UK asylum seeker policy: Lessons from the Australian experience

Asylum seekers, including a pregnant woman and several children, walk on the beach at Dungeness after disembarking from a Royal National Lifeboat Institution lifeboat.

The UK’s response to asylum seekers moved in the direction of deterrence with the introduction of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022.

The Act means asylum seekers can be sent to processing centres in Rwanda, although legal challenges to doing so have been many and varied since the Act was introduced. The government also has the power to strip British people of their citizenship, particularly those born in other countries. And asylum seekers who enter the UK without a visa or otherwise valid entry clearance will be liable to criminal prosecution.

Some argue such measures are necessary to avoid unmanageable waves of displaced people. The UN Refugee Agency UNHCR estimates that the past decade’s conflicts, violence, persecution and crises have increased the global proportion of displaced people from one in 159 people to one in 95.

By the end of 2020 more than 82 million people had been forcibly displaced, including refugees and those displaced internally, meaning they had been forced to flee their homes but had not yet crossed international borders.

The many downsides of deterrence

Deterrence measures have been proven to offer only limited success. When Australia first introduced offshore processing in 2012, for example, boat arrivals continued to increase.

Chris Bowen MP, at the time Australia’s Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, said in November 2012 that, given the number of people who had arrived by boat since August, it would not be possible to transfer them all to Nauru or Manus Island in the immediate future.

An August 2021 study by Madeline Gleeson and Natasha Yacoub, from the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW Sydney, revealed the financial cost of offshore processing. Australia’s two offshore centres collectively cost AU$1 billion to $1.5 billion annually. For the financial year 2020-21 alone, the cost to hold around 300 people offshore was above AU$1 billion, or over $3.3 million per refugee.

By the end of the offshore processing experiment, the cost per refugee of being detained on the island of Nauru was AU$4.3 million annually. The Guardian reported in May 2023 that it will continue to cost Australia at least $350 million per year to keep Nauru open as a contingency, even though everyone has now been removed.

Then there is the moral and ethical cost.

“Offshore processing poses threats to life, may amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, involves prolonged, indefinite and arbitrary detention, constitutes an unlawful interference in family and private life, exposes women to gender- based violence and discrimination, and violates many obligations owed to children,” the Kaldor Centre report said.

Great refugee support makes good economic sense

Compare the effects of asylum seeker deterrence to the evidence of the economic and social benefits of active refugee support.

In an interview published by the International Monetary Fund, economist Giovanni Peri said supporting an asylum seeker for the first year in their new country – specifically Ukrainian refugees within the European Union – costs around US$8,000–$10,000 (approximately £6,540–£8,170).

“That’s not trivial,” Peri said. “However, all the studies show that in the second, third, fourth years – especially if the refugees access the labour market, especially if in the first year they have also been supported and assisted with some policies to find a job, to learn the language – they become productive assets. They can be employed, and the income they generate is much larger than the cost.”

And, while it may be problematic to refer to asylum seekers as ‘productive assets’, Peri uses that term and ‘human capital’ effectively to highlight the longer-term economic impact of humanitarian entrants’ skills and experiences.

And so, there is an opportunity to invest in the human capital of refugees, he said. It’s even more beneficial considering those refugees arrive at a point in time at which virtually every advanced nation is suffering severe shortages of workers in almost every sector.

Without the upfront investment in human capital, Peri said, integration is more difficult for refugees. Therefore, jobs are more difficult for refugees to find, meaning they remain on the fringes of societies. That’s when social issues take hold “…in terms of unemployment, lower employability, maybe even higher probability of marginalisation, of crime, of addiction,” Peri says.

Peri is not alone in his conviction. A study reported in the journal Nature in 2018, which took in 30 years of data from 15 Western European countries, said refugees and migrants benefit their host nations’ economies within five years.

Four years later The World Bank published a report that cited refugees’ contributions to medium- and long-term economic improvement, without detriment to social cohesion.

“The presence of refugees has significantly improved access to social services, such as education and healthcare, for host communities in Uganda,” the report said.

It also found that the impacts of humanitarian arrivals can be so great as to shift sentiment towards the public sector and government.

“The presence of more than a million Venezuelans has helped Peru improve local labour market conditions, reduce crime rates, increase levels of trust between neighbours, and improve satisfaction with public services.”

The problem with politics

Arguments to follow the Australian example of turning boats away into perilous waters, or putting refugees through the often-inhumane treatment of offshore detention, are openly refuted by those who prefer evidence-based decision making.

"Governments trying to win support for deterrence strategies often rely on a false dichotomy between what is necessary, on the one hand, and what is moral or legal, on the other. They paint the moral route as idealistic and unworkable, while presenting themselves as willing to make tough choices in the national interest,” says Gleeson.

“This is an incredibly powerful political strategy, and particularly attractive for politicians who are using asylum policy as a way to win votes or distract from other domestic issues. But it is rarely supported by data. In fact, the moral and legal approach is usually also the one that is more effective, sustainable and economically wise in the long run.”

Gleeson, who gave evidence on offshore processing to the UK House of Commons, says governments often make policy decisions with an eye to the next election cycle, or even the next news cycle.

“Instead, the focus should be five to 10 years from now,” she says. “What will the world look like, then? What will movement and displacement look like, and how can we prepare now to manage the challenges that lie ahead?”

What does an effective refugee response look like?

What is a humane, economically responsible, long-term solution to the complex issue of human displacement?

Australia’s Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law outlines several aspects of best practice in its document Kaldor Centre Principles for Australian Refugee Policy – and if the UK is going to take tips for Australia it might do better to look to best practice principles than to overpriced, unprincipled practices.

One important piece of the puzzle is to invest in and expand the regular migration channels.

“That benefits everybody,” Gleeson says. “It benefits people on the move, it benefits government and it benefits society. Countries that are pushing people back often say they should have come the so-called right way. But at the same time, they close down the safe and legal routes to protection, leaving people no other choice but to risk their lives on a dangerous journey.”

Everyone is entitled to be treated with dignity, and a humane and fair reception, regardless of mode of arrival, should be offered to all, she says. The entire processing system should be fair, efficient and transparent, adhering to principles of family unity and having as a focus the best interests of children.

Finally, as has been proven to work around the globe, countries should invest in refugees for long-term success.

This investment in refugees should be “as community members, leaders and ambassadors,” the Kaldor Centre report says, enabling refugees “to strengthen their education, skills and resilience to contribute to their communities … This includes a commitment to creating conditions that enable all people granted protection to enrich society through their human, economic and social capabilities.”