Posted on 12/03/2002 4:56:45 AM PST by UKCajun
BRITAIN IS TO take in 1,200 asylum-seekers from the Sangatte refugee camp in France when it closes four months early at the end of the year. They will be given four-year work visas and not be treated as asylum claimants, David Blunkett said
yesterday. While they are job-hunting they will be housed and given living allowances for three months.
'The visa will be renewable in respect of whether the person retains the job they have applied for,' he added. The costs would be a 'tiny fraction' of the £18,000 needed to process and support each asylum-seeker.
Mr Blunkett described the closure as 'a breakthrough of enormous proportions'. Britain will accept 1,000 Iraqi Kurds and up to 200 Afghans.
The Iraqis will be 'security cleared' before arriving in Britain, said the Home Secretary's spokesman. The French government will take responsibility for the remaining 3,600 refugees and any new ones who arrive in the Calais area. The Sangatte centre will be handed back to its owner, Eurotunnel, and dismantled.
Shadow Home Secretary Oliver Letwin said: 'Sangatte is a symptom not a cause of the growing asylum disaster, and its closure, though welcome, will have little affect on the overall problem.
'According to the Government's own figures, it will take 46 years to clear the current backlog of applications, with or without Sangatte.'
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