Law Centre (NI) Response

April 2010

About Law Centre (NI)

Law Centre (NI) is a public interest non-governmental legal organisation. The Law Centre works to promote social justice and provides specialist legal services to advice organisations and disadvantaged individuals through our advice line and our casework services from our two regional offices in Northern Ireland.  The Law Centre provides advice, casework, training, information and policy services to over 400 member organisations in Northern Ireland. We are the main advisers on immigration law in Northern Ireland and facilitate the Immigration Practitioners’ Group consisting of lawyers and voluntary sector organisations. 

Expanded publication of monthly asylum statistical data

The Law Centre welcomes the Home Office’s proposal to expand the publication of monthly asylum statistical data by compiling additional data in compliance with European legislation Regulation (EC) No 862/2007. In particular, we believe that providing data on dependents as well as on principal applications is very helpful in showing the fuller picture of asylum trends.

‘Control of Immigration: Quarterly Statistical Summary’ document

In general, we find the ‘Control of Immigration: Quarterly Statistical Summary’ document to be extremely useful and we refer to it frequently especially in our policy work. We welcome the recent decision to incorporate the data previously found in the ‘Accession Monitoring’ reports in the ‘Control of Immigration’ document. It is useful to have one single, comprehensive document.

We note that the section on ‘Enforcement and Compliance’ provides data relating to detention in detention centres and short-holding facilities, however, data relating to detention in police cells is excluded. We would like to see the inclusion of this data.

Regional data

We urge the Home Office to use this opportunity, whereby it is reviewing the way it publishes data, to commit to collating and publishing regional asylum/immigration statistics.

Immigration is increasingly a matter of interest in Northern Ireland and it is important that accurate figures are available so as to inform the work of the immigrant/refugee sector as well as political representatives and statutory bodies. Indeed, at a recent Immigration and Devolution seminar co-sponsored by Law Centre (NI) and the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, it was acknowledged that immigration is a ‘legitimate concern’ for Northern Ireland, despite it being a reserved matter.[1]

The Home Office does not currently provide a regional breakdown of immigration figures. Only one set of regional data is published in the ‘Control of Immigration’ document which is the number of asylum seekers in receipt of NASS support. This data enables an estimate of the number of asylum applications lodged in Northern Ireland, however, clearly there is scope for inaccuracy given that some asylum applicants do not apply for NASS support.

The Law Centre has raised the issue of the lack of regional data with the Northern Ireland/Glasgow UKBA office. Indeed, the UKBA office has been accommodating with regards to some specific Law Centre requests for data, however, this is not a viable long-term option for having access to data. The Law Centre has identified the following information as being priority areas for disaggregated data relating to Northern Ireland:

-       Asylum applications and outcomes;

-       Unaccompanied asylum seeking children asylum applications and age-dispute cases;

-       Removals from the jurisdiction for immigration detention purposes;

-       Applications lodged for EEA residence cards/family permits and outcomes;

-       Applications lodged for EEA permanent residency and outcomes;

-       Prosecutions for offences under the Immigration Acts;

-       Figures relating to Operation Gull e.g. number of examinations, stops, detentions and outcomes;

-       Referrals to the National Referral Mechanism and outcomes for both adults and children.

Accordingly, while we support the proposal to expand the publication of asylum data, we would urge the Home Office to publish full regional statistics on immigration and asylum matters.

[1] Junior Minister Gerry Kelly, Immigration & Devolution seminar, Stormont, 19 January 2010