I’VE often been told to go back where I came from – but never quite as
pleasantly as now. Here, in a modest office in the heart of Westminster, I
am being asked by a polite young man to name my price for quitting Britain.
The advert I ripped out of Mann Jitt, a Punjabi newspaper in London, was to
the point – and generous. “Thinking about returning to your home country? If
you are an asylum seeker, call IOM free for an individual or a family return
plan.”
It spelt out the sweeteners available courtesy of the British taxpayer. “Small
business start-up. Travel arrangements. Flight ticket. Relocation grant.
Baggage allowance. Short-term accommodation. Job training. Work placements.
Education.”
Not bad – but here, in the offices of the International Organisation for
Migration (IOM), I thought I’d ask for more.
Posing as an asylum seeker, I am here to see just how desperate the IOM and
the Home Office are to get me – along with the estimated 1m failed asylum
seekers and illegal immigrants – to leave Britain.
I decide to try my luck. I tell my case officer, Mubeen Akhtar, that my name
is Satpal Singh Pabla and I am a failed asylum seeker who has been living in
Britain illegally for more than a decade.
He assures me that if I agree to “go home” I will receive £500 in cash at the
airport before boarding my free flight back to India. I will also be given
an excess luggage waiver.
I tell him I have recently dealt drugs and worked in a factory, and also as a
mechanic, a bricklayer and a packer of flowers and vegetables.
“So why do you want to go home?” he asks me.
“I have been here long enough now, 11 years,” I reply. “Where I live, they are
bothering me a lot: they are selling drugs; they have stolen from me, taken
my papers. ”
Part of the IOM’s remit is to assist asylum seekers to set up in business if
they agree to return to their country of origin. I am told that the
organisation will pay for premises and any equipment that I may need for my
new business.
So guess what I want to do. “To open a travel agency. Like I came here
[illegally], lots of our people want to come here,” I explain, trying hard
not to burst out laughing.
“Okay,” says Akhtar, raising his eyebrows.
“What do you think?” I ask him.
“It’s good,” he replies, somewhat half-heartedly. “Where do you want to open
it?”
“Jalandhar,” I reply, referring to a city in the north Indian state of Punjab,
the place of origin of a large proportion of the British Asian community.
“So you want to be an agent?” says Akhtar. “You want to send people here?
What, you want to be cursed by people, take advantage of them? Aren’t you
still cursing your agent, paying him?
“Yes,” I mumble. “But lots of our people want to come here; this place is full
of them; it’s a good business.”
Despite his reservations, Akhtar starts drawing up a business plan and begins
outlining what help the IOM will offer me. Even though I have told him I am
a failed asylum seeker and drug seller who plans to use public money to set
up a business sending people back to Britain, he assures me the IOM will not
object. “What things do you think you will need?” he asks.
I reply: “Computer, printing press, printer. You never know when you have to
make documents. Car, put that down as well.”
I am told that once my business is launched I will receive an additional £500
in cash in India, on top of £500 before my departure. To get my office
equipment and car I have to contact the IOM office in Hyderabad, south
India.
“You just have to tell them what you need,” I am told.
“Will they buy it all for me?” I ask.
“Yes,” says Akhtar. I am then asked how I plan to attract customers. “Word of
mouth, advertise in newspapers and put up posters in the IOM office,” I
reply. “I’ll also tell people what it’s like in England.”
At this point I need to reconfirm that there are no problems with my plan to
promote my service for sending people to Britain through an advert in the
IOM office in India.
“They won’t mind, will they?” I ask, referring to the IOM.
“Why should they mind?” replies Akhtar.
“They might think I’m doing something illegal.”
“No,” Akhtar insists. “It’s their job to help you. That’s what they are
getting paid for. I am getting paid to help you.”
Midway through the meeting we are joined by another IOM official – who very
sensibly raises concerns about the plan.
“Travel agency! Will that be approved?” she asks.
We continue. I need some free accommodation. “Any chance?” I ask.
“Okay. How long will you need it for?” Akhtar asks.
“Two months,” I reply. Agreed. In a subsequent phone call I inform Akhtar that
I fancy setting up my business in Goa.
“The weather’s nice, there’s lots of tourists there and it would be good for
the business . . . I’ve never been there before. Can I set it up in Goa?
“You can do it wherever you want and go wherever you want,” I am told.
Two months in Goa courtesy of the IOM and the British taxpayer. Now that can’t
be bad.
Back to the meeting. Akhtar informs me that the IOM would be willing to pay
the salary of two staff members for three months in advance. I explain that
I wish to employ two friends who, like me, are failed asylum seekers.
“There’s a limit, but we will be able to pay 15,000 rupees (£190) per month,”
Akhtar says.
In all, I was promised a package worth approximately £4,000 in cash and
allowances, including an airline ticket, the £1,000 to set up a business,
three months’ salary for two staff, accommodation, a car and office
equipment – and no questions asked.
The IOM is currently advertising its repatriation programme in the
ethnic-minority media in Britain, and financial incentives have been
increased. According to the Home Office, 3,290 people have left under the
scheme in the first nine months of this year.
Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, said: “Last year we removed more failed
asylum seekers than ever before.”
The Sunday Times investigated after it was alerted that failed asylum seekers
were playing the system. I met several asylum seekers who had applied for
the IOM’s financial assistance programme and were already planning their
return to Britain once they got their business established in their country
of origin.
I met another man who left for his wedding in India much wealthier thanks to
the IOM. He intends to return to Britain within the next year.
“If I go to India and don’t like it there, can I come back?” I asked an IOM
official when I rang up to arrange my visit. “I’ve been here for 11 years
and am not used to the heat and dust of India.”
“If somebody leaves and then wants to come back to Britain there’s nothing
that we can do about it,” the official replied.
You become eligible for the IOM handouts if your asylum application is still
pending, and I met three illegal immigrants who had applied for asylum
solely to take advantage of the repatriation programme.
This weekend Byrne, the immigration minister, said: “We take suggestions that
the Assisted Voluntary Returns system is being abused very seriously. If
abuse comes to light, we will investigate and push for the strongest action.”
Byrne said the Home Office held fingerprints of every person taking part in
the scheme to prevent individuals from applying again under a different
identity. He said the scheme was far cheaper than enforced returns, which
cost £11,000 per person.
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migration Watch UK, a think tank, said: “It is
time we recognised the extent to which the asylum system is subject to
abuse.”
The IOM works with more than 100 states. In the UK it receives 80% of its funding
from the government, and 20% from the European Refugee Fund.
A spokesman for IOM UK conceded that some people paid to return to their home
country might have come back to Britain: “We have no long-term monitoring
mandate and cannot say whether a few of our returnees then choose to
remigrate.” But it was an “urban myth” to suggest there were “serial”
returnees.
