United Refugee Organization

Refugee Council response to Simplifying Immigration Law: an initial consultation [August 2007]

In June 2007 the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) issued a consultation document setting out how it plans to proceed with its intention to rationalise immigration legislation. BIA plans to have a further more detailed Consultation at the end of 2007 and to legislate in the autumn of 2008.

Although consolidation of the existing legislation is extremely welcome, and long overdue, it is clear that the government’s intention is to go much further into a process of simplification that seems to be concerned more with speed and ease of processing immigration cases rather than ensuring the protection of refugee and human rights. It is not clear at this stage what the future overall framework will look like and the Refugee Council is urgently seeking more detail prior to the next stage of Consultation. The current concerns are outlined in this response.

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