PULL & PUSH FACTORS

Pull Factors

Why do asylum seekers prefer to claim asylum in the United Kingdom, rather some other EU country? According to the Red Cross, barely 1-2% of asylum seekers in France select to apply for asylum in that country and many prefer to enter Britain to make their claim - hence the fuss over Sangatte where young men breach the high-security Eurotunnel compound to stowaway on a passing train.

The Benefits system?

Many in Britain perceive the UK a 'soft touch' where asylum seekers are able to obtain financial, medical and educational benefits to the detriment of its own citizens.

Unlike in France or Germany, refugees who reach Britain instantly acquire the effective status of asylum seeker. While they wait for their cases to be examined they are housed and fed and given £35 a week, including £25 in vouchers to be exchanged in the shops. In France an asylum seeker receives £180 and may be left to fend for themselves for accommodation.

Further link:
'Why refugees prefer Britain to France', The Guardian September 6 2001

The Economics of asylum seeking?

There is undeniably an underworld specialising in the concealment of asylum seekers and their covert transportation to a safe haven. The Observer newspaper has described it as "the world's fastest growing criminal business:

" Every day we hear of the horrors illegal immigrants endure at the hands of the people-traffickers. The catalogue of death in recent times speaks for itself. Fifty-eight Chinese at Dover last year, hundreds drowned annually crossing the Mediterranean to Spain, Italy, and Greece. There is evidence that traffickers have thrown women and children, many of whom cannot swim, into the Adriatic to avoid detection by police patrol boats. "
[The Observer, 4 February 2001]

British truckers and yachtsmen are implicated. July 2002, a Greek court jailed skipper, Michael Woods from Lancashire, for 10 years after he was found guilty of helping 72 illegal immigrants to enter the country, in transit for other destinations. Most were Kurds from Iraq and Syria who paid between £1,500 and £15,000 for passage.

The tariff for smuggling a person into the UK is said to be £10,000. One of the 'pull' factors could be that the tariff to get to the UK is far less than say to get to other prized destinations such as the USA and Canada. The choice of country is therefore determined by the ability to pay for long distance travel.

Ties of kinship and cultural affinities?

A further powerful 'pull' factor to Britain is the existence of a support network previously built up by settled compatriots. Families will naturally seek to come to places where they can be looked after, or with, relatives. For example there are large settled Iraqi and Kurdish communities well-established in Britain with the support infrastructure and economic wherewithal to provide succour to their kith and kin.

A recent study by the Migration Unit at the University of Wales attributes the success of modern British icons such as the Manchester United football:

(Source: Asylum seekers see Iron Lady as figurehead,
The Guardian, July 25 2002
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,762596,00.html)

Earning a living?

Asylum seekers are not permitted to for the first six months in the country, but then they can apply for a work permit. However they can easily find work without a permit, because the black economy in Britain is worth some £80bn a year - four times the size of
France's. There is no penalty for an employer who hires an illegal immigrant. The absence of a national identity card, which is part of life on the Continent, facilitates the process.

However the demographics of Europe are such that its politicians cannot afford to be too strict on the cross-border flow of labour in response to supply and demand: the Northern European countries are faced with a lethal cocktail of ageing populations, declining fertility levels, late marriage of women and declining family sizes which means that they simply cannot sustain high-growth economies and life-styles such as male retirement at 65. Joseph Chamie, senior demographer at the UN has coined the term 'replacement migration' for North's need for labour from the South.

In August 2002, The Guardian reported that:

Since Labour took power in 1997, the Treasury has slowly dragged the Home Office into an acceptance that migration is good for Britain. That was one of the key reasons Gordon Brown was able to upgrade his estimate of the trend rate of growth of the economy in last year's pre-budget report, building in an assumption that net migration will increase annually to about 150,000 from next year.

(Source: A swamp of muddled thinking, The Guardian, 7 August 2002
http://www.guardian.co.uk/analysis/story/0,3604,770320,00.html)

Quentin Peel, writing in The Financial Times in May 2002 observed that:

The temptation of the traditional parties of the centre-right and centre-left, whether in the Netherlands, France, Italy or the UK, is to tighten the restrictions they have already in place on immigration over the past three decades. If they can demonstrate that they too are tough on immigration, they think they can head off any drift to the right. They are wrong for two very practical reasons, it would be economically disastrous, and virtually impossible to implement. The dilemma facing Europe's political leaders is that their economies cannot continue to grow, and provide generous social services, without a steady flow of immigrants. Yet they are afraid to take the initiative and argue in favour of immigration for fear of being punished at the poles.

Further link:
'Sense of crisis as migrants keep moving', FT.com, July 25 2002

Push Factors

• Escaping persecution, this can be on account of many reasons including political difference with government, discrimination on account of their race, religion or to escape a war or famine in which they are not likely to survive. This is the most common reason for legitimate asylum seekers to seek refuge in another country such as the UK.
  
• Economic factors for example the person may not be satisfied with what he or she is currently earning and chooses to seek betterment in the UK. These groups are technically will not be given refugee status and are treated as bogus asylum seekers.
  
• There may be geographical hardship in the region such as flooding or drought. This is a less common factor for refugees and relatively few of them come to the UK choosing instead to go to neighbouring countries.

Push out factors

• UK government is offering financial incentive for them to leave the UK, for example "The Home Office offered a grant to each Kosovan who agreed to return home before the end of June 2000. By way of incentive the grant was increased from £250 per person to £400 per person."

Timeline of UK Refugees

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