People who are escaping poverty are criminalised as scroungers, with only those who are facing persecution even getting a hearing. In practice that means letting the Home Office decide who is a legitimate refugee and who is not. Freedom to enter Britain should be a right, not a jealously guarded privilege. The best way to fight the Asylum and Immigration Bill is to fight for an 'open door' - no restrictions on immigration. The 1996 Asylum and Immigration Bill is built on the already existing legal framework that treats immigrants as criminals.
British law assumes that immigrants and asylum-seekers are lawbreakers, scroungers and liars.
Asylum-seekers are routinely fingerprinted, interrogated and imprisoned on suspicion of being 'bogus' refugees. The fact is that people have migrated for centuries, motivated by a desire for survival. If we accept that only a limited number of 'legitimate' refugees should be allowed in, we not only fail to fight racism but help to reassert the idea that foreigners are a problem.