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Illegal immigrants found in lorry after 60-mile chase

Comment: Jeremy Hardy on the crisis in the health service

Asylum seeker forced out as sick son remains in UK

Immigration bond scheme dropped

£600m to end asylum backlog

Gatwick officer jailed

Migrants with skills may be welcomed

Refugees slam 'hostel from hell'

Race victims await their fate

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Straw plea to China on migrants

MPs tell Straw not to force Kosovans home

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Rise in Chinese illegal entrants alarms officials

Police begin to piece together horrific details

Amnesty criticises asylum law

Refugees' flats to be improved

More asylum seekers to be deported

Another country, another world

Asylum seekers suffer as dispersal system fails

Dispersal system is not the answer

Straw agrees deal to stop asylum seekers entering Britain by train

Asylum policy 'risks racial tension'

And they call this asylum

Fall in number of asylum seekers

Asylum backlog could be cut

Army camps plan for refugee 'surge'

Building Britain's political prisons

New detention centres for failed asylum seekers

Asylum decisions at record rate

Asylum backlog starts to clear

Asylum decisions reach record level

Don't get emotive on asylum - archbishop

An A-Z of asylum seekers

Are our politicans racist?

We must answer the hard questions about asylum

Thank you, England

Straw tells 3,000 Kosovans to leave

Siege at London immigration appeal court

Resorts row over bussing of refugees

Whitehall mandarins 'balking' black staff

Race watchdog tells parties to mind language

No 10 hits back in asylum row

Clampdown inflames asylum row

Minister to speed applications of asylum seekers found begging

Oxfam calls for asylum voucher boycott

Swift decisions are crucial to asylum question

More money to speed up asylum process

Time to fight the bigots

Immigration and Asylum Act 1999

From refugees to political footballs

Six asylum seekers flee centre

Glasgow chill wind is better than home

EU struggles to find common approach to control influx

Asylum decisions reach a new high

Crossing the borders

British officials to check asylum claims in France

Fast-track curb on beggars

Hysteria and hate

Sainsbury's hits back on vouchers

As mean as it gets

Keep the change, refugee voucher stores are told

Not scrounging but drowning: the truth about asylum seekers

'Tougher' rules for refugees delayed

Councils hit by U-turn over asylum seekers

Appeasing the mob

Councils told to halt 'export' of refugees

The racism that belittles Britain

Caught between Jack Straw and a hard place

Tabloids vent fury

MPs attack bond plan for Asian visitors

Asylum seekers up 55% as backlog grows

And still they come

Turmoil over asylum places

They're good for us

No room at the inn

Private barge plan for asylum seekers

Ban on bid to house asylum seekers

Cluster plan for asylum seekers

Scots asked to help in refugee crisis

Dispersal of refugees 'cobbled up'

Asylum seekers to get £50 delay bonus

Welcome them

Improving asylum

Internment for refugees

Plan for dispersal of asylum seekers

Bouncing the Czechs

Hague keeps up pressure on asylum

50% increase in asylum seekers

Living in limbo

Minister admits refugee dumping

Refugee vouchers scheme to cost more



Immigration bond scheme dropped

Cash-for-visas plan is unworkable, minister says

Special report: refugees in Britain


Patrick Wintour, chief political correspondent
Saturday July 29, 2000

The government's controversial immigration bond scheme is being dropped, the Foreign Office minister Keith Vaz announced last night.

Jack Straw had been planning to impose immigration "bonds" on visa applicants who want to visit relatives in Britain, but Mr Vaz said the proposal would not now go ahead for technical reasons.

The proposal had provoked a storm of criticism that it was racist from immigration groups and campaigners on behalf of the ethnic minorities.

Following the criticism Mr Straw said he would press ahead with an initial trial scheme for visitors from the Philippines and Morocco only.

In a humiliating retreat, Mr Vaz said last night that "the developmental work on the pilot study has identified a number of practical issues. Moves towards a more flexible approach to the operation of immigration control - including the introduction of new IT systems for issuing visas at posts overseas - have frustrated attempts to design a simple and effective scheme for providing a bond facility for visitors".

The decision was smuggled out on the final day of the parliament in a written answer.

The bonds were to have been introduced for the hundreds of thousands of people from the Indian sub-continent who visit Britain each year for weddings, funerals and other events on family visit visas.

The idea was put forward by Indian organisations as an alternative for those refused visas because entry clearance officers suspected they would not leave Britain at the end of their family visit.

It was proposed that the family members in Britain would put up a cash payment in advance of the visit, which would be returned when the visitor left the country. Initial reports that the bond was to be fixed at £10,000 stirred fierce opposition to the scheme.

Ministers later proposed the bond would be set at £3,000.

The pilot study on financial bonds had been due to begin in October at two posts overseas, Manila and Casablanca. It was due to run for six months, followed by a further six months to monitor departure from the United Kingdom, and a further, brief period for analysis of the results.

It was to be used in borderline cases; as an alternative to refusing a family visit visa if the applicant's intention to leave the UK was in doubt.

The latest figures show that in 1998 1,500 people were refused a family visit visa at the embassy in Manila and 350 in Casablanca.


 

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