UK Border Agency Begins to do the Right Thing
LGBT Asylum News reports that since July 1st, UK Border Agency has been recording sexuality-based asylum cases- information that was supposed to have been collected by them since last year. Damien Green MP claimed the delay [in recording the reasons why someone is claiming asylum???] was a cost issue!
It is interesting that UKBA didn't announce publicly that it was making this important change, why was it quietly introduced? Was it perhaps because the cost issue claim was an embarrassing lie? "IT problems" were cited [Yeah, right] Recent cases threatening to repatriate people to Uganda and Zambia, highlighted the fact that the agency wasn't implementing directives from the courts and that there was a "head in the sand" approach to the safety issues of gay and lesbian individuals facing the prospect of being returned to countries they'd fled for fear of violence and death. It was found that some of the Agency's data was two years old and had no updates for example of the
My impressions of UKBA are that it sees itself as protecting UK from a host of threats- that any and everyone it 'processes' is a liar, trying toget into UK to live off the fat or our land- they are guilty until proven otherwise and must be removed as quickly as possible before any 'bleeding heart liberals' raise objections. Of course I accept that we need to be protected; that our welfare state is the envy of many and that we can't afford to support so called "economic migrants" but people who have fled actual or threatened persecution need to be protected. It is not enough to tell someone to act like everyone else in order to escape persecution in their home country when acting like everyone else means they marry someone just to blend in or risk dangerous suspicions if they remain single. Here, in England, I have several friends who are "ex straights"- who listened to what they were taught and followed paths set out for them by their families and society at large only to find themselves living a lie, sometimes with children as well as spouses they married because they thought they were doing the rght thing. I doubt many partners who find out their marriages were not what they thought they were would agree.
It is interesting that UKBA didn't announce publicly that it was making this important change, why was it quietly introduced? Was it perhaps because the cost issue claim was an embarrassing lie? "IT problems" were cited [Yeah, right] Recent cases threatening to repatriate people to Uganda and Zambia, highlighted the fact that the agency wasn't implementing directives from the courts and that there was a "head in the sand" approach to the safety issues of gay and lesbian individuals facing the prospect of being returned to countries they'd fled for fear of violence and death. It was found that some of the Agency's data was two years old and had no updates for example of the
My impressions of UKBA are that it sees itself as protecting UK from a host of threats- that any and everyone it 'processes' is a liar, trying toget into UK to live off the fat or our land- they are guilty until proven otherwise and must be removed as quickly as possible before any 'bleeding heart liberals' raise objections. Of course I accept that we need to be protected; that our welfare state is the envy of many and that we can't afford to support so called "economic migrants" but people who have fled actual or threatened persecution need to be protected. It is not enough to tell someone to act like everyone else in order to escape persecution in their home country when acting like everyone else means they marry someone just to blend in or risk dangerous suspicions if they remain single. Here, in England, I have several friends who are "ex straights"- who listened to what they were taught and followed paths set out for them by their families and society at large only to find themselves living a lie, sometimes with children as well as spouses they married because they thought they were doing the rght thing. I doubt many partners who find out their marriages were not what they thought they were would agree.
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