The Asylum and Immigration Act 2004 - Essay Example

This discussion briefly overviews the main aspects of this Act and expresses concerns regarding its effects from non-governmental agencies. The Act contains provisions that merge the present immigration appeals structure into a streamlined appeals process with little chance for further appeals by an immigrant. It also addresses undocumented immigrants and disallows financial support from family members outside the UK after appellant is cleared to depart the UK. Further provisions include human trafficking, a continuation of the 'safe third country' measure and lists behaviours, spelled out for the first time in the Act, which could destroy an immigrant applicant's credibility.

The Act also includes provisions introducing procedures to reinstate payments of benefits of an immigrant's back-dated integration loan and introduces modifications to homelessness regulations in order that a refugee must attain an association with local authorities. In addition, the Act establishes further legal consequences for those persons who come to the UK lacking proper documentation. As of its enactment, the Act makes it a crime for a person not to have a valid document identifying their nationality and identity to the immigration authorities upon arrival in the UK.

"A person shall be presumed not to have a valid document if s/he fails to produce it at the request of an immigration officer" ("Explanatory Notes", 2004). Critics charge that, in particular, this Act does not express a national desire to preserve the human rights of immigrants, especially in the case of women for whom there is inadequate protection both internationally and nationally from the realities of gender discrimination. The Refugee Council is of the opinion that this Act punishes refugees for being just that, refugees, which by definition probably have insufficient travel or citizenship documentation from the country they are escaping.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, "in most cases a person fleeing from persecution will have arrived with the barest necessities and very frequently without personal documents" (Refugee Council, 2004). Refugees escaping from state instituted acts of persecution can hardly obtain travel documentation of any type such as a passport from the governmental entity that is itself responsible for the persecutory actions from which the refugees are escaping. The immigrant/refugee may explain and defend their right to asylum but they must still prove their legal right to be in the country.

If they cannot provide proper proof in the form of documentation, they will be subject to criminal court procedures and subsequent penalties. The major concern regarding this no-win situation for refugees is the plight of women in particular. Women are less likely than men to possess even the initial ability to obtain travel documentation or personal identifying papers on their own. Many countries do not allow women this privilege without the consent of a male family member. This Act, in short, penalises female refugees more so than men, a group already more severely persecuted on a worldwide scale than are men.

A provision (Section Four) of the Act, makes human trafficking of persons either into or out of the UK for the purposes of a exploitation criminal