U.K. immigration move outrages rights groups

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, MAY 2.Next time, a Tamil, an Afghan or a Chinese lands at a British airport they are likely to be more closely examined before being waved in; and may even be detained or refused entry. They would be paying for the `sin' of belonging to a certain nationality or ethnic group identified by the British Home Office as a source of chronic illegal immigration or asylum claims.

A list of such groups has been given to immigration officers with instructions to deal more firmly with them including detaining them or refusing entry if ``there is statistical evidence showing a pattern of trend of breach of the immigration laws by persons of that nationality.'' Besides those mentioned above, these include Kurds, Somalis, Albanians, Pontic

Greeks and Roma who account for the largest number of asylum seekers. The list is to be reviewed every month and new groups can be added and existing ones dropped depending on ``statistical evidence''.

The move has outraged liberal opinion with civil rights groups denouncing it as an attempt to `institutionalise' racial discrimination. Critics said that apart from encouraging racial prejudice against certain ethnic groups it was patently absurd to hold individuals responsible for the `sins' of their compatriots. ``How would they react if say Saudi Arabia were to start discriminating against every British citizen because a few Britons there have allegedly broken domestic laws?'', asked one critic. Commentators said it offended the principle of natural justice, and the spirit of the Human Rights Act. ``What case is there for punishing a newly arrived Serb merely because previous Serbs have been arrested?'' argued Mr. Hugo Young, a seasoned analyst.

The sweeping powers given to immigration officers to discriminate against people on the basis of their collective identity was `offensive', he wrote in The Guardian. It was `revealing', he pointed out, that white economic migrants from Eastern Europe - a known source of organised illegal immigration - were not covered by the ``similar ethnic generalisation''. For, according to the Home Office Minister, Mr. Mike O'Brien ``white people are not one ehtnic homogeneous group, incapable of being distinguished from one another''.

Groups working with immigrant communities were reported to be ``very disturbed''. ``It is another example of blatant discrimination in immigration control. This Government is strengthening institutional racism in the Immigration Service by just picking and choosing certain groups of people,'' Mr. Habib Rahman, chairman of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants told The Independent. Ms. Anna Chen of the Chinese Civil Rights Action Group was quoted as saying that the move ``panders to all those racist views that certain people are inferior and have to be kept out of the country''.

The move has come even as the Government has just enacted the progressive Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 officially hailed as the ``best anti-discrimination legislation anywhere in the world''. The Government has denied that the `hit list', as one newspaper described it, was racially discriminatory. A Home Office Minister, Ms. Barbara Roche, said in a written answer in Parliament that the decision would not affect the merits of individual cases.

``The decision on a passenger's entitlement to enter the United Kingdom will continue to be taken on the merits of the case in accordance with the immigration rules. The authorisation (to examine certain

ethnic groups more thoroughly) simply allows the Immigration Service to prioritise and manage its resources effective in undertaking examinations necessary in order to reach that decision.''

Officials said it did not give ``blanket cheque'' to immigration staff to discriminate. The alternative, it was stated, would have been to subject all passengers of every nationality to the same degree of examination leading to significant delays and inconvenience.

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