despite Britain not granting them asylum.

"Lunatic Fringe Without a Country"

[Eddie Teach]

Can we claim asylum if Americans on Languish are mean to us?

[BVN]

It would be awesome if the US government stripped them of their citizenship, despite Britain not granting them asylum.

I don't want to spoil your fun, but if memory serves me right, there are international treaties that forbid making someone stateless.

[Tamas]

I want asylum in: the United States 

[Martinus]

It would be awesomeillegal if the US government stripped them of their citizenship, despite Britain not granting them asylum.

Fixed your post for you.

International conventions prevent countries from stripping citizenship from their own citizens, if that would result in them having no citizenship.

[DisturbedPervert]

The applications from the US peaked in 2008, the final year of George Bush's presidency, when 15 Americans submitted asylum claims.

Had they no hope for change?   

[Caliga]

International conventions prevent countries from stripping citizenship from their own citizens, if that would result in them having no citizenship.

Nevertheless it has and continues to happen.

Statelessness since 1961

1961 marks the year from which the UN proposed to exercise a mandate over stateless persons beyond the production of travel documents upon request for them.

In 1974, the UN General Assembly requested the UNHCR to undertake the functions foreseen under the Reduction Convention.

On 13 December 1975, the 1961 Convention entered into force. There is a poor level of uptake, with only 35 state ratifications or accessions in the period to February 2007.

In 1995, the UNHCR Executive Committee(ExCom) and the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) requested UNHCR to broaden its activities concerning statelessness to include all states. The office was also asked to gather and share information on the problem of statelessness globally, to train staff and government officials, and to regularly report back to the ExCom.

In 1996 UNHCR was asked by the UNGA to actively promote accession to the 1954 and the 1961 Conventions, as well as to provide relevant technical and advisory services pertaining to the preparation and implementation of nationality legislation to interested states.

Regional instruments, such as the 1997 European Convention on Nationality, have also contributed to protecting the rights of stateless persons. That document underlines the need of every person to have a nationality, and seeks to clarify the rights and responsibilities of states in ensuring individual access to a nationality.

The UNHCR has achieved some success in launching campaigns to prevent and reduce statelessness among formerly deported peoples in Crimea, Ukraine (Armenians, Crimean Tatars, Germans, and Greeks who were deported en masse at the close of World War II).[4] Another success has been the naturalization of Tajik refugees in Kyrgyzstan, as well as the participation in citizenship campaigns enabling 300,000 Estate Tamils to acquire citizenship of Sri Lanka. The UNHCR also assisted the Czech Republic to overcome the large number of stateless persons created when it separated from Slovakia.

An internal evaluation released in 2001 suggested that UNHCR had done little to exercise its mandate on statelessness. Only two individuals were tasked with overseeing work in that area at UNHCR headquarters, though field officers had been trained to address the issue. There was no dedicated budget line. Concerned organisations such as Refugees International have advocated for the appointment of a permanent UN Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Statelessness[5]

In 2004, ExCom invited UNHCR to pay particular attention to situations of protracted statelessness and explore with states measures that would ameliorate the situations and bring them to an end.

At the beginning of 2006 the UNHCR claimed to have 'on its books' 2.4 million stateless persons, and made an estimate of 11 million as the size of the stateless population worldwide.[6]

The greatest populations (over 100,000) of stateless persons are seen in the Dominican Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, Iraq, Latvia, Estonia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia. Significant stateless populations are also reported in other countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America.[7]

Palestinians comprise the largest stateless population in the world.[8] Abbas Shiblak Shiblak estimates that over half of the Palestinian people in the world are stateless.[9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statelessness

[CountDeMoney]

All 60 were turned down.

[Josquius]

Eejits clogging up the system 

Socialists and Lettowites, the lot of them.

Aren't the two polar opposites.

[Brazen]

If they bring nylons and chocolate they can stay.

[Neil]

International conventions prevent countries from stripping citizenship from their own citizens, if that would result in them having no citizenship.

Yeah, but international conventions don't have any rifles behind them, and thus are not real laws.

[Ed Anger]

If they bring nylons and chocolate they can stay.

I've got several cases of Spam.