(How the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act is used to spy on asylum seekers and refugees)

Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded immigration officer?

One of the most extraordinary aspects of the 1999 legislation is that it amends the apparently unrelated law of marriage ceremonies. It transforms marriage registrars into agents of immigration control by imposing a duty on them to report directly to the Home Office where "before, during or immediately after solemnisation of the marriage" the registrar has reasonable grounds for suspecting a marriage is a "sham".

In reality the Act turns what has been a common practice into a duty. In a written parliamentary answer on 22nd July 1996 Angela Knight MP announced: "During 1994 and 1995, superintendent registrars reported 470 and 555 cases to the Registrar-General where they suspected that a proposed marriage had been arranged for the sole purpose of evading statutory immigration controls. Of this number, information in respect of 404 and 467 respectively was passed to the Home Office. During the first six months of 1996, 309 reports have been received, of which 232 have been referred to the Home Office". Accompanying this answer there is a league table of marriage registration districts where marriages have been reported to the Registrar-General during the period January 1994 until June 1996. Lewisham tops the list with 329 marriages reported compared to Manchester with three reported.

When the present Labour government came to power in 1997 it quickly repealed the notorious primary purpose immigration rule. This had placed on anyone wishing to come or remain in the UK following marriage to someone settled here the impossible burden of disproving a negative - namely that the primary purpose of the marriage was not to circumvent immigration control. However the abolition of the primary purpose rule did not affect reporting of marriages. In a letter of 26th February 1999 from the Office of National Statistics to the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit, it was stated that in 1997 and 1998 the number of marriages reported to the Home Office was 354 and 450 respectively. The 1999 legislation specifically defines a "sham" marriage in terms of whether its "purpose" is the avoidance of immigration controls.

I Spy

This example in respect of marriage is simply one illustration of what is undoubtedly a central feature of the new legislation. This is the transformation of tens of thousands of ordinary citizens and workers into stool pigeons for the immigration service. It creates a national network of spies whose mission is the uncovering of immigration status. It stands on its head the relationship between the Home Office and the rest of the British state - by transforming the rest of the state into an arm of the Home Office.

As in the case of marriage registrars, much of this is not new. What the 1999 Act does is enshrine in law and develop much further what has been happening in practice over the last two decades.

The "Efficiency Scrutiny"

Previous practice is exemplified by a press release of 13th October 1993 from Michael Howard, then Home Secretary, who announced the establishment of a "study of inter-agency co-operation on illegal immigration". This so-called Efficiency Scrutiny would "examine the efficiency of existing arrangements for co-operation between the Home Office’s Immigration and Nationality Division and other key central and local government bodies". These bodies were to include "agencies of the Department of Social Security, the Employment Service, the Health Service and local government bodies".

Big Brother and the 1999 Act

Numerous examples can be given from the 1999 legislation of surveillance conducted on behalf of, but not by, the Home Office. For instance:

q Under the 1971 Immigration Act an order already exists requiring a ship’s or plane’s captain to give an immigration officer, on request, a passenger list showing names and nationalities of passengers. The 1999 Act has provision for an order to be made requiring further, as yet unspecified, information. This new power can be applied under the Channel Tunnel Act 1987 to through or shuttle trains.

q The Home Secretary will be able to ask for and obtain information for immigration purposes from: a chief officer of police; a member of the National Criminal Intelligence Service; a member of the National Crime Squad; the Commissioners of Customs and Excise. The Act also permits the Home Secretary to obtain information from "any specified person, for purposes specified in relation to that person". The Home Secretary will be able to draw up an order stating who these specified persons will be. The danger is that they will be ordinary civilian employees, such as teachers or social workers, who are in regular professional contact with asylum seekers and others subject to immigration controls.

q The Home Secretary is given the power to demand that the postal service provide information on any mail to asylum seekers that has been redirected to a new address.

Surveillance of supported asylum seekers

The 1999 Act removes state benefits (including housing provision) from asylum seekers. Instead it substitutes for these benefits a modern poor law to be administered through a newly created Home Office department, the National Asylum Support Service (NASS). NASS itself is designed . . . . . . . . . . . (continued on next page) (continued from page 1) to be a major instrument of surveillance of asylum seekers.

A feature of the new scheme akin to the old poor law is the right of NASS to obtain constantly updated personal information about supported asylum seekers. Under the Asylum Support Regulations 2000 an asylum seeker must inform NASS immediately and in writing if she or he:

"(a) is joined in the UK by a dependent; (b) receives or gains access to any money; (c) becomes employed; (d) becomes unemployed; (e) changes his name; (f) gets married; (g) starts living with a person as if married to that person; (h) gets divorced; (i) separates from a spouse, or from a person with whom he has been living as if married to that person; (j) becomes pregnant; (k) has a child; (l) leaves school; (m) starts to share his accommodation with another person; (n) moves to a different address; (o) goes into hospital; (p) goes to prison or is otherwise held in custody; (q) leaves the UK; (r) dies".

Surveillance by local authorities

Many benefits and services administered by local authorities are now subject to immigration controls following the 1996 Asylum and Immigration Act, the 1996 Housing Act and the 1999 legislation. Examples are Council Tax Benefit, Housing Benefit, homelessness accommodation, allocation from the housing register, provision of welfare to old people under the 1968 Health Services and Public Health Act, arrangements for the prevention of illness and for care and after-care under the 1977 NHS Act.

The political consequence of these restrictions is not simply deprivation of benefits and services. It is the obligation on local authority workers to ascertain the immigration status of all applicants in order to determine entitlements. In practice it will be, as it always has been, black people and those perceived as not being British, who will be subject to this questioning and surveillance.

Surveillance of accommodated asylum seekers

Asylum seekers are to be tied to accommodation as the Victorian poor were tied to the workhouse. The asylum support regulations say supported asylum seekers and dependents cannot be absent for more than seven consecutive days and nights or more than a total of 14 days and nights in any six month period without the permission of the Home Office. Breach of this requirement can lead to eviction.

Local authorities and other housing providers are legally obliged to pass on to the Home Secretary whatever information he may specify about both accommodation and its asylum seeking occupants who are being supported under the 1999 legislation.

Today we are all immigration officers

The Act confirms the UK as a nation of snoopers. We are all being asked to spy on each other’s immigration status. We don’t wear the uniforms. We don’t have the job descriptions. We don’t sit at airports checking passports. We don’t raid houses or factories looking for alleged unlawful entrants. We are not members of the Immigration Services Union. But we are all on the road to becoming part of the immigration control apparatus.

Are you now or have you ever been?

We are all being asked to name names. This is similar to the USA at the height of its anti-communism after 1945. On the one hand there was the anti-communism of Senator Joe McCarthy and his House Un-American Activities Committee - a modern inquisition where those hauled before the Committee were asked "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?" On the other hand there was the John Birch Society, named after a USA pilot captured during the Korean War. This was an extreme right-wing organisation which hated communists as much as it hated Black and Jewish people. It’s mission was to "uncover" communists - just as the new Act seeks to uncover "bogus" asylum seekers. Bob Dylan composed a song, John Birch Society Blues, about a particular John Bircher who saw communists everywhere. Eventually he got so paranoid that he thought he himself was a communist and handed himself in.

Non-compliance

The Home Office will not disappear in the same way. However workers being asked to act as immigration spies need, along with their trade unions, to consider whether and to what extent they are willing to comply with practices that are not within their job contracts and which offend all good anti-racist practice.

This article is copyright of the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit and has been used with their permission.