EU’s asylum seeker law is ‘useless’

AN agreement on returning asylum seekers is “almost completely useless”, a campaign group says.

Figures show about 50 per cent more asylum seekers were transferred to the UK under the Dublin Regulation than were sent back from Britain to other European countries over the past two years.

The regulation is the EU law that determines which state is responsible for an asylum claim.

Analysis of Home Office statistics revealed that while there were 676 returns from the UK to other European countries under the rules in 2016 and 2017, 1,019 people were transferred to the UK. It suggests the balance has shifted since 2015, when 131 people were transferred into the UK against 510 people who were transferred out.

The department also revealed 461 transfers into the UK which occurred in 2017, against 314 transfers out, came despite the fact there were more than twice as many requests for transfers out (5,712) than requests by other countries to transfer people to the UK (2,137).

It has also emerged just one in 10 of UK requests for the return of asylum seekers under the EU regulations in 2016 led to actual transfers to other European countries. The figures from Eurostat revealed, although the UK made a total of 4,200 transfer requests in 2016 only 360 transfers from the UK actually occurred and nearly half of these were to Germany and Italy.

Meanwhile, the number of enforced removals of asylum seekers to other EU countries fell by more than half between 2008 and 2017.

Alp Mehmet, vice chairman of Migration Watch UK, said: “These figures suggest the Dublin agreement has become virtually useless for the UK. It is not worth paying any price whatever for its continuation.”