Posted on 01/12/2006 6:51:03 PM PST by blam
Asylum seekers are offered £2,000 cash to go home
By John Steele
(Filed: 13/01/2006)
Thousands of asylum seekers are to be offered millions of pounds in cash to return to their home countries under a scheme announced yesterday by the Home Office.
The Government expects to spend about £6 million over six months encouraging around 3,000 refugees, who have been refused permission to stay or are awaiting decisions, to return home.
As an incentive, they will be offered up to £2,000 cash and a further £1,000 worth of help "in kind" for reintegration, to fund education or training. A pilot scheme will make the cash available to those who agree to leave in the six months between this month and June.
The Home Office is advertising the scheme to 54,000 people receiving benefits and accommodation from the National Asylum Support Service and will publicise it in asylum detention and reporting centres.
Tony McNulty, the immigration minister, said in a written statement to the Commons that "all those who leave under this scheme will be offered an additional £2,000 which they can choose to take as either additional reintegration assistance or cash grants.
"This offer will be available only to those who leave between Jan 1 and June 30, 2006, and no one who made an application for asylum after Dec 31, 2005, will be eligible.
"It is anticipated that such an offer could increase the number of predicted returns from about 1,950 to over 3,000 for the six-month period."
Mr McNulty added that the £3,000 cost per person was "good value for money" compared with the £11,000 average cost of a forced deportation.
The lobby group, Migration Watch, warned that the scheme might attract people to apply for asylum in order to get the cash. Sir Andrew Green, the group's chairman, said: "The Government is clearly desperate to improve its removal figures, even at the risk of encouraging or stimulating further illegal immigration in the future."
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: "This may be a sensible move but it has largely been brought about by the Government's failure to deport failed asylum seekers."
So if I go to London and ask for asylum, they'll give me a couple thousand pounds to go away? Good deal!
I hope we lock the doors -- because we don't want them to come into the U.S.
Dear Mr. Blair,
I need political asylum in the Mother Country. My Anglophile views are not tolerated in my homeland, North Carolina, and I fear for my safety.
But, for $3000 or so, I think I may be convinced to tough it out.
Please advise,
krb
What moron came up with this scheme??
Sounds like a paid vacation, yes?
Hey, that's great.
If we could pay $5,000 each for illegal aliens to leave, it would be money well spent.
TALLY HO! :)
I sometimes wonder what I could accomplish if I ever got out of my pajamas. Cheers!
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